Which sitting Supreme Court justices are most likely to have a law school named after them one day?

I recently took a light survey on Twitter to see which sitting Supreme Court justices might one day have law schools named after them. Given the apparent rise of celebrity culture around Supreme Court justices, coupled with the sizeable gift to George Mason to rename the law school after the late Justice Antonin Scalia, I wondered whether this might be a new trend.

A helpful commenter identified ABA-accredited law schools currently named after former Supreme Court justices: John Marshall (one at University of Illinois-Chicago, and one in Atlanta); Thurgood Marshall; Salmon P. Chase (Northern Kentucky); Louis Brandeis (Louisville); Benjamin Cardozo (Yeshiva); Sandra Day O’Connor (Arizona State); and Antonin Scalia (George Mason). And there are plenty of “centers” (like the Rehnquist Center at the University of Arizona) or federal courthouses (like the Byron White Courthouse in Denver) named after Supreme Court justices.

From the readers’ most likely to least likely candidates—which largely comport with my best guesses. Only three were voted more likely than not to have law schools named after them within a decade of their death.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Naturally, the most celebrity-styled justice and the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court received the most votes, nearly unanimous. Whether Columbia would change its name (everyone has a price), or some other law school (New York, DC, or elsewhere) remains to be seen.

Sonia Sotomayor. The first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court, with a small celebrity following of her own—and, I think, a likelihood that a New York law school must be preparing to pitch donors on a package to rename the law school after her one day.

Clarence Thomas. The second African-American to serve on the Supreme Court with a lengthy term of service, a particular originalist methodology, and a small but vocal celebrity following of his own, the right (in more than one sense of the word!) school would have to come along.

John Roberts. Here the voters start to say that it’s more likely that the justice would not have a school named after him than would. And here, the “centrist” or “unanimity-maker” justice may lack the celebrity, despite his role as Chief Justice.

Elena Kagan. I admit, I was surprised to see voters to pessimistic about her. Kagan is a sharp writer and a good public presence in interviews. Perhaps her fate changes in the decades to come—or perhaps she’s simply not the “celebrity” of others.

Neil Gorsuch, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh, in that order, were voted overwhelmingly unlikely to have law schools named after them.

In any event, it’s a fairly meaningless survey—but an interesting popular observation about which Supreme Court justices are likely to have the weight to have law schools named after them. Assuredly, much can change in the decades to come!

How did law schools survive a decade of "statistically zero jobs" for their graduates?

The first in an occasional series I call “dire predictions.”

In 2012, the Washington Post published a dire indictment of legal education. Under the headline, Will law school students have jobs after they graduate?, the piece included ominous projections for the future:

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts 73,600 new lawyer jobs from 2010 to 2020. But just three years into that decade, about 132,757 new lawyers have hit the job market.

While not every new JD seeks employment as a lawyer, it is safe to say that planning to work as an attorney is not rare among law students. But perhaps it should be. Data from the National Association of Legal Career Professionals indicate that since 2010, about 75,000 new law grads have found full-time jobs a lawyers.

So, in theory, all of the BLS-forecasted job openings through 2020 have already been filled, and 59,157 new lawyers are still looking for “real” law jobs.

… But the scale of the imbalance over a decade gives some indication of just how tough it is — and will be — as armies of newly minted JDs rise every year. By 2020, about 300,000 additional grads will join those 59,157 in a hunt for jobs that, statistically, are not to be found.

…

In [the] Law School Tuition Bubble blog, [the author] estimates that 2010 law school graduates took on $3.6 billion in loans, and that students over the next decade (for whom there are statistically zero jobs) will borrow $53 billion.

So how did legal education survive between 2012 and 2020 when there were “statistically zero jobs” for graduates?

Part of this is basic reporting error at the time. There may have been “statistically zero” new jobs, but it assume zero retirements or deaths among existing attorneys—that is, filling in existing jobs. Despite the fact that law school graduates did yield around 270,000 between the graduates of the Classes of 2013 through 2019 (and will likely cross 300,000 by 2020), total “resident active attorneys” increased just 106,822 between from 2012 to 2019.

(The piece also acknowledges that some law school graduates do not end up practicing law, but such “J.D. advantage” positions are a decidedly mixed bag.)

Another is that the BLS projections were wrong. In 2010, there were 728,200 lawyer jobs, projected to rise by 73,600 by 2020 for a total of 801,800 jobs in 2020. But projections are just projections. Total lawyer jobs were up to 823,900 in 2018 alone, 22,000 more than the projections estimated, even before 2020.

And law school graduates ultimately did okay (!). The Classes of 2013 to 2019 landed about 170,000 full-time, long-term, bar passage-required positions—despite “statistically zero” positions open to them, as reported.

Law schools could still do better. But the market rightly responded in a few respects—virtually all schools got smaller, and a higher percentage of graduates ended up in “high quality” legal positions, from 58% of the Class of 2012 to 69% of the Class of 2018. Debt loads have decreased for the bulk of law school graduates. But the dire predictions in this 2012 piece concerning “statistically zero jobs” just never panned out.

Law school 1L JD enrollment falls slightly as non-JD enrollment reaches all-time highs

The 2019 law school enrollment figures have been released. They show a slightly worse first-year JD enrollment and continued soaring growth in non-JD enrollment. About 15% of law school enrollees, 1 in 7, are not enrolled in a JD program.

While this is the first year of decline in 1L enrollment in five years, it remains mostly flat. (The 2010 peak was 52,488 1Ls.) In 2018, 1L enrollment was 38,390; it fell to 38,283 this year. It’s the sixth straight year of enrollment between 37,000 and 39,000.

Despite much hyped promises of a “Trump bump” in law school enrollment, law school enrollment has been mostly flat for some time. The small improvements in the last few cycles simply never materialized this year—of course, several schools have closed in the last few years, too, and schools may be improving quality of students rather than increasing quantity.

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Total JD enrollment also increased slightly to 112,882 (still well off the peak of 2010-2011 with 147,525).

