Today is like Christmas for prospective law students — US News and World Report leak day. The USNWR ranking is flawed, like all ranking systems (ahem BCS), but Marc doth protest too much, methinks. The rankings serve a legitimate and useful purpose – comparing law schools by employment prospects.
In order to get the discussion in focus, you have to know that my view is that some law schools are scams. This is apart from Marc’s woeful diagnosis of legal education generally. My view is that some law schools mislead law students into attending with the promise of jet-setting lifestyles, $160k ($145?) salaries, and guaranteed employment. With some law schools charging tuition upwards of $40k a year, students deserve to know exactly what type of employment scenario they are facing.
If you are a prospective law student, you should take a look at this chart. Half of law school graduates make less than $62k a year. Average loans coming out of law school are about $76k. If debt generally tracked the distribution of the salary chart, there wouldn’t be that much of a problem. News flash: it doesn’t.
Here is some of the underhanded bullshit out there. In this thread, the admissions dean for Drexel doesn’t provide employment data (and there isn’t any on their website) and refuses to engage in a debate over the “complicated issues regarding how law schools report employment data” while including a list of firms graduates have placed into. It’s like three-card monte. Don’t look for the employment statistics – just look at these firms. Where’s the lucky lady? Where’s the lucky lady? Then the cards turn over and instead of being out two bucks to a street con, you’re out 150k and have a size nine poop chute.
I’d like to know the class ranks and/or personal connections of the Drexel grads at those firms. I’d bet my nut sack the answers are “exceptionally high” and/or “well connected.” This is not the fate of some dude at the median at Drexel. What about that fucking guy, eh? Add in the obvious gambler’s bias of law students (we can all be top 5%, right?) and you have a lot of people getting reamed in the ass by Sallie Mae several months after graduation. That list gives prospective students a flawed perspective. Drexel is a newly-accredited law school. Tuition is $30,800. I make no conclusions regarding the quality of education (whatever that means) at Drexel, but graduates are staring at over 100k in debt. Shouldn’t they get accurate data on what their return on investment will be?
I’m not just picking on Drexel here. Tuition at New York Law School is $42,500. Look at this shit. 25% of NYLS’ 2007 reported their employment. That’s sketch in and of itself. The median salary reported by these graduates is $160k. I’d like to know the fucking mean. This isn’t a “complicated issue regarding how law schools report employment data.” Show me both fucking numbers. In fact, show me ALL the numbers. There are a whole crop of these law schools out that charge WAY beyond what they’re worth and then use crappy data reporting to hide the ball. It’s almost fucking criminal.
This is where the rankings come in. You can’t compare numbers from schools. At Michigan, where I attend, they report very similar employment data ($160k medians in most markets) for about the same tuition ($40k-ish). Anyone claiming that Michigan’s employment prospects are in the same galaxy as NYLS is smoking crack. There is so much manipulation of these numbers that it’s almost impossible. Yes, I know that the same beefs apply to USNWR’s metrics but the rankings are a pretty decent indicator of the value of a school at some level. It’s an adequate starting point for those considering law school to know what type of prospects they will be getting for their cash.
Marc thinks that what really matters is “quality of teaching, mentoring, and faculty-student relations.” That’s a sweet thought and all, but none of those things pay the bills. I agree with Marc that those things are important too – I’m just not sure how you capture and report that data. The bottom line is the metrics that US News uses (academic reputation?) or that Marc suggests should be used (quality of teaching?) are unknowable. That basically leaves employability as the only decent way to compare law schools. Employability is probably a proxy for the values Marc lists above anyway. Since employability generally follows the same trajectory as these rankings why isn’t it a useful way to compare law schools?
Marc is right about one thing – the law school has control here. They can reduce the law student’s reliance on these rankings by providing transparent employment data and rethinking their obscene tuition to lessen the impact of not obtaining the optimal employment at graduation. Decisions based on “quality of teaching, mentoring, and faculty-student relations” are easier to stomach if you have an accurate picture of what the post-graduation scenario actually is. Until then, the USNWR is about as good as it gets.
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April 20, 2009 at 4:33 pm |
[...] My fellow Satyriconista, Chris Harbin, disagrees with me. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)A Better Way to Rank Colleges?The Rankings [...]
April 20, 2009 at 4:49 pm |
What about Vault’s rankings?
