Law school with goal of making legal education affordable has $3.8M deficit
The University of Massachusetts School of Law is reassessing initial profit projections after running at a deficit of $3.8 million last year.
In a 2014 letter to the ABA, outgoing UMass president Robert Caret said the “original fiscal projection model” for the law school can’t be sustained, the Boston Globe reports in a story noted by Above the Law. Caret said the university would continue to support the law school, called the Southern New England School of Law before its acquisition by UMass.
When UMass took over the law school, officials projected it would earn a profit of $3 million by 2014. The law school now hopes to support itself by increasing enrollment to 450, targeted for 2018.
For now, the law school is admitting smaller incoming classes and is seeking students with higher LSAT scores. The school, which aims to provide an affordable legal education, charges $24,000 for in-state students and $32,000 for out-of-state residents. Applications to the law school increased 70 percent from 2011 to 2014, the story says, citing ABA data.