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Non-JD enrollment continues to climb. The ABA changed its definitions a few years ago, which resulted in a spike in reported non-JD enrollment, but the steady climb continues. (It’s also worth noting that those enrolled in both JD and non-JD programs simultaneously are counted in each set, so this slightly overstates, to an unknown degree, non-JD enrollment.) 19,819 were enrolled in non-JD programs, a 1,400-student jump over last year. It’s now about 15% of all law school enrollment.

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Growth in non-JD online enrollment as a part of overall non-JD enrollment continues, too, with much faster growth in recent years—up from 5588 last year to 7378 this year. This is a bit of good news for law schools. I continue to wonder about the sustainability and value proposition of non-JD legal education, but perhaps my concerns are overblown. There is clearly a demand for such programs.

That said, more information about the kinds of degrees and the outcomes of those who secure these degrees would be welcome information, if the kind that is unavailable at this time. (I recently looked at debt and earnings of graduates of such programs from the Department of Education.)

Last year, I wondered if we’d see law school enrollment creep past 40,000. That didn’t happen. For law schools, a robust and valuable JD program is essential, and that would be a good step toward restoring some of the losses suffered after the recession. But we’re far from that point.

Below I highlight a handful of schools with the highest non-JD enrollment as a percentage of total law school enrollment.

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Are poor debt-to-income ratios among law school graduates a sign of institutional challenges?

I recently blogged about debt-to-income ratios among recent law school graduates from Department of Education data disclosures. Of course, such figures are imperfect. They only account for loans taken out while a law student, not undergraduate loans or interest on loans accrued during law school. They don’t make cost-of-living adjustments for earnings. It’s at best a rough ratio.

I suggested a “good” ratio would be less than 1.0 (i.e., total debt is less than total entry-level salary), which is a good rule of thumb for college. Professor Milan Markovic noted that it may not be the best rule of thumb of law graduates—earnings tend to rise much faster for lawyers than college graduates in one study he conducted, and perhaps higher ratios would still be “good.” It also doesn’t account for IBR and PSLF, alternative ways of serving debt. All good and fair points. I hope more will come out about ideal ratios as we move forward.

I wanted to look at the other end—what do particularly poor debt-to-income ratios tell us? Actually, quite a lot. I noticed that several of the schools with the worst ratios had faced what I identify as “adverse situations.” First (identified in the chart as *), schools that have faced multiple years of sub-75% ultimate bar passage rates, which places them at accreditation risk under the ABA’s new ultimate bar passage requirement. Second (**), schools that have lost their ABA accreditation recently and become state-accredited. Third (***), schools that have closed.

I sorted the chart by the worst debt-to-income ratios, those schools with such ratios of 3.0 or higher (i.e., median reported debt is at least three times the median reported income).

School	Debt-to-Income Ratio	Median Debt	Median Income	Adverse situation
Florida Coastal	5.63	$198,655	$35,300	*
Whittier	5.31	$196,008	$36,900	***
Thomas Jefferson	5.24	$195,892	$37,400	**
Charlotte	5.11	$188,985	$37,000	***
Barry	4.65	$168,309	$36,200	*
Atlanta's John Marshall	4.6	$177,854	$38,700	*
Savannah	4.6	$177,854	$38,700	***
Cooley	4.5	$162,011	$36,000	*
Southwestern	4.3	$193,653	$45,000
Golden Gate	4.24	$166,264	$39,200	*
Elon	4.23	$160,285	$37,900
Arizona Summit	4.16	$188,191	$45,200	***
Ave Maria	3.89	$158,206	$40,700
St. Thomas Univ. (Fla.)	3.82	$149,322	$39,100
La Verne	3.81	$140,182	$36,800	**
Valparaiso	3.78	$139,821	$37,000	***
Appalachian	3.74	$117,964	$31,500
San Francisco	3.63	$195,820	$53,900
Charleston	3.62	$154,378	$42,700
Lincoln Memorial	3.46	$91,323	$26,400
Willamette	3.43	$154,190	$45,000
Campbell	3.36	$144,330	$43,000
The John Marshall Law Sch.	3.25	$154,079	$47,400
Detroit Mercy	3.21	$149,993	$46,700
American	3.2	$177,226	$55,300
Texas Southern	3.17	$117,935	$37,200
Loyola New Orleans	3.12	$130,522	$41,800
California Western	3.1	$147,095	$47,500
Nova Southeastern	3.09	$161,219	$52,100
Mercer	3.05	$140,818	$46,200
Mississippi Coll.	3.04	$128,722	$42,300
Samford	3.02	$135,438	$44,800

Virtually all of the law schools at the top of the list have faced adverse situations. Several have closed. Two (Thomas Jefferson and La Verne) recently announced they would continue to operate as California-accredited schools. Most of the schools I identified as facing challenges under the new ultimate bar passage requirement are on this list, too (undoubtedly because schools with disproportionately low bar passage rates have graduates taking in lower salaries in non-legal practice positions).

While we might not know a lot about the “best” rule of thumb, we do know that schools lower on this list are likely to face the most pressing challenges as an institution. It may be that they will be able to weather those challenges in the near future as enrollment climbs, bar passage rates improve, and the employment market sustains growth. But it’s worth considering whether these figures suggest the institutions facing the greatest challenges ahead.

What makes a donation to a law school a "transformative" gift? One idea might be free tuition for all students

Professor Brian Leiter offers some important thoughts on “transformative” gifts to law schools. Many large gifts, often resulting in the renaming of the law school, come with a great deal of fanfare. And then comes the long, sometimes unanswered question—what happens with the money? And, the follow up—did it truly “transform” the institution?

First, my colleague Professor Rob Anderson notes that the money may not be “real.” Press releases boasting a dollar figure often do not disclose the structure of payment. That might include previous gifts to the law school “rolled into” the total new figure that may come with naming rights—money already used for other things. That might include money available only upon the donor’s death (or the donor’s and spouse’s death)—proceeds from an estate, property to be sold upon death, a life insurance policy, and so on. Such conditions can defer money for decades into the future. That might also include conditions on present money, such as money trickled out over a period of years, interest payments on a loan or investment, or so on.

