
Law school applications collapse: Get ready for schools to start closing - prostoalex
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/12/01/law_school_applications_collapse_get_ready_for_schools_to_start_closing.html?wpsrc=fol_fb
======
graeme
I run an LSAT prep business. You'd be surprised how determined some undergrads
are to go to law school, despite the objectively terrible math.

They'll have a mediocre LSAT score, but say "School X will let me in!". School
X is terrible. They have lousy employment prospects, and charge $50,000 a
year.

When you add miscellaneous fees and opportunity cost of not working, the law
degree costs at least $250,000. And your school might close.

But (some) students still want to do it, despite the stark reality. As best I
can tell, they don't see alternative options.

This group is shrinking however, which is why law school enrolments are in
free fall. This chart from the LSAC shows a massive drop in LSATs
administered.

[http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/lsats-
administered](http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/lsats-administered)

2008-2009 was the high water mark: 171,514 LSATs. 2014-15 likely will be less
than 100,000.

Which is good. The industry's been in a bubble, and it needs to pop. But that
means this is a VERY bad time to be going to law school unless you're
extremely careful (and ideally have a guaranteed scholarship to a good school
that won't close).

~~~
untilHellbanned
> As best I can tell, they don't see alternative options.

Soon this will trickle down to college. In many cases, you pay $250K for that
too. In many, many fields, you can learn everything you need to know on the
internet, and get the job you want by just hustling (often by impressing only
a single person with influence in the field you want).

I'm in biomedical sciences, have a Ph.D. and will be a professor at a very
good school soon, but I don't give a crap about somebody's degrees. If this
line of thinking is invading my world, then you better believe the rest of the
economy is getting there too. (I also only got into MIT because I managed to
impress one influential person).

Getting ahead in life by going to college is a dying notion.

~~~
hackuser
> Getting ahead in life by going to college is a dying notion

People with college degrees earn significantly more over their lifetimes.
Also, they usually understand the world and critical thinking much better,
have better communication skills, etc. These things are valuable in themselves
and valuable for their roles as citizens, parents, community members, etc.

To read that claim from someone with a Ph.D., a degree from MIT, and will soon
be on the faculty of "a very good school" is a bit rich. It reminds me of
wealthy people who says money doesn't matter to them.

HN is a unique environment of generally highly-educated, high-achieving
people. Most of the world cannot program computers; many cannot operate them.
It would be interesting to hear from members of the large majority who lack
college degrees.

~~~
jqm
People with college degrees, in the past, earned significantly more over their
lifetimes than those without. But this may or may not continue, particularly
for certain degrees where the person may have been better off learning
marketable skill and applying it early.

I have a college degree and have never really used it. The jobs I have landed,
the things I have done, none of them in any way shape or form are attributable
to that degree. And, I graduated college nearly 20 years ago. College was a
good place to drink beer and get laid, but really, I think I would have been
better off going straight to work. The sad part is, I knew it at the time but
my parents were insistant that without a degree I'd be mopping floors for a
living. So I listened to them when I should have trusted my gut instincts. I'd
trade the degree back in a heartbeat for tuition and interest and book costs
alone...to say nothing of the 4 years (ok.. almost 5, I was having a good time
but who is counting?) of opportunity cost.

Have to agree with OP. I believe college to be generally overpriced and over
rated. Particularly in certain disciplines. I'm about as sad to see law
schools going out of business as I would be to see mosquito breeding pools
being drained. Maybe some of the potential attendees can do something socially
useful with their lives now. (yes, I know...we need lawyers. we probably need
mosquitos too. just not so many of them.)

~~~
hackuser
You can make the subjective assertion that college was worthless to you
personally, and who can challenge it? But a subjective assertion by one person
is not data nor is it representative of any population (I learned that in
college).

