U.S. News Changes Methodology For Law School Rankings To Include Graduate Debt

Law school costs a lot of money, and U.S. News finally cares.

U.S. News is due to release the 2022 edition of its law school rankings within the next week or so, and it looks like schools may be in for a particularly bumpy ride this time around.

Why’s that, you ask?

The magazine has reportedly changed its methodology to include a new component that’s sure to make deans across the country cringe: graduate debt. The albatross that new lawyers wear around their necks for decades now means something in the rankings, and some schools are sure to suffer for drowning their students in debt for their degrees.

Gee, it’s almost as if U.S. News suddenly figured out that outcomes matter when it comes to their rankings. (We figured that out quite a few years ago here at Above the Law, which is why we started our own law school rankings.)

The new graduate debt component of the rankings has been assigned a 5% weight, broken up into two parts. Spivey Consulting Group has the scoop:

First, 3% weight will be applied to the average amount of graduate debt incurred by students in the previous year’s graduating class. Only students who have taken on law school debt will be counted in this metric. Higher average debt will hurt; lower average debt will help.

Second, 2% weight will be applied to the proportion of a school’s graduating class who incurred law school debt. Again, higher proportions will hurt; lower proportions will help.

How did U.S. News make room for this new rankings component? The obsession with incoming students’ test scores and grades has taken a bit of a hit here. The Selectivity and Faculty Resources metrics have both seen cuts, with the former’s weight reduced from 25% to 21% and the latter’s from 15% to 14%. Within the Selectivity metric, median test scores now weigh 10.5%, median GPAs now weigh 8.4%, and acceptance rates now weigh 2.1%.

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Law school can cost up to six figures of debt-financed dollars per student, and now that U.S. News has decided to enter the scene by including debt in its rankings, it opens up a whole new avenue for students to avoid that debt in the first place. As we know, law schools will look for any way possible to game the rankings to their advantage, but this time around, anything that helps a law school will help students too. Debt too high? Let’s offer more scholarships! Debt still too high? Let’s cut our absurd tuition! Debt still too high? Let’s do both!

Mike Spivey has a great discussion over at his site on the possible poor outcomes that could result from this change to the U.S. News rankings. Will schools start recruiting wealthier students to avoid this debt factor? Will they reduce the number of transfer students they accept? Will they lower their “cost of living” estimates even more, and make it even harder for students to survive during the course of school? These are all things we must think about now that law schools are being forced to care about debt to save their place in the rankings.

We hypothesized earlier this week that there would be a new T14, based solely on available information that didn’t include graduate debt. With debt now in the mix, and with full knowledge that these schools are some of the most costly in the country, there’s no longer any question that the T14 will change. On the flip side, schools with lower tuitions and thus lower graduate debt are sure to thrive.

We’re very interested to see how things shake out now that debt is being taken into account as part of the U.S. News law school rankings. Will your law school sink under the heavy weight of its graduates’ debts or be able to keep swimming?

Understanding and Implications of the New USNWR Law School Rankings Methodology [Spivey Consulting Group]

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.