In short, the dollar figure advertised is often not present liquid cash. Media often uncritically report this figure—usually, of course, because the precise details might be subject to a non-disclosure agreement. So one might never know the actual size of new, present money for “transforming” the institution.

Second, both Professor Anderson and Professor Jared Ellias get at a common use of money—essentially, using it for existing obligations. It could go toward the university’s operations, or to existing faculty lines, or to replace existing costs, or to nickle-and-dime certain projects, it could dramatically understate the impact of the gift. Consider, for instance, a contribution to be used for “student scholarships.” If the existing scholarship budget is, say, $5 million, and a $1 million gift (really, spinoff from a $20 million gift) goes toward scholarships, the question is whether the budget remains at $5 million with the $1 million simply replacing funds used elsewhere (perhaps to the university and not the law school!), or whether the funds are added to the scholarship budget to make it $6 million. Even then, suppose a $6 million scholarship budget. If the following year tuition prices are raised significantly, or the remaining scholarship budget doesn’t increase as would have been anticipated without the gift, the value of the gift drops.

This relates to a third point raised by Professor Ellias, which is that gifts (and, specifically, present cash!) have to be very large. $20 million gets you $1 million per year in endowment spinoff; $100 million gets you $5 million per year. So assuming that often the money isn’t present cash, and often it gets consumed in other endeavors, that leaves little for

But the fourth point gets to something raised by Professor Leiter’s original post. What would be transformative about a gift? Professor Leiter notes that many schools that have received substantial gifts appear to be little different than they were before the gift—good flagship state schools or perhaps better able to withstand financial downturns. One way to measure that, I suppose, might be to look at whether schools’ rankings or scholarly profiles improve. (Of course, one major factor in the USNWR rankings is expenditures per student, and sizeable gifts could shift that fairly dramatically.)

But setting aside the rankings profile, I think a good question is to think about how such money could be use to transform the institution. If we’re going to use that word, it should mean something. I think in some ways back to The Social Network. A million dollars isn’t cool—a billion dollars is. What could you say that would just silence a room?

I’m not that innovative. But the single most dramatic thing a school could attempt to do? Make it free.

When UC-Irvine announced that its first law school incoming class would have zero tuition for all students, it was probably the single most interesting and significant law school expenditure announcement I recall in… well, recent memory for sure, and perhaps in my lifetime. It didn’t mean that some students with low LSAT & UGPA predictors would pay full tuition while subsidizing scholarships for others. It meant that the graduates would have some debt from cost of living for three years, but likely quite manageable for many. Free tuition? Hard to beat that idea. UC-Irvine admitted a highly selective class of about 60 for that first year. Bit it couldn’t continue it beyond the first year.

I think about recent medical schools like NYU that recently announced offering free tuition. I think about the recent commencement speaker at Morehouse College who announced he would pay off every graduate’s student loans.

It’s true that most lawyers often go on lucrative careers. But it’s also true that student loans are tough, tuition keeps rising, young graduates’ career choices are often defined by repaying loans or debt forgiveness program compliance, not to mention the life choices that come from it.

It’s true that it would require a lot of present cash to create this option—or, at least, some cash followed by the announcement and vigorous fundraising off it. A non-trivial number of law schools have budgets of less than $25 million a year, and a $500 million gift could endow the entire annual budget. A $1 billion gift would endow a $50 million budget. Essentially, such types of massive infusions would truly transform legal education.

In the end, how the money is used defines the transformation. Thinking about what would transform a law school is the first step. Then finding the money to carry out that vision comes after. But I’m interested to know if others have ideas about how to determine whether a transformation has taken place, or other ways to transform a law school than the one I identified.

Disclaimer: I teach at Pepperdine University, at a law school which has just received one such sizeable gift!

What are debt and expected earnings like for those in non-JD legal education programs?

I recently looked at median debt loads and median earnings for law degree recipients. But the Department of Education data has far more than that.

Non-JD legal education has seen extraordinary growth in the last few years—and it has minimal oversight from the American Bar Association. I’ve wondered about the value proposition of such programs, given what little information we have about them.

The DOE data gives us a few tools to start looking at it. It codes several Classification of Instructional Programs Codes (CIP Codes)—2201 is “Law,” 2202 is “Legal Research & Advanced Professional Studies,” 2203 is “Legal Support Services,” 2299 is “Legal Professions & Studies, Others.” There are other codes that might be law-related (3028 “Dispute Resolution” and 5216 “Taxation” among others), but these CIP Codes include subfields like “Intellectual Property Law” and “Comparative Law.” These map onto the hundreds of non-JD degrees that law schools now offer.

Now, this is all imperfect. Schools may code some of these degrees differently. Some students may pursue these degrees at the same time they pursue a JD, which may skew debt/earnings figures.

But I decided to look at all these CIP Codes for (1) Undergraduate Certificates or Diplomas (specifically, not Bachelor’s Degrees), (2) Post-baccalaureate Certificates, (3) Master’s Degrees, (4) Doctoral Degrees, (5) First Professional Degrees, and (6) Graduate/Professional Certificates. I excluded all 2201 “Law” codes from those in the “Doctoral Degree” or “First Professional Degree” categories, which I included in the recent post and took to be overwhelmingly JDs. From there, I looked at median debt, mean debt, and mean earnings among schools that reported data (a lot did not have reported data). And I included only schools that had a law school. Admittedly, some of these law-related degrees could be run out of the undergraduate or another professional school (particularly 2203 codes). But I still think it’s worth considering non-JD legal education generally at institutions with a law school, even if it’s not all housed within the law school.

Whew. With all those caveats (ed.: so will this even tell us anything?), here we go. The CIPCode is on the left if you want to refer back to it. (Due to size of chart, results may be best viewed on a desktop or on a phone turned sideways.)

