By Karen Sloan, From The National Law Journal
Despite rising tuition rates, law school can be more affordable if prospective students are strategic about where they study and select a school that offers the largest available scholarship award—even if it’s not the best school they can get into.
That’s the takeaway from research by University of St. Thomas School of Law professor Jerome Organ, who has spent years studying enrollment, cost and admission trends. He presented his findings on Monday during the Association of American Law School’s annual meeting in Washington.
“Yes, law school is less affordable now than it was. Tuition has gone up,” he said. “But it’s not unaffordable for everyone.”
The trend toward higher tuition has obscured the reality that there are lower-priced schools, primarily in the Midwest, and that students with higher LSAT scores in general will pay far less if they opt for schools ranked lower than would otherwise qualify to attend, Organ said. His findings support the long-standing concern that tuition paid by students with lower LSAT scores often subsidizes scholarships for higher-scoring classmates.
Organ analyzed listed tuition rates—not the discounted rates students actually pay after scholarships—at all American Bar Association-approved law schools during 2012; he found eight states in which most law schools charged $38,500 or more a year. Six of those states were in the Northeast—Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont. Only three of the 28 schools in those states charged less than $38,500, Organ found.
California and Illinois rounded out the priciest states. Just two of Illinois’ nine schools charged less than $38,500, while none of California’s 18 accredited law schools charged less than $39,600.
Meanwhile, in 15 states no law school charged more than $30,000. Ten of those states had public law schools that charged less than $20,000—Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, North Dakota, New Mexico, West Virginia and Wyoming.
The remaining states offered a mix of tuition levels, Organ found.
“If somebody really wants to go to law school at a modest price, it’s possible if they go someplace they hadn’t necessarily thought about,” he said.
Organ used 2012 American Bar Association data on student LSAT scores and first-year student scholarship rates to determine what students with different scores actually pay—known as net tuition. He assumed the largest scholarships went to students with the highest LSAT scores. He also looked at the interplay between LSAT scores, costs and schools’ U.S. News & World Report ranking.
On average, students with LSAT scores of 165 or higher attended higher-ranking law schools, but they didn’t necessarily pay the least. However, students with LSAT scores of 150 or lower on average attended the lowest-ranking schools and paid the highest net tuition.
Students with LSAT scores of 155 or higher paid less if they attended lower-ranking schools. For instance, among students with LSAT scores of 165 or higher, those paying $10,000 or less went to schools whose U.S. News rankings averaged 52.
By contrast, high LSAT scorers paying $40,000 or more were attending law schools that averaged No. 7 in the rankings.
“You’ve got a bunch of people with high LSAT scores going to top-ranked schools who are paying full tuition,” Organ said, when they might have attended a lower-ranked school at a lower tuition.
The results were more mixed for students with LSAT scores of 154 or lower, Organ said—many of them paid higher tuition rates that subsidized scholarships for higher LSAT scorers. Fully two-thirds of students with LSAT scores below 150 paid more than $30,000 a year, many at schools with low bar passage and employment rates, Organ found.
“I’m troubled by a program where people at the bottom pay for the people at the top,” he said.
Overall, Organ found that 6 percent of all first-year students paid net tuition of $10,000 or less per year; 18 percent paid between $10,000 and $20,000; 24 percent paid between $20,000 and $30,000; 30 percent paid between $30,000 and $40,000; and the remaining 23 percent paid $40,000 or more.
In short, 53 percent of all students paid $30,000 or more in tuition, even accounting for scholarships. Similarly, 24 percent paid $20,000 or less.
IMAGE: Jerry Organ. Courtesy photo
For more on this story go to: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202714171047/Study-Looks-At-How-to-Get-a-Law-Degree-For-Less#ixzz3Oi3Cxs8b