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Three Texas Law Schools Cut Enrollment, But Economy Isn’t the Reason

Posted Oct 7, 2009 6:55 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Three Texas law schools have cut enrollment this fall, but school officials say the primary reason is the need for smaller class sizes rather than the economic downturn.

School officials emphasized the personal attention that comes with smaller class sizes, although one also mentioned the economic downturn and another talked about the boost in “quality indicators” that comes from increased selectivity, Texas Lawyer (sub. req.) reports.

First-year fall enrollment is down 3.8 percent at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, down 18.2 percent at the University of Houston Law Center in Houston, and down 9.6 percent at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, the story says.

St. Mary’s law dean Charles Cantú told Texas Lawyer in an e-mail that small class sizes are a hallmark of the law school. “The focus on smaller classes allows us to maintain our admission selectivity, which has resulted in this year's incoming class having the highest overall quality indicators in recent years at St. Mary's."

Monica Ingram, the assistant dean of admissions for UT, said UT’s Board of Regents planned for smaller class sizes four years ago. While the economy was not a factor in the decision, school officials are aware of the increase in the number of law schools at the same time that lawyer jobs are becoming more scarce. It "would be untrue to say that we have not thought about our overall responsibility to the profession" when considering class sizes, she told Texas Lawyer.

Comments

1.

capplebaum
Oct 7, 2009 7:37 AM CST

Oh, please.  The deans of these schools could care less about the profession.  Most are merely diploma mills designed to suck as much federal loan money out of students as possible.  Thank goodness for US News and their rankings.  Without this third party check, law schools would admit anyone with a pulse that could sign a loan check.  Too bad certain law schools (I am talking to you Brooklyn) try to game the system by using the part time program to backdoor unqualified students and then lie about to US News.

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2.

Xanthippas
Oct 7, 2009 8:07 AM CST

Come on capplebaum. You work for US News or something? That law schools adjust their enrollment to suit the over-hyped rankings system of a magazine is absurd. You could make the same absurd criticism of colleges.

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3.

capplebaum
Oct 7, 2009 8:18 AM CST

I am not a fan of US News, but I think it is the only standard and check applied upon the legal educational system.  The ABA certainly isn’t doing the job.  I hear that certain ABA committees are contemplating doing away with even the LSAT.  Too bad dogs and cats aren’t eligible to receive GradPlus loan money, or the legal educational industry would find a backdoor way to admit them too.

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4.

Esq.
Oct 7, 2009 9:35 AM CST

@ #2:  They certainly inflate their placement numbers to suit US News and NALP.  This is also why they call begging for alumni donations, even as small as $5 because the percentage of alumni donations helps their rankings.

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5.

And
Oct 7, 2009 10:46 AM CST

I think the rankings are actually part of the problem.  Schools cater to all of the ranking categories and in turn, makes hires based off of what it will do for the schools reputation rather than whether the person would be a good professor.  They also seek donations just as Esq said for ranking reasons.  In addition, enrollment goes up to make more money and help the rankings.  So, because schools do everything in a sense to keep or increase their ranking, students are the ones that suffer.

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6.

Time
Oct 7, 2009 11:12 AM CST

The US News rankings are unreliable because 40% of a rank is determined by what law school deans, large firm lawyers, and federal judges say a rank of a school should be (i.e., reputation), and guess which law schools these people went to.

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7.

sara
Oct 7, 2009 3:45 PM CST

maybe the law schools were afraid of being sued by their grads because the grads were discovering that the law schools had inflated the job and salary data of their graduates in order to induce more naive kids to sign up for huge student loans.

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8.

B. McLeod
Oct 7, 2009 9:27 PM CST

Or, not.

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