CIPCode	Undergraduate Cert. or Diploma	Median Debt	Mean Debt	Median Earnings
2203	Hofstra Univ.	$4,250	$5,535	$40,500
2203	Liberty Univ.	$9,500	$10,802	$29,700
2203	Hamline Univ.	$18,250	$18,726	$42,500
2203	Tulane Univ. of Louisiana	$32,121	$32,076	n/a
2203	Widener Univ.	n/a	$11,989	n/a
2201	Florida Coastal Sch. of Law	n/a	n/a	$22,900
CIPCode	Post-baccalaureat Cert.	Median Debt	Mean Debt	Median Earnings
2203	Loyola Univ. Chicago	$12,500	$15,021	$41,000
2203	Univ. of Richmond	n/a	$14,099	n/a
CIPCode	Master's Degree	Median Debt	Mean Debt	Median Earnings
2202	Temple Univ.	$34,500	$46,331	$65,300
2299	West Virginia Univ.	$34,694	$32,719	n/a
2202	Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore	$36,549	$36,474	n/a
2203	George Washington Univ.	$40,917	$40,941	$54,500
2299	Stevenson Univ.	$41,000	$38,816	$57,200
2202	Seton Hall Univ.	$41,000	$40,013	$94,300
2202	Widener Univ.	$41,000	$42,780	$58,400
2299	Regent Univ.	$41,000	$45,164	n/a
2201	St. Mary's Univ.	$41,000	$48,363	n/a
2202	Univ. of Florida	$41,776	$54,464	$82,000
2201	Northeastern Univ.	$41,963	$40,571	n/a
2202	Univ. of Tulsa	$42,331	$47,479	$49,300
2202	The Univ. of Alabama	$43,300	$58,033	$89,500
2202	Univ. of Washington-Seattle Campus	$47,104	$69,719	$71,300
2202	Univ. of Houston	$49,748	$49,397	$46,000
2202	Arizona State Univ.-Tempe	$49,843	$58,925	$45,000
2202	Arizona State Univ.-Downtown Phoenix	$49,843	$58,925	$45,000
2202	Loyola Univ. Chicago	$50,390	$53,258	$91,400
2202	Southern Methodist Univ.	$52,305	$66,438	n/a
2202	Nova Southeastern Univ.	$54,664	$59,097	$72,300
2202	Washington Univ. in St Louis	$54,824	$59,043	n/a
2299	Drexel Univ.	$55,518	$51,834	n/a
2299	Northwestern Univ.	$57,530	$65,664	n/a
2202	Univ. of San Diego	$58,842	$102,331	$73,500
2202	Emory Univ.	$60,106	$72,124	$61,200
2202	American Univ.	$63,164	$75,197	$58,900
2202	St John's Univ.-New York	$65,187	$73,475	$22,800
2201	Stetson Univ.	$65,823	$103,025	$52,700
2202	Univ. of Southern California	$66,221	$61,765	n/a
2202	Boston Univ.	$67,467	$65,399	$99,200
2202	Univ. of Missouri-Columbia	$67,831	$69,838	n/a
2202	George Washington Univ.	$69,520	$65,770	$77,800
2201	Liberty Univ.	$71,534	$77,325	$36,200
2202	Vermont Law Sch.	$74,768	$111,137	$48,800
2202	Univ. of Miami	$77,634	$102,398	$52,000
2202	Univ. of Denver	$82,000	$121,430	$52,200
2202	Georgetown Univ.	$85,716	$97,566	$110,200
2299	New York Univ.	$85,964	$76,299	$123,200
2299	Univ. of Washington-Seattle Campus	$109,707	$108,071	n/a
2202	The John Marshall Law Sch.	$137,165	$147,635	$72,100
2202	Duke Univ.	$170,276	$164,470	$133,200
2202	Univ. of Georgia	n/a	$32,947	n/a
2202	Florida International Univ.	n/a	$37,821	n/a
2201	Thomas Jefferson Sch. of Law	n/a	$38,367	n/a
2202	California Western Sch. of Law	n/a	$39,374	n/a
2202	Univ. of Oklahoma-Norman Campus	n/a	$41,039	n/a
2201	Univ. of Houston	n/a	$41,104	n/a
2299	Univ. of Arizona	n/a	$41,691	n/a
2299	Arizona State Univ.-Tempe	n/a	$45,168	n/a
2299	Arizona State Univ.-Downtown Phoenix	n/a	$45,168	n/a
2202	Southern Illinois Univ.-Carbondale	n/a	$46,797	n/a
2201	Univ. of the Pacific	n/a	$46,847	n/a
2202	Drexel Univ.	n/a	$48,720	n/a
2201	Wake Forest Univ.	n/a	$49,113	n/a
2299	Univ. of Baltimore	n/a	$53,544	n/a
2202	St. Thomas Univ.	n/a	$56,204	n/a
2202	Tulane Univ. of Louisiana	n/a	$57,043	n/a
2202	Univ. of California-Los Angeles	n/a	$58,858	n/a
2202	Cleveland State Univ.	n/a	$59,314	n/a
2202	Yeshiva Univ.	n/a	$62,442	n/a
2202	Univ. of California-Berkeley	n/a	$64,460	n/a
2201	Loyola Marymount Univ.	n/a	$66,094	n/a
2299	Yeshiva Univ.	n/a	$69,700	n/a
2202	Columbia Univ. in the City of New York	n/a	$77,468	n/a
2202	Golden Gate Univ.-San Francisco	n/a	$82,001	n/a
2299	Univ. of Denver	n/a	$83,102	n/a
2202	Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City	n/a	$84,878	n/a
2202	Univ. of Nevada-Las Vegas	n/a	$85,383	n/a
2201	Univ. of Florida	n/a	$86,052	n/a
2202	Univ. of St Thomas	n/a	$90,741	n/a
2202	Lewis & Clark Coll.	n/a	$92,860	n/a
2202	Univ. of San Francisco	n/a	$93,665	n/a
2202	Loyola Marymount Univ.	n/a	$129,372	n/a
CIPCode	Doctoral Degree	Median Debt	Mean Debt	Median Earnings
2202	Suffolk Univ.	n/a	$105,158	n/a
CIPCode	First Prof. Degree	Median Debt	Mean Debt	Median Earnings
2299	Univ. of Baltimore	$39,950	$36,087	n/a
2299	Regent Univ.	$45,000	$57,134	$44,000
2299	Fordham Univ.	$64,114	$68,720	n/a
2202	Northwestern Univ.	$71,667	$69,973	$96,400
2202	W. Mich. Univ.-Thomas M. Cooley Law Sch.	$130,683	$136,168	$54,500
2202	Vermont Law Sch.	$144,363	$141,223	$45,400
2202	Georgetown Univ.	$146,758	$136,871	$71,200
2202	Georgia State Univ.	n/a	$26,063	n/a
2202	Florida State Univ.	n/a	$30,052	n/a
2202	Univ. of Connecticut	n/a	$39,025	n/a
2202	Fordham Univ.	n/a	$72,230	n/a
2202	Louisiana State Univ. & Ag. & Mech. Coll.	n/a	$93,265	n/a
2202	Golden Gate Univ.-San Francisco	n/a	$99,851	$66,100
2202	Chapman Univ.	n/a	$119,306	n/a
CIPCode	Graduate/Prof. Certificate	Median Debt	Mean Debt	Median Earnings
2203	Univ. of San Diego	$14,654	$15,197	$40,600
2203	Univ. of California-Los Angeles	$16,000	$13,460	$43,500
2203	George Washington Univ.	$28,367	$33,918	n/a
2299	Univ. of Southern California	$122,693	$120,582	$88,600
2299	Tulane Univ. of Louisiana	$128,507	$128,495	$58,700
2201	Oklahoma City Univ.	$132,586	$124,086	$42,900
2202	Univ. of Southern California	n/a	$57,669	n/a
2202	Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ.-Indianapolis	n/a	$88,775	n/a
2202	Tulane Univ. of Louisiana	n/a	$135,734	n/a
2299	St. Thomas Univ.	n/a	$144,110	n/a