Also, education has many benefits beyond earning money. It's seems absurdly
narrow-minded to evaluate college solely by the marginal income gain. Life is
so much more and education benefits much of it. I could not write nearly as
well, use mathematics, understand science, understand art, understand
humanity, be as creative, etc. etc. without the years I spent studying those
things.

I can't imagine doing what I do with my high school education. Can someone
waste their time in college? Of course and I'm sorry for those that did, but
don't impose it on everyone else. I remember most of my peers' intellectual
curiosity and how much they learned. Someone could own a computer or raise
kids and gain nothing from those things either, but that doesn't devalue my
computer or family, or argue that they don't provide great benefits to
humanity.

~~~
ahomescu1
> Life is so much more and education benefits much of it. I could not write
> nearly as well, use mathematics, understand science, understand art,
> understand humanity, be as creative, etc. etc. without the years I spent
> studying those things.

You could study and understand all of those without going to college, given
the right resources (like books and time). In my opinion, it is a person's
intelligence and curiosity that matter, not four years in an institution or a
degree (I say this from a the inside of the educational system, currently
pursuing a PhD myself).

~~~
mtbcoder
However, what's missing is access to a teacher who can guide you through the
subject material, answer questions, show you the pitfalls, extrapolate on
topics and give you a thorough understanding of what you are studying. A good
teacher is an invaluable resource that you will not receive through
independent study alone.

~~~
hackuser
> what's missing is access to a teacher

And peers, and resources such as organization (clubs, teams, classes, etc.);
labs, tools and machines, including IT; and the very many information
resources that are not yet online.

------
tokenadult
Two comments: an op-ed piece I saw in the _Wall Street Journal_ the other
day[1] made the point that the Department of Education's new regulations on
for-profit institutions of higher education define levels of risk of student
debt that would also give many "nonprofit" higher education institutions bad
ratings. "We know this is true because if you applied the regulation to a law
degree from George Washington University, a bachelor’s degree in hospitality
administration from Stephen F. Austin State University or a bachelor’s in
social work from University of Texas, the programs would all fail to meet the
standard." Seeing the George Washington University Law School mentioned in
that context made me go ouch, as that is not a completely slouchy law school,
and I actually stayed there for a summer for one of my law school internships
(I attended a state university law school) and later attended a student
conference there. Even reasonably decent law schools are not a good financial
risk these days for many students.

My other comment is that the article kindly submitted here, which I've already
submitted to my Facebook friends, makes the interesting point that dental
school enrollments have fallen sharply since more and more public water
supplies in the United States have fluoridation. People today have much
healthier teeth than they had when I was growing up. Dentists, by this view,
are true professionals, as they are even willing to advocate public health
measures that help work dentists out of a job. I admire that.

[1] "Making ‘Profit’ a Dirty Word in Higher Education" By Steve Gunderson Nov.
12, 2014

[http://online.wsj.com/articles/steve-gunderson-making-
profit...](http://online.wsj.com/articles/steve-gunderson-making-profit-a-
dirty-word-in-higher-education-1415837070)

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
"Profit" should be a dirty word in higher education. Primary and secondary
too.

~~~
protomyth
Why?

~~~
spiritplumber
Because then the goal changes from "raising your ranking by churning out well-
prepared grads" to "making a quick buck". If the profit motive is present,
making a slow buck will always lose to making a quick buck as soon as people
who only wear management hats show up.

~~~
runeks
> Because then the goal changes from "raising your ranking by churning out
> well-prepared grads" to "making a quick buck"

1\. Why is it about making a _quick_ buck? Why can't it be a long term
investment?

2\. Why can't an institution have both these goals at the same time (make
money, churn out well-prepared grads)? They aren't mutually exclusive.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Because thats not how the world operates. The financial system is structured
such that it rewards year-over-year profits and punishes anything less. A for-
profit institution is going to be beholden to investors. Incentives are a
strong predictor of outcome.

