16 Sep Is This Real or The Onion? Law School Drops Tuition By One-Third

Could it be a sign of things to come? The ABA Journal reports that the University of Tulsa College of Law decided to cut its tuition for next year by 35%, dropping it down to $24,600 from $37,960. They are also reducing scholarships at the same time. This private school is not exactly the top of the top, but 75% of its graduates passed the bar, about the same as the national rate.

Blogees know I have written about the inexplicably skyrocketing cost of higher education for years. Let’s talk about law school. According to the site Lawyers, Guns & Money, in constant dollars, the average private law school tuition and fees have basically tripled since 1983. Has income gone up that high? Of course not. Even going back to 1973, since then median family income has gone up about 12%. Public law schools are much worse. Their average tuition and fees are now six times what they were in 1983, again in constant dollars.

Scholarships are available but pretty much only if your family income is less than $120,000. There are lots of folks who both work middle class jobs, earn in total more than that, and have no way to come up with nearly $127,000 that it costs to go to private law school. And that’s after paying for college. And that’s just tuition and fees and doesn’t include housing and food. So into debt they go. No article I’ve found yet explains this astounding increase in law school (or college) cost. Maybe UTCL is onto something here.