Which law schools have the best and worst debt-to-income ratios among recent graduates?

The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted data disclosures from the Department of Education concerning debt and income outcomes of graduates across a variety of metrics—institutions, majors, degrees, and so on. One intriguing figure is the “debt-to-income” ratio, or how much student debt recent graduates have compared to their earnings. Lower is better. (A slightly better way is to calculate what percentage of your monthly paycheck is required to service your monthly debt payment, or the debt-service-to-monthly-income ratio, but this gives a good idea of the relationship between debt and income.)

I took the raw data file and pulled out all domestic schools that had a concentration in “law” for a “doctoral degree” or “first professional degree.” I then compared the median debt load to the median earnings figures. The Department of Education site defines these figures as follows:

Field of Study Median Earnings

The median annual earnings of individuals who received federal financial aid during their studies and completed an award at the indicated field of study. To be included in the median earnings calculation, the individuals needed to be working and not enrolled in school during in the year when earnings are measured. Median earnings are measured in the first full year after the student completed their award.

These data are based on school-reported information about students' program of completion. The U.S. Department of Education Department cannot fully confirm the completeness of these reported data for this school.

For schools with multiple locations, this information is based on all of their locations.

Field of Study Median Total Debt

The median federal loan debt accumulated at the school by student borrowers of federal loans (William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program, the Federal Family Education Loan Program, and Graduate PLUS Loans) who completed an award at the indicated field of study. Non-federal loans, Perkins loans, and federal loans not made to students (e.g., parents borrowing from the federal Parent PLUS loan program) are not included in the calculation. Only loans made at the same academic level as the award conferred are included (e.g., undergraduate loans are not included in the median debt calculation for graduate credential levels). Note that this debt metric only includes loans originated at this school, so this metric should be interpreted as the typical debt level for attending this school alone, not necessarily the typical total debt to obtain a credential for students who transfer from another school. For schools with multiple locations, this information is based on all of their locations.

These data are based on school-reported information about students' program of completion. The U.S. Department of Education Department cannot fully confirm the completeness of these reported data for this school.

That means debt loads can of course be higher if undergraduate loans were factored in. These count Academic Year 2015-2016 & 2016-2017 figures.

A number of elite schools are near the top—despite their high debt levels, they translate into high median incomes among their graduates. A number of lower-cost schools also fare well near the top.

A good rule of thumb is that “manageable” debt loads are those where debt is about equal to expected income at graduation—i.e., a ratio of 1.00 or lower. Only 11 schools meet that definition among median debt and earnings, and a few others are close. Many are significantly higher than that.

Of course, medians are likely skewed in other ways—the highest-earning graduates likely received the largest scholarships and, accordingly, graduated with the lowest debt. But, the figures are below. I sort by the lowest (i.e., best) debt-to-income ratio. (Due to size of chart, results may be best viewed on a desktop or on a phone turned sideways.)

