7/16/2011: From the NYT, by David Segal. Worth one of your twenty. Along with stuff like this:
“In these materials and in our conversations with students and applicants,” he wrote, “we explicitly tell them that most graduates find work in small to medium firms at salaries between $35,000 and $75,000.” Determining exactly how many graduates make even those relatively modest salaries isn’t easy. The information posted online by N.Y.L.S. about the class of 2010 says that only 26 percent of those employed reported their salaries. The nearly 300 students who reported being employed but said nothing about their salaries — who knows?
There’s a lot on how profitable the schools are, and how the US News ranking formula makes it easy for them to jack up tuition. I don’t have much UO Law specific information, sorry. I heard a rumor that law was heavily subsidized under Frohnmayer, but pays its own way under the new budget model. Oh yeah – both Melinda Grier and Dave Frohnmayer are now off their payroll. Dave still has an unpaid emeritus position and an office there and – for some weird reason – another in the basement of Chapman. But his real job is selling his reputation for $550 an hour at Harrang et al.
According the article, many Law Schools give back to their universities. I was under the impression that the university subsidizes the Law School and has for years. I know that the connection is not direct, but suspect that undergrad student tuition is used to pay that subsidy?
The law school leads its suckers, I mean students, down the primrose path — there are no jobs for them at the end, at least not jobs at a salary level that will allow them to pay back their loans quickly enough to have a life and do things like get married and have children if they so choose.
Disgusting fact: While the law school was considering various plans to jack up the tuition over the last few years, at the meetings I attended exactly ONE professor (a mensch who was pretty close to retirement) had anything to say about the impact on the students. The loudest voices were more like, “So, what’s in it for me me me?”