A Modest Proposal

Many claim that law schools are treated as cash cows or profit centers for their parent universities.  I’ve talked to some who would dispute this characterization, but at the very least this perception seems widely-held (see the comments made by Baltimore’s outgoing law dean or this New York Times article).

Now, in some instances, I can see the case for using revenues from a professional school to subsize the costs associated with less lucrative fields.  Still, given the variety of vocations for which law schools train their graduates (and particularly with the legal job market being what it is), perhaps this case is due for reconsideration.

I’d like to float an idea: a university should not be allowed to use law school tuition revenues to fund other academic graduate programs unless it offers a fully-funded* LRAP program for graduates earning under a certain threshold, at least for graduates working in public-interest positions. Obviously, the law school owes something to the larger university and this plan would not prevent a law school from sending a fair amount of tuition revenue back in exchange for benefits received (operations help, development, security, etc.).  At the same time, if such a policy changed funding flows, it would probably help the law school fulfill some of its noblest aims.

Consider two graduate students who intend to do socially useful work: an aspiring public defender and an aspiring economics professor. From what I can tell, these two probably expect to make roughly comparable incomes upon graduation.  However, the law student is expected to take on as much as $200,000 in non-dischargable debt for his graduate education whereas the economists’ training is paid for by a fellowship that includes a reasonable stipend. That’s a pretty big discrepancy

Now, there are a lot of considerations in play here that have not been mentioned and I obviously realize this is not an apples-to-apples consideration. But is it unfair to ask aspiring district attorneys and immigration advocates to bear the cost of educating anthropologists and literary theorists? I don’t necessarily think so.  If the evidence actually suggests this is happening, though, perhaps we should reconsider.

*obviously fully-funded is ambiguous
Note: this blog will return to pop culture, news and so forth in the near future. i've been using facebook for that as of late.