Law Schools

Law School Offers Buyouts To Tenured Faculty Thanks To Sharp Decline In Enrollment

It looks like yet another law school has decided to cast out its largest cost centers: tenured faculty members.

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Bye-bye, Professor.

Bye-bye, Professor.

Law school applications have been on the decline since the recession’s end, and faced with financial challenges, some schools have lowered their admissions standards and have offered students exhibiting signs of the “brain drain” that’s plagued institutions of legal education a seat in their classes, if only to put additional funds into their coffers.

When your law school is facing a cash crunch thanks to dismal student enrollment and you’re desperate for dollars, what’s the solution? It looks like yet another law school has decided to cast out its largest cost centers: tenured faculty members.

Valparaiso University Law School announced the news on Friday that it would be “right-sizing” its faculty due to a drop in students. The Post-Tribune has more information:

[I]n the wake of declining enrollment for its law school, [Valpo Law] is offering buyouts to tenured faculty and faculty members with multi-year contracts.

The school has 21 tenured faculty and six with multi-year contracts and any of them could be eligible for a buyout, said Andrea Lyon, the law school’s dean, adding she couldn’t comment on a target number for the buyouts because that would depend on salaries and the school’s budget.

Valparaiso Law has a current enrollment of 430 students (both full-time and part-time), and in Fall 2015, 133 new students began taking classes at the school. According to Dean Lyon’s claims, the school’s incoming class has ranged from 150 to 160 students, but its size has dropped dramatically in the last few years. “For the size we are and are becoming, our faculty is too large and that’s why we’re doing this,” she said. Check out the chart below to see how else the school has responded to the crisis in legal education:

(Photo via Law School Transparency)

(Photo via Law School Transparency)

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In an email sent to the school’s alumni, Dean Lyon elaborated on why the decision to offer buyouts was made (the full text of her email is available on the next page):

Law schools in today’s post-recession era are facing a sharp decline in student applications and enrollment and are confronted with a diverse mix of financial challenges due to these issues. Valparaiso University’s Law School is no exception.

To put the Law School and our students in the best position to succeed, we are taking steps to meet the challenges facing legal education. Based on thorough due diligence, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to allow tenured faculty members and faculty members with multi-year contracts to request a buyout of their contracts based on certain terms and conditions.

The purpose is to align the size of the faculty with the expected future law school enrollment.

Valpo Law’s administration will know which faculty members have accepted the buyouts by the end of the month. Dean Lyon had this to say to the Post-Tribune: “It’s not a referendum on any faculty member, or that anybody has done anything wrong. It’s a response to the market.” In the meantime, another thing the school may wish to adjust in response to the market is its career counseling program — only half of the class of 2014 was employed in full-time, long-term jobs which required bar passage.

Best of luck to Valparaiso Law professors who accept these buyouts. Look at it this way: It’s certainly a better alternative for students who would otherwise have suffered through higher tuition payments to fund your six-figure salaries.

(Flip to the next page to see Dean Andrea Lyon’s email in full.)

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