Cooley Law School plans to close its Ann Arbor campus at year's end
The Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School intends to close its Ann Arbor campus at the end of December.
Students at the Ann Arbor campus can take classes at any of the school’s four other campuses, including at Lansing or Auburn Hills about an hour away, according to a notice published on the school’s website. Above the Law broke the news Friday evening.
Ann Arbor students will get a $1,500 cash stipend to cover the costs of attending classes at the other campuses, and a $3,500 stipend for a bar review course when they graduate. The announcement follows the school’s July announcement that it wouldn’t enroll any new students at the Ann Arbor campus. At the same time, the school said it was laying off faculty as part of a plan to reduce expenses and “right size” the school.
At its height in 2010, enrollment at Cooley was about 4,000, according to prior news coverage. By 2013 the number had fallen to 2,477 students.
Closing of the Ann Arbor campus is subject to approval by the school’s accrediting agencies–the Higher Learning Commission and the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.