April 20, 2009 at 4:51 pm |
You really think Minnesota places better than your alma mater?
April 20, 2009 at 6:54 pm |
Places better? No. Teaches better? Maybe.
April 20, 2009 at 7:55 pm |
I think the main usefulness of the rankings is that you can compare employability to a certain degree. USNWR’s rankings tracks this to a certain degree. The Vault rankings are way way off on that. Mich over Columbia \ Yale? Ya, right!
I would like to see each school submit a spreadsheet that details EVERY graduate: class rank – debt upon graduation – job (private / public) – firm size – starting salary – practice area. The data in these spreadsheets would scare the absolute piss out of prospective law students.
April 21, 2009 at 6:06 am |
It wouldn’t be a bad idea, but would probably be like a band aid on a gunshot wound. Even if they did this, every entering law school hopeful would walk in convinced that they could make the top 5%, as you identified above.
Plus, how do we get grads to disclose that information? How often does it change?
And, Michigan over Yale? Why not? While I do know some great lawyers from Yale, I also know some miserable lawyers from Yale.
April 21, 2009 at 9:52 am |
Law students that make decisions on whether / where to attend law school on hypothetically being at the top of their class should have to pay double tuition and wear a sandwich board sign that says “I am a douchebag.”
April 20, 2009 at 6:50 pm |
why doesn’t some learned lawyer organize a group of law students, one from each law school, and help them file foia requests for employment and salary survey data? then the learned lawyer can out every law school from top to bottom and shake this shit up.
April 20, 2009 at 6:55 pm |
That would only work if they are state schools. Private schools wouldn’t need to provide that data.
April 21, 2009 at 9:53 am |
well shit, all the state schools would be a good start.
April 20, 2009 at 7:45 pm |
Then again, there are those of us who attend a top USNWR school (with correspondingly top student debt) and then choose not to take a job that makes top money.
Doh.
April 21, 2009 at 8:55 am |
Hey, I recently discovered this blog. I really do like a number of things written about here.
I should point out that I *think* Drexel can’t have any employment data as no one has graduated from there yet–I believe the Earle Mack school was provisionally accredited a year ago, 18 months after having opened. I only know things about them because they offered me an enormous sum of money to go there, which got me to take a closer look (I have accepted another enormous sum to go somewhere else). They have some data (that “partial list”) from where individuals have been offered, I am sure, but of course they can’t report fully as their data is incomplete.
April 21, 2009 at 9:39 am |
Then don’t you think listing those firms without some sort of measurement for the rest of the class is misleading?
If they can release that “partial list”, they can be bothered to tell us about the rest of the class who are probably twisting in the wind.
Thanks for checking out the blog, Halcyon!
April 21, 2009 at 12:00 pm |
Well, no–not if taken in the context you link to, I don’t think so. Actually I would counter that your characterization here, if unclarified, is misleading because it suggests Drexel should have some employment data, when common sense dictates otherwise (no graduates=no data). If he didn’t disclose that the list was incomplete–which he did–or if the school actually had a record to critique, then I would agree. That they don’t yet have a record is pretty damning, and indeed the main reason why I passed on their otherwise attractive offer.
April 21, 2009 at 2:38 pm |
oh b.s. the disclaimer that the list is incomplete suggests there are many other firms that students placed at but for the sake of brevity the partial one is being offered. maybe if he had said ‘this is where x number of our students have gone. this is the complete list. the rest are sol.’
April 22, 2009 at 8:38 am |
Buyer beware. If you aren’t a critical thinker, or critical reader, you deserve what you get. Note that I have chosen not to attend Drexel despite a large scholarship offer in large part because it lacks a track record for graduates.
However, are you contending that it’s fair to critique the school for not posting a ton of data on students that have not yet graduated? That’s absurd. Even USNWR rankings check for employment at graduation, and also employment 9 months after, neither of which has happened for any Drexel students (and note that this entry here talks about non-existent Drexel grads). He only could have anecdotal data, which he provided with a labeled caveat. Is he perhaps a bit optimistic? Of course–that’s his job. But it’s not like he’s obviously hiding oodles of data. He may not (and probably doesn’t) even have it compiled yet except in a raw, unorganized form. See the other side a bit here.
April 21, 2009 at 9:40 am |
I can’t believe you’re kicking my ass on hits and comments. Pffft.