After 15 years of falling, number of men enrolled in JD programs grew last year
or the first time since 2010, the number of men enrolled in JD programs increased in 2025, reaching 50,900 last year compared to 49,000 in 2024, according to the AccessLex Institute. (Image from Shutterstock)
For the first time since 2010, the number of men enrolled in JD programs increased in 2025, reaching 50,900 last year compared to 49,000 in 2024, according to the AccessLex Institute's Legal Education Data Deck, released Thursday.
“Their enrollment going up is surprising,” Tiffane Cochran, the vice president of research at the AccessLex Institute, told the ABA Journal. “It’s just been going down, down, down for the last several years.”
While specific research explaining the increase is not available, Cochran notes that women continue to be the majority of JD enrollees, at 67,400 enrollees in 2025, or 56% of all law students. But men continue to be admitted at a higher rate than women—72% for men compared to 68% for women in 2024.
Notably, at 76,500, the number of law school applicants in 2025 increased by 11,700 applicants, or 18%, compared to 2024—the single greatest year-over-year increase since 2004, according to the report. But the percentage of admitted applicants decreased to 65% in 2025, down 4 percentage points from a year earlier and the lowest seen since 2006.
From 2011 to 2024, the share of schools awarding conditional scholarships decreased by about half—from 61% to 30%, according to the report, and since 2023, 19% of all 1Ls received conditional scholarships—the lowest share since 2011.
The Legal Education Data Deck uses publicly available datasets to offer a snapshot of trends, and the next update is scheduled for the fall. It pulls information from a variety of federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Labor, and organizations including the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the Law School Admission Council, the National Conference of Bar Examiners and the National Association for Law Placement.
The full study can be found on the AccessLex Institute’s website.
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