------
xwowsersx
I attended law school in NY starting in 2007. By the time I was looking for an
internship at the end of my first year, the economy collapsed. As a result, it
felt like the whole premise of law school (at least for most students), namely
that you could get decent grades and would have a high paying job at some firm
upon graduation, was completely shattered. This turned out to be completely
true for the majority of people who attended at that time. Everyone was trying
to find internships at the end of their first year, but there just weren't any
to go around and people who had received offers in their third year were
seeing them slip away.

I remember thinking at the time that given the economy and the massive layoffs
that were occurring that applications to my school would be going down, but
what I saw was quite the contrary. Every semester, droves of new students
packed the hallways. People seemed to be using the economic downturn and poor
job market as an opportunity to "invest in the future" and go back to school.
But I just couldn't understand how tuitions could stay propped up and I felt
there had to be some correlation between the salaries/availability of jobs
post law school and the high tuitions. Again, to my shock these facts just
didn't seem to matter and it seemed to me that the whole law school thing was
just a big ponzi scheme waiting to collapse.

I know this is all anecdotal and my own experience, but maybe I was right and
the big correction has finally come.

~~~
graeme
There was only a temporary surge after the crisis. People flooded into school
thinking "school is a safe place to hide during a recession". This led to
large crunches every subsequent year.

Word has been spreading for the past four years. Applications have been down
each year. We're hearing more now because it's finally reached a crunch point
for schools. They've been trying to hold off closing by getting enough
students and forcing other schools to close.

It's musical chairs, and the music is now stopping.

~~~
hkmurakami
>People flooded into school thinking "school is a safe place to hide during a
recession". This led to large crunches every subsequent year.

Another data point is NYC Business Schools. Lots of people in finance applied
to, say, Columbia business school during the crisis, and thus around 2012
there was a huge plummet in applications there as the industry (a) started to
recover a bit, and (b) it became clear that the rewards from a career on Wall
Street would be much smaller than in previous decades.

------
lawschooler
The law school naysayers paint with too broad a brush. Going to a top 15 or so
school is still a golden ticket. I got a six figure job virtually handed to me
for showing up and being good at school. Solidly 90% of my classmates did too.

There are also massive opportunities for anyone with a bar card to earn a
substantial living representing consumers, employees and the little guy in
general (due to absurdly favorable fee-shifting rules) even if you can't get a
job with a big firm. People who can't find these opportunities aren't looking
very hard.

~~~
DannyBee
" I got a six figure job virtually handed to me for showing up and being good
at school. Solidly 90% of my classmates did too."

These jobs won't last. The legal market as a whole is contracting. Lots of
stuff currently given to new associates, like doc review, is seriously
disappearing, etc.

I went to a top 15 law school, and when I went (2005), there were plenty of
3rd year students who had no jobs. Just an administration willing to BS about
it.

"People who can't find these opportunities aren't looking very hard."

This is also just BS. The idea that there are "enough jobs to go around" is
ridiculously naive. Heck, you can find people with 10+ years of experience
having to try to find legal work on craigslist en masse.

There are areas of law that have contracted significantly and what appears to
be permanently.

~~~
clay_to_n
The big distinction here is "Top 15 Law School". Almost any law school that
isn't up there is basically a scam. As the law market contracts, I'd imagine
that the employment prospects of top-15 schools will shielded the longest -
law firms that previously couldn't hire great lawyers will realize they can
hire better new lawyers once it's harder for those lawyers to get a job.

My brother is at NYU Law and has a starting job next year with a starting
salary around 170k. From my understanding, kids at NYU are still not
struggling (at all) to get decent jobs after law school.

~~~
Chevalier
And just to follow up, I'm VERY surprised that your brother hasn't seen anyone
struggling. NYU Law's shtick is being the most prestigious public interest
feeder, where graduates go on to impact work in underserved communities.

Ever since 2008, public interest and government employment has all but
vanished. I don't think I've heard of ANYONE getting a permanent position in
PI since the recession, with the exception of temporary fellowships or
contract positions. I'm sure there are plenty of NYU grads who go on to Biglaw
(like your brother), but it's not something the school is notable for.

If there isn't anyone obviously struggling at NYU, that's wonderful news for
the public interest community... but it's also completely contrary to what
I've heard for the past six years.