School	Debt-to-Income Ratio	Median Debt	Median Income
Stanford Univ.	0.77	$120,410	$156,700
Harvard Univ.	0.84	$133,617	$158,200
Duke Univ.	0.85	$138,000	$162,200
Univ. of Pennsylvania	0.86	$149,729	$175,100
Univ. of Chicago	0.86	$146,806	$170,500
Cornell Univ.	0.88	$153,937	$175,200
Northwestern Univ.	0.91	$156,418	$171,900
Brigham Young Univ.-Provo	0.91	$51,250	$56,200
Columbia Univ. in the City of New York	0.92	$165,314	$180,300
Yale Univ.	0.98	$126,398	$128,900
Univ. of Iowa	0.99	$62,249	$62,700
Univ. of Connecticut	1.01	$69,085	$68,600
Washington Univ. in St Louis	1.02	$81,500	$79,800
Univ. of Virginia-Main	1.05	$158,376	$151,500
New York Univ.	1.05	$183,857	$175,800
Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison	1.10	$61,500	$56,000
Georgia State Univ.	1.11	$69,200	$62,400
Univ. of California-Berkeley	1.12	$151,136	$135,400
Temple Univ.	1.14	$69,583	$61,300
Boston Coll.	1.14	$100,594	$88,300
Univ. of Michigan-Ann Arbor	1.14	$145,182	$126,800
Wayne State Univ.	1.16	$67,640	$58,300
The Univ. of Tennessee-Knoxville	1.16	$61,500	$53,000
Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln	1.16	$59,124	$50,900
Texas Tech Univ.	1.16	$70,006	$60,200
The Univ. of Texas at Austin	1.18	$106,598	$90,100
Vanderbilt Univ.	1.19	$129,030	$108,800
Univ. of Arkansas	1.19	$61,500	$51,700
Mitchell Hamline Sch. of Law	1.21	$64,429	$53,200
Univ. of California-Los Angeles	1.26	$121,453	$96,600
Univ. of North Dakota	1.26	$61,500	$48,800
Univ. of Kansas	1.27	$66,415	$52,100
Univ. of Kentucky	1.28	$69,860	$54,400
Univ. of Mississippi	1.32	$64,300	$48,700
The Univ. of Alabama	1.33	$68,992	$51,900
Purdue Univ. Global-Davenport	1.34	$76,508	$57,300
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	1.34	$90,928	$67,700
Univ. of Houston	1.36	$92,067	$67,600
Boston Univ.	1.37	$110,891	$81,200
Baylor Univ.	1.37	$91,401	$66,800
Univ. of Utah	1.38	$79,768	$57,800
Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa	1.39	$77,849	$56,200
Univ. of Oklahoma-Norman	1.39	$74,250	$53,600
Louisiana State Univ. & Ag. & Mech. Coll.	1.41	$71,422	$50,600
CUNY Sch. of Law	1.43	$78,224	$54,800
Univ. of Nevada-Las Vegas	1.43	$94,197	$65,900
Univ. of Georgia	1.43	$82,480	$57,600
Univ. of Missouri-Columbia	1.45	$71,603	$49,500
Univ. of Southern California	1.45	$129,223	$89,300
Villanova Univ.	1.47	$83,761	$56,900
Univ. of Tulsa	1.48	$75,326	$50,800
Univ. of Florida	1.49	$84,508	$56,900
Univ. of California-Davis	1.49	$99,716	$67,100
Quinnipiac Univ.	1.51	$82,000	$54,300
Washington & Lee Univ.	1.52	$97,276	$64,200
Fordham Univ.	1.53	$151,250	$99,000
Univ. of Arizona	1.53	$81,178	$52,900
The Univ. of Montana	1.54	$76,666	$49,900
Univ. of Cincinnati-Main	1.55	$76,173	$49,300
Indiana Univ.-Bloomington	1.55	$85,162	$55,100
Rutgers Univ.-New Brunswick	1.55	$82,000	$53,000
Georgetown Univ.	1.56	$163,688	$105,000
Univ. of South Dakota	1.61	$79,143	$49,200
Univ. of Wyoming	1.62	$84,032	$52,000
West Virginia Univ.	1.65	$84,227	$51,100
Univ. of Arkansas at Little Rock	1.65	$77,208	$46,800
Coll. of William & Mary	1.65	$98,700	$59,800
Case Western Reserve Univ.	1.65	$82,570	$50,000
Univ. of Memphis	1.66	$76,622	$46,200
Arizona State Univ.-Tempe	1.66	$94,325	$56,800
Massachusetts Sch. of Law	1.67	$75,467	$45,300
Duquesne Univ.	1.67	$84,428	$50,600
Ohio State Univ.-Main	1.67	$97,238	$58,100
Yeshiva Univ.	1.68	$111,031	$66,000
Cleveland State Univ.	1.68	$83,868	$49,800
Washburn Univ.	1.68	$82,194	$48,800
Univ. of New Mexico-Main	1.69	$83,999	$49,600
Pace Univ.	1.69	$102,821	$60,700
Univ. of St Thomas	1.70	$84,261	$49,600
St John's Univ.-New York	1.71	$112,662	$65,900
George Mason Univ.	1.71	$114,383	$66,900
Northern Kentucky Univ.	1.71	$79,951	$46,700
Concordia Univ.-Portland	1.72	$93,755	$54,500
Florida State Univ.	1.73	$81,159	$47,000
Univ. of Notre Dame	1.73	$130,589	$75,500
Univ. of Washington-Seattle	1.74	$109,405	$63,000
Univ. at Buffalo	1.75	$90,928	$52,100
Univ. of California-Irvine	1.75	$119,986	$68,700
Univ. of Akron Main	1.75	$73,756	$42,200
Michigan State Univ.-Coll. of Law	1.75	$90,674	$51,700
Univ. of Oregon	1.76	$88,306	$50,300
Drexel Univ.	1.76	$87,864	$49,800
Univ. of New Hampshire-Main	1.77	$89,700	$50,800
Univ. of Idaho	1.77	$85,550	$48,400
Illinois Institute of Technology	1.77	$104,921	$59,300
Southern Methodist Univ.	1.78	$134,484	$75,600
Univ. of Colorado Boulder	1.80	$101,626	$56,600
Univ. of Southern Maine	1.80	$94,364	$52,300
Humphreys Univ.-Stockton & Modesto	1.81	$89,317	$49,400
Brooklyn Law Sch.	1.81	$119,909	$66,100
Univ. of Richmond	1.82	$97,625	$53,500
Northern Illinois Univ.	1.85	$83,660	$45,200
Syracuse Univ.	1.86	$106,000	$57,000
Univ. of Minnesota-Twin Cities	1.92	$112,603	$58,700
Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	1.94	$107,059	$55,300
Emory Univ.	1.97	$131,738	$66,800
Univ. of Toledo	1.99	$81,546	$41,000
Pennsylvania State Univ.-Dickinson Law	2.00	$96,321	$48,200
Pennsylvania State Univ.-Main	2.00	$96,321	$48,200
Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City	2.02	$99,005	$49,000
Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ.-Indianapolis	2.02	$109,422	$54,100
Univ. of California-Hastings Coll. of Law	2.04	$137,787	$67,600
Saint Louis Univ.	2.04	$106,638	$52,200
Albany Law Sch.	2.05	$110,549	$53,900
Wake Forest Univ.	2.05	$113,656	$55,400
Univ. of Baltimore	2.07	$109,510	$52,800
Northeastern Univ.	2.08	$107,082	$51,600
Univ. of South Carolina-Columbia	2.11	$102,007	$48,300
Univ. of Maryland Baltimore	2.13	$118,155	$55,400
Univ. of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh	2.15	$101,186	$47,100
Florida International Univ.	2.16	$104,971	$48,600
Univ. of San Diego	2.16	$134,348	$62,100
Tulane Univ. of Louisiana	2.16	$122,886	$56,800
Gonzaga Univ.	2.18	$109,362	$50,200
New England Law-Boston	2.19	$109,422	$50,000
Southern Illinois Univ.-Carbondale	2.19	$98,215	$44,800
Loyola Univ. Chicago	2.19	$141,244	$64,400
George Washington Univ.	2.20	$163,300	$74,300
St. Mary's Univ.	2.20	$102,500	$46,600
Univ. of Louisville	2.21	$94,503	$42,800
Texas A & M Univ.-Coll. Station	2.23	$119,803	$53,800
Drake Univ.	2.24	$116,863	$52,200
Loyola Marymount Univ.	2.26	$144,200	$63,700
Seton Hall Univ.	2.28	$126,050	$55,200
Univ. of Massachusetts-Dartmouth	2.30	$102,500	$44,500
South Texas Coll. of Law Houston	2.33	$132,415	$56,900
Belmont Univ.	2.34	$120,498	$51,400
Santa Clara Univ.	2.43	$160,558	$66,200
Catholic Univ. of America	2.43	$142,868	$58,900
Suffolk Univ.	2.45	$129,384	$52,900
North Carolina Central Univ.	2.47	$94,358	$38,200
Ohio Northern Univ.	2.52	$100,224	$39,800
DePaul Univ.	2.54	$132,803	$52,200
Southern Univ. & A & M Coll.	2.59	$95,437	$36,800
Southern Univ. Law Center	2.59	$95,437	$36,800
Chapman Univ.	2.61	$148,852	$57,100
Roger Williams Univ.	2.61	$123,384	$47,300
Roger Williams Univ. Sch. of Law	2.61	$123,384	$47,300
Univ. of Denver	2.61	$143,792	$55,000
Regent Univ.	2.62	$118,275	$45,200
Pepperdine Univ.	2.63	$161,300	$61,400
Florida Ag. & Mech. Univ.	2.69	$105,703	$39,300
Hofstra Univ.	2.70	$148,342	$55,000
Touro Coll.	2.70	$150,767	$55,800
Lewis & Clark Coll.	2.76	$134,180	$48,700
Widener Univ.	2.76	$134,806	$48,900
Stetson Univ.	2.78	$137,217	$49,300
Creighton Univ.	2.78	$132,800	$47,700
Western New England Univ.	2.80	$129,662	$46,300
New York Law Sch.	2.82	$167,078	$59,300
Capital Univ.	2.82	$129,089	$45,800
Univ. of Dayton	2.86	$120,274	$42,000
Western State Coll. of Law at Argosy Univ.	2.87	$114,795	$40,000
Argosy Univ.-Orange County	2.87	$114,795	$40,000
Univ. of Miami	2.90	$150,896	$52,100
Marquette Univ.	2.90	$154,154	$53,100
Seattle Univ.	2.96	$155,575	$52,600
Howard Univ.	2.97	$156,563	$52,800
Univ. of the Pacific	2.99	$158,437	$53,000
Samford Univ.	3.02	$135,438	$44,800
Mississippi Coll.	3.04	$128,722	$42,300
Mercer Univ.	3.05	$140,818	$46,200
Nova Southeastern Univ.	3.09	$161,219	$52,100
California Western Sch. of Law	3.10	$147,095	$47,500
Loyola Univ. New Orleans	3.12	$130,522	$41,800
Texas Southern Univ.	3.17	$117,935	$37,200
American Univ.	3.20	$177,226	$55,300
Trinity Law Sch.	3.21	$133,925	$41,700
Trinity International Univ.-Illinois	3.21	$133,925	$41,700
Univ. of Detroit Mercy	3.21	$149,993	$46,700
The John Marshall Law Sch.	3.25	$154,079	$47,400
Campbell Univ.	3.36	$144,330	$43,000
Willamette Univ.	3.43	$154,190	$45,000
Lincoln Memorial Univ.	3.46	$91,323	$26,400
Charleston Sch. of Law	3.62	$154,378	$42,700
Univ. of San Francisco	3.63	$195,820	$53,900
Appalachian Sch. of Law	3.74	$117,964	$31,500
Valparaiso Univ.	3.78	$139,821	$37,000
Univ. of La Verne	3.81	$140,182	$36,800
St. Thomas Univ.	3.82	$149,322	$39,100
Inter American Univ. of Puerto Rico-Sch. of Law	3.84	$99,403	$25,900
Ave Maria Sch. of Law	3.89	$158,206	$40,700
Arizona Summit Law Sch.	4.16	$188,191	$45,200
Elon Univ.	4.23	$160,285	$37,900
Golden Gate Univ.-San Francisco	4.24	$166,264	$39,200
Southwestern Law Sch.	4.30	$193,653	$45,000
Western Mich. Univ.-Thomas M. Cooley Law Sch.	4.50	$162,011	$36,000
Atlanta's John Marshall Law Sch.	4.60	$177,854	$38,700
Savannah Law Sch.	4.60	$177,854	$38,700
Barry Univ.	4.65	$168,309	$36,200
Pontifical Catholic Univ. of Puerto Rico-Ponce	5.09	$97,269	$19,100
Charlotte Sch. of Law	5.11	$188,985	$37,000
Thomas Jefferson Sch. of Law	5.24	$195,892	$37,400
Whittier Coll.	5.31	$196,008	$36,900
Florida Coastal Sch. of Law	5.63	$198,655	$35,300
John F. Kennedy Univ.	6.45	$116,722	$18,100

