While Massachusetts has never offered its residents a public law school, things could be changing for those who feel they cannot afford private school prices. Last week, University of Massachusetts officials announced they have revived a plan to open a public law school in Dartmouth with the donation of the Southern New England School of Law (SNESL).
SNESL has offered to impart all assets of the school to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth campus, including real estate, facilities, technologies and the library, assets that have an estimated total value of $22 million dollars. This donation would be the second largest donation in the history of the UMass education system.
The details of the plan call for UMass to absorb the 230-student SNESL, with classes beginning as a public law school in the fall of 2010. The plan also aims to increase enrollment, as well as to invest $13.8 million over a five-year span to bring the school up to the standards of the American Bar Association (ABA), with the hope being that the school will have accreditation from the ABA by 2012. If that plan succeeds as hoped, UMass may just have found a “diamond in the rough” that could be quite profitable well into the future.
In the state of Massachusetts, there are currently nine private law schools, and the cost of following the dream of a law degree can be exceptionally high. Currently, law school graduates can pay more than $140,000 for their education. Law school tuition ranges from a few thousand to more than $30,000 per year. Add living costs to tuition, and the total expenses greatly increase.
“The ability to pay thousands of dollars in loans after graduation is difficult for recent law graduates,” said Massachusetts attorney Angela Downey. “I believe this proposal would greatly benefit the state and those who would otherwise not be able to afford a law education.”
The proposal being considered by UMass is an alternative to a similar plan hatched five years ago. In 2005, the UMass system approved a proposal to bring the law school under the umbrella of UMass Dartmouth’s continuing education program. The proposal went to the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, where its hopes were crushed by board members, who questioned whether the structure of the proposal was legal.
Under the 2005 plan’s continuing education structure, the proposed law school would have been able to keep all the tuition and fees because it would have been expected to be self-sufficient. Now, the current plan has changed this mindset, abandoning the continuing education structure in the hope that it will pass this time.
The current idea, proposed by UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Jean MacCormack, would finally provide residents of the Commonwealth with a public law school option, with Massachusetts joining the list of 44 other states that have already offered this alternative.
The proposal of a public law school would save students thousands of dollars per year over private schools. The law school would charge $24,000 a year in tuition and fees, and along with tuition cuts, the school is willing to offer scholarships to qualifying students who commit to serving public interest law for four years after graduation. These scholarships would cut their tuition in half.
Some critics are skeptical about the idea of a public law school. In an economy where the current public higher education systems are struggling to stay afloat, some question the creation of a public law school at this particular moment. Proponents of the proposal insist that taxpayers would not have to shoulder the burden of paying for a public law school, however. Instead, proposal suggests that the cost of the law school would be covered by increasing enrollment over five years, and by investing millions from equity to win accreditation.
Caitlin Soto can be reached at [email protected].
Ed • Nov 23, 2009 at 10:02 am
What is happening, as best I can tell, is that the UNACCREDITED law school has essentially gone bankrupt and instead of shutting down, dealing with the lawsuits form upset students, unemployed faculty members (and administrators) who would like to keep the status quo, is looking for someone to take it over. Much like how the FED has big banks take over smaller failing ones.
Now is anyone addressing the structural faults and failings of this particular law school? Why is it in trouble vis a vis other such schools which, apparently, are not? And if the law school itself is not viable at present, what makes anyone think it will be under the “Big U Logo”?
The proposal of a public law school would save students thousands of dollars per year over private schools. The law school would charge $24,000 a year in tuition and fees
HOW is it going to do this? If it could simply reduce tuition, it would have done so already and/or used the excess tuition to shore up its finances, hence not be on the verge of collapse. IF there is not going to be state/UM money funneled into this school, if it is to be self sustaining and if it is going to have lower tuition, exactly where is the money going to come from? No one seems to be answering this question…
the school is willing to offer scholarships to qualifying students who commit to serving public interest law for four years after graduation
This is the true landmine, on three levels. First, who gets to define “public interest” law? IOLTA is already legally questionable and when you go beyond this into literally subsidizing the legal representation of some people but not others – and doing it on a political issue basis and not strict economic means test – then you get into 14th Amendment issues real fast. For example, I suspect that representing battered women would be “public interest” but what about representing those falsely accused of battery?
Second, there is a real social justice issue of having people so tied to four years of future employment that they might not get. Unless the state promised to hire the student – sight unseen – in the first year of law school, this will become one incredible political quagmire. Imagine a new DA being elected and firing all of the lawyers a few months shy of their fourth year, thus forcing them to come up with thousands upon thousands of dollars of money.
(Besides, where is the money for these scholarships to come from?)
Third, exactly how are we going to keep the members of the legislature from becoming the people who get these scholarships. The favorite trick of a salon is to get appointed to a clerk or judge position and both are “public interest law.” So we will have political hacks getting their law degrees and then getting six figure salaries yet coming under this exemption.
One has to wonder. One needs to ask some hard questions. And I don’t see anyone doing that…