~~~
kemitchell
NYU's schtick isn't exclusive of feeding to BigLaw, clerkships, or highly
selective government positions like Justice. Law School Numbers reports type
of employment for 2013 with 64% law firms and 15% public interest. That is a
lot of public interest, but it is still (traditionally) the highest-ranked
school in the nation's largest market for private legal services. Michigan's
numbers, to give another data point in the 14, are 56%/13% for the same
period.

People are still hired for public interest work out of law school. My
impression is that the number, overall, is very low, and that it always has
been.

------
Nicholas_C
Simply googling "Should I go to law school?" yields a ridiculous amount of
horror stories about people who are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt
with a JD and working retail and/or making less than $20/hour. I would really
like to see a ROI for every law school in the nation. I would suspect that
most below the top 30 or so have a negative ROI.

Slate is blocked on my work internet for whatever reason.

~~~
jurassic
The article reports that some schools are having to give large tuition
discounts to attract a decent class, and the writer predicts closures similar
to dental schools in the 80s. The most interesting tidbit was that "the
biggest application declines have occurred among students who scored in the
middle-to-high range on the LSAT." Confirms my general feeling about people
who borrow heavily and go despite the overwhelming evidence that it's a bad
idea outside of the top schools.

~~~
jessaustin
Dental schools are back on the upswing, at least over the last decade (and for
the foreseeable future).

------
anigbrowl
This makes me feel marginally better about dropping out from law school
(correspondence version - the bottom of the barrel) after attending a large
conference and realizing just how awful the odds were. It didn't cost me too
much financially but I still feel depressed about it.

~~~
Rinum
It's a sunk cost, ignore it.

~~~
anigbrowl
It's not the expense I regret, but not being in the legal academic
environment. I really _like_ law and I think I have a good grasp of it, but
growing up abroad and not having an undergraduate degree means >95% of law
schools are closed to me, to say nothing of the expense of a fulltime program.

------
mherdeg
Could the Idaho State Supreme Court be doing Concordia University third-year
law students a favor by not allowing them to take the bar exam? "Maybe it's
better if you pick another profession", is that the message?

(From [http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202677723753/Law-
Schoo...](http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202677723753/Law-Schools-3Ls-
Ineligible-To-Take-July-Bar-Exam?slreturn=20141102223803) — lede "The
inaugural class of students at the Concordia University School of Law likely
won’t be able to sit for the July 2015 bar exam because the new school has not
yet been accredited by the American Bar Association.")

------
ghaff
I've been reading about this for a while. In the eighties at least, among
people I knew, law school seemed to be a pretty natural progression for those
with liberal arts degrees looking for a relatively structured, well-paid, and
fairly stable occupation. As a JD has become a far less reliable meal ticket
(while also becoming a more expensive one), I can't say I'm surprised that the
same demographic are no longer jumping into law school as the path of least
resistance.

------
ChuckMcM
I suspect this is not going to be isolated to Law School. The math is that
tuitions have risen so far for so long that at 'premier' schools you don't get
nearly the value you should.

That said, it opens up the opportunity for new schools with a different model
in mind. And one thing we've seen in Tech has been that when the going gets
desperate, it also gets creative. I don't think the answer is going to be
MOOCs but I also don't think the ivory tower model of old will survive.
Something in the middle, perhaps 2 years of general education requirements
online and 2 years of training in your major on campus. Half the cost and the
education is just as useful.

Time will tell.