Could we improve the law faculty hiring process through blind reads of scholarship?

On the heels of an idea floated by my colleague Professor Rob Anderson: “Why don’t committees do a blind read of everyone’s stuff before looking at credentials? Yeah it takes resources, but you are making a multi-million $ investment for the next 40 years.”

I’ve thought about this over the last several days and wanted to offer a couple of ideas. These are very much working ideas, so feel free to critique!

Here’s the specific problem I’m trying to solve (and I speak generally, so it may not apply to your particular school, committee, or search!). Too often, at the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Faculty Recruiting Conference (FCR), faculty hiring decisions at law schools are made by shortcuts. We sift through hundreds of applications between August and October, looking at certain cues like law school attended, academic honors, visiting assistant professor position history, elite clerkships, or other CV items that look like prestige and quality. This often leads to a fairly narrow set of candidates who meet the criteria, and it tends to be those from elite socioeconomic backgrounds. It often demands geographic transience and flexibility from applicants, and it can produce inequalities among candidates that could run along race, sex, or class lines.

But even though schools are looking at these proxies, that’s not what law schools actually desire in candidates. They’re looking for faculty who can write, who can produce and engage in good scholarship. They’re looking for good teachers, who can communicate complicated concepts with clarity to law students. These can be challenges to identify early in one’s career, but that’s what schools are looking to identify.

Many candidates—and perhaps most successful candidates—already have something in the way of scholarship, at least one publication, or even a good draft. After screening interviews in October, that’s what would be used as the “job talk” between October and February. Some schools request that paper between August and October, ahead of the screening interview. And now some applicants can upload that paper with their initial application.

But law schools still primarily filter and screen with these cues or shortcuts first. Reading the scholarship comes later. On top of that, the scholarship is now filtered through the bias of those cues, where readers are inclined to think the work is going to be good because, well, they made it through that filter! And if the article has placed in a sufficiently “prestigious” journal (perhaps even the VAP’s institution’s home journal…) the bias in the reader is increased even more.

So, why not have an opportunity to read scholarship without any of those cues? No resume, no pedigree, no placement information if the article is placed. Just a blind read of articles.

This could take one of two forms.

First, there could be a database, say in July, where prospective academics could upload the article. It would be stripped of their name and whether it was published. Perhaps it would include a few general scholarly fields if schools wanted to winnow their searches. Law school hiring committees could then pull the articles from the database and review them internally. The database would disclose the identity of the author upon request, but not within 14 days of when a law school requested the article (essentially, a forced cool-down period). Schools, now armed with internal blind reviews of scholarship, could identify these candidates in the AALS pool after the FAR distribution occurs.

Second, some volunteer law professors in various fields could offer to do blind review of such articles submitted over the summer. Law professors would assign the article a grade. Articles that “passed,” or that received some sufficiently high enough grade (e.g., 3.5 out of 5 stars) would be publicly identified, with the author. Those with too low a score wouldn’t be identified, which might also mean you simply didn’t submit an article for review.

The second, in some ways, would be something like an NFL “draft grade” for prospective football players leaving college early, where independent evaluators assess their talent and tell them where they’d be projected to go.

The first has the benefit of giving committees the full control over their review processes and needs no recruiting of others to help. The second has the benefit of handling the volume of articles, if many choose to take advantage of the system, and a greater “peer” sentiment.

Of course, these are costly decisions—maybe it’s really all the case that the filtering cues are good at identifying those who go on to be good scholars. Or that it’s not so much that it identifies who good scholars are as it provides a first rough cut, and the material review of scholarship can happen after that first cut.

Really, then, the benefit would be for “diamonds in the rough,” those scholars who lack the pedigree but who may have some real promise as an academic.

It might be that blind scholarship review, especially if it’s gone through a pretty rigorous coaching or polishing through mentors in a VAP or PhD programs, also doesn’t help us a whole lot.

And it might also be the case that it places more pressure on writing something early. But, to be frank, it may be that this ship has sailed, and we really do expect people to have started their writing careers before entering tenure-track academia.

But, here are a couple of potential models. Better than the status quo? One preferable to another? Improvements to be made? A third way?

Experimentation in reforming legal education

Professor Dan Rodriguez has a terrific and helpful post over at Legal Evolution, Toward evidence-based legal education reform: First, let’s experiment. This comes on the heels of his call for more data to help improve law school decisionmaking.

“Data-driven” is one of the trendiest buzzwords around at the moment, but he points out that we too easily assume the status quo is the most effective form of legal education or that we can’t figure out if it or another form is any good. We need evidence—data, yes, but really means of comparing different kinds of legal education and ascertaining whether one is better than another. I think Professor Rodriguez rightly notes that “internal political difficulty” tends to inhibit experimentation in legal education to a greater degree than accreditation bodies or rankings factors—that is, there’s plenty of flexibility within existing accreditation frameworks that minimally impact USNWR rankings factors, but it’s simply a question of will, desire, priorities, and the like.

One is that this language sounds so scientific, and it may lead to concerns about institutional review board reviews and the like. But as an exchange on Twitter recently illuminated, labeling them “pilot programs” over experimentation or other overly scientific-sounding phrases may help ease some political concerns.

Additionally, I think it’s worth emphasizing that a lot of what we subjectively believe to be “uniform” is not very uniform at all, which opens up opportunities to treating similarly-students differently within appropriate boundaries. There might be concerns about “experimenting” with a 1L section in the legal curriculum, but, really, 1L professors might have vastly different approaches to a theoretically identical subject, including different exam and grading methodology. Willingness to try “pilot programs” among subsets of law students should extend beyond professors’ academic freedom in the classroom, an acknowledged differentiator among similarly-situated sets of students.

Importantly, Professor Rodriguez highlights the randomized nature of such programs. That’s also essential. Many students opt to take certain things, like bar prep classes, clinics, or externships. That self-selection means that we may lose the ability to identify any independent value those programs may have once bias clouds the results—for instance, self-motivated students may opt for a bar prep class over a fellow student with similar grades who lacks the motivation, and it may tell us less (if anything) if the first student passes the bar but the second doesn’t.

In short, it requires political will and time from invested professors to make some of the changes Professor Rodriguez identifies. Unfortunately, it appears little of significant has happened in legal education, even in the face of dropping bar exam pass rates, in recent years. Some schools and some isolated programs may be doing some things, but even those haven’t been deemed so wildly successful that other schools are racing to replicate them. Let’s hope there’s more movement in the years ahead.