------
Rinum
The same will be said for Pharmacy in the near future.

~~~
Chevalier
When your position could have been automated thirty years ago by vending
machines... yeah, pharmacists are in trouble.

Some chains are moving to a call-in model, where your medicine is provided
through cheap labor (and eventually machines) -- then if you have any
questions, which is the ostensible purpose of a pharmacist, you can Skype with
a pharmacist at a call center.

Such a model is probably fairly miserable for the pharmacist, but it seems
like the obvious solution for automating the work while still complying with
(what I can only assume was intended as) protectionist regulation.

~~~
eropple
You're conflating pharmacy technicians with pharmacists. There are soft skills
involved; it's remarkably hard to automate the person who has to know the
weird interactions with drugs that different physicians prescribe--and how
they interact with the over-the-counter, off-label, or just plain illegal
stuff that their customers are taking.

Pharmacists keep people alive when their physicians try (with the best of
intentions, mind) to kill them.

~~~
Chevalier
That doesn't sound right to me. Humans are better than machines at the
memorization and computation of a database that lists every drug in existence
and the consequences of all possible combinations thereof?

Pharmacists may be able to give a soft personal touch when interacting with
patients, but the same could be said about travel agents, retail clerks, or
taxi drivers. Or lawyers, for that matter. Still, I can't see why six-figure
salary pharmacists are essential to vend pills.

~~~
atlbeer
In the US; legal requirements to have a pharmacists dispense controlled
substances.

------
pyrrhotech
Makes me smile. Keep the small wins against the bullshit jobs coming. A more
productive society, may our future be! Hopefully next up to bat is hedge fund
jobs and hedge funds themselves.

------
boulos
The referenced nytimes article ([http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/law-
school-becomes-bu...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/law-school-
becomes-buyers-market-as-competition-for-best-students-increases/)) is more
informative. (Also the submission title is a bit link-baity and doesn't even
match the Slate headline).

Edit: ahh the submission matches the title tag but not the in-body headline.
My mistake.

------
debacle
This is a good thing. I would make a rough estimate that 5-8% of the
programmers that I know have their law degree. Most didn't even bother taking
the bar because it didn't make sense. The "non-partner" track for attorneys is
kind of a non-starter for anyone who wants to make more than minimum wage when
you factor in the 70 hour work weeks.

~~~
gnarbarian
0% of the programmers I know have one. Where do you live?

~~~
arthurcolle
Total guess and not the original poster but I'm guessing NY

------
brogrammer90
Coding bootcamps are full to brim with newly minted JDs.

~~~
acmiller
Indeed--people with rigorous analytical skills, weak math backgrounds, and
limited job prospects seem the ideal market for code camps.

~~~
alexqgb
And as Lessig is fond of pointing out, code _is_ law.

~~~
spb
I mean, historically they're synonyms. Code of Hammurabi and such.

------
pain
So legal code gets replaced by program code.

------
lmg643
This is really good news for society. Law is important but it is not
productive. Also, hopefully this means fewer divorce attorneys.

~~~
VieElm
> Also, hopefully this means fewer divorce attorneys.

Because divorce is bad? Divorce can be a good thing, good marriages don't
usually end in divorce, more than likely the bad marriages do. So then maybe
because you think people going through a divorce shouldn't have good legal
representation? What is your argument?

~~~
x0x0
Yes, most people shouldn't. Unless you've never seen two people piss away tens
of thousands of dollars having legal tantrums, fully supported by their
lawyers.

Most people, particularly in CA, a community property state, should be able to
get divorced for $500 or so. Of course, that requires that they be adult, and
that no lawyers get paid (or encourage their clients to fight, all while
paying them $x00/hour).

~~~
VieElm
How nice it must be to know what's best for people you know nothing about. I'm
sure they love it when complete strangers with judgmental attitudes feel the
need to interfere with their private lives.

~~~
x0x0
Community property means person1 and person2 are going to get 1/2 of the
assets earned during the marriage. You can get there cheaply or expensively.
Lawyers get paid when you get there expensively -- and thus have an obvious
incentive to inflame a negotiation between two aggrieved parties. I'm not sure
why that makes me judgmental about their private lives.

