The Mass Board of Education approved a UMass Law School. Apparently a $75,000 debt load at graduation will motivate lawyers to go into public service in a way that a $100,000 debt load will not.
The UMass system will regret it when the law school steals public funds from the rest of the university system after the law school goes on a politician hiring binge. It will cost tens of millions of dollars to recruit students to an unaccredited law school, where the whole hope is that tuition dollars from a larger student body will allow the school to increase facilities to the barest requirements the ABA has. But how will the rising student body deal with the substandard facilities currently in place?
Ten years from now, when Massachusetts inevitably faces another budget crisis, does anyone think the legislature will resist the urge to dramatically raise tuition for the UMass Law School, just as California has responded to its near-bankruptcy by making the U. Cal law schools among the highest tuition in the country and insanely high for out-of-state students.
But hey, a public law school and lots of jobs for former state reps made buying this unaccredited law school worth it, right?
Showing posts with label UMass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UMass. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Bad Idea Continued: UMass Law School Passes Hurdle
The proposed transformation of unaccredited mess of a law school Southern New England Law into a supposedly new and improved UMass Law School passed another hurdle today.
The UMass "Board of Trustees' Committee on Administration and Finance", whatever that is, passed a resolution to take over SNESL by a 12-4 vote. Now the proposal goes to the Finance Committee, the UMass Board of Trustees, and finally the Mass Board of Education. The first time SNESL tried to sucker UMass into assuming control of it, it went all the way to the Board of Education, so this is not necessarily a sign that UMass will take the school over. However, Gov. Deval Patrick, of Harvard Law, is in favor of the law school, so the Board of Education may be more supportive.
Of course, the press release states that UMass is this much closer to providing a "low cost" $24K/year law school education, and offering half tuition off for four years of public employment after that. Of course, if this were such a good idea, SNESL, with its tuition of about $22K, would have public interest hopeful lawyers lining up. However, that is not the case.
While law schools are a prestige item and a cash cow for universities, the costs of running a law school are high. Professors, who would make mid six figure and higher salaries in the private sector, are very expensive and very fickle. The SNESL professors are what you would expect from a school with a lower cost, not as impressive. If SNESL is to get accredited, it needs to wildly expand its library, physical plant and professors, and raising tuition and student class size is not going to make it happen without a bailout from Massachusetts, despite that SNESL and UMass say that is not necessary.
The strategy by SNESL and UMass is to keep repeating the no-cost line ad naseum until the Board finally breaks down and approves the SNESL bailout. Of course, once the law school is approved and UMass takes it over, magically these "unexpected costs" of complying with the ABA accreditation standard are "found", and one of two things will need to be done: either raise tuition or get state aid. Of course, since the supposed purpose of the law school is to get lawyers "interested" in public service, UMass will seek its bailout then, hoping the state economic situation and tax revenues are better situated than currently.
It is a total sham, represented perfectly by this fact: If SNESL could get accredited by raising tuition and adding students, why have they not done it already? Why would they forfeit their assets to UMass in return for ZERO? Because they cannot do it. SNESL could sell its buildings, assets and cash for something, but the law school is worthless. No one creates a private law school in the hope the state will take it over some day. If SNESL could be accredited on the terms UMass says they could be accredited on, there would be absolutely no need for this takeover.
Why does UMass want a law school? Prestige. Plain and simple. It also, coincidentally of course, gives them another school to stock full of patronage hires who are unqualified to teach at any current law school. Another layer of bureaucracy at a university full of bureaucracy, for the next generation of political hacks.
A very bad idea, the UMass Law School.
The UMass "Board of Trustees' Committee on Administration and Finance", whatever that is, passed a resolution to take over SNESL by a 12-4 vote. Now the proposal goes to the Finance Committee, the UMass Board of Trustees, and finally the Mass Board of Education. The first time SNESL tried to sucker UMass into assuming control of it, it went all the way to the Board of Education, so this is not necessarily a sign that UMass will take the school over. However, Gov. Deval Patrick, of Harvard Law, is in favor of the law school, so the Board of Education may be more supportive.
Of course, the press release states that UMass is this much closer to providing a "low cost" $24K/year law school education, and offering half tuition off for four years of public employment after that. Of course, if this were such a good idea, SNESL, with its tuition of about $22K, would have public interest hopeful lawyers lining up. However, that is not the case.
While law schools are a prestige item and a cash cow for universities, the costs of running a law school are high. Professors, who would make mid six figure and higher salaries in the private sector, are very expensive and very fickle. The SNESL professors are what you would expect from a school with a lower cost, not as impressive. If SNESL is to get accredited, it needs to wildly expand its library, physical plant and professors, and raising tuition and student class size is not going to make it happen without a bailout from Massachusetts, despite that SNESL and UMass say that is not necessary.
The strategy by SNESL and UMass is to keep repeating the no-cost line ad naseum until the Board finally breaks down and approves the SNESL bailout. Of course, once the law school is approved and UMass takes it over, magically these "unexpected costs" of complying with the ABA accreditation standard are "found", and one of two things will need to be done: either raise tuition or get state aid. Of course, since the supposed purpose of the law school is to get lawyers "interested" in public service, UMass will seek its bailout then, hoping the state economic situation and tax revenues are better situated than currently.
It is a total sham, represented perfectly by this fact: If SNESL could get accredited by raising tuition and adding students, why have they not done it already? Why would they forfeit their assets to UMass in return for ZERO? Because they cannot do it. SNESL could sell its buildings, assets and cash for something, but the law school is worthless. No one creates a private law school in the hope the state will take it over some day. If SNESL could be accredited on the terms UMass says they could be accredited on, there would be absolutely no need for this takeover.
Why does UMass want a law school? Prestige. Plain and simple. It also, coincidentally of course, gives them another school to stock full of patronage hires who are unqualified to teach at any current law school. Another layer of bureaucracy at a university full of bureaucracy, for the next generation of political hacks.
A very bad idea, the UMass Law School.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Bad Idea: A UMass Law School
The Boston Globe, doing the best it can to support UMass-Dartmouth's heist of Southern New England School of Law, has another article about UMass-Dartmouth's plan to turn a fourth rate college into a fourth rate college with a fifth rate law school.
Here, Southern New England School of Law is trying to say it really is not the horrible law school that the ABA purports it is. They found 18 alumni who were successful attorneys and would vouch for the school. SNESL states that they started a law review to show that their students are serious, but then states that the tuition is too low at SNESL for them to provide rigorous bar study curricula for the students and that in the last three years, 43% of SNESL bar takers passed, at a time where the average pass rate has been around 85%.
The big argument for the UMass Law School is that keeping the tuition low will allow attorneys into public service. The problem with this argument is that SNESL's current tuition is lower than the planned UMass Law School tuition. Currently the tuition at SNESL is $21,800. The planned UMass Law School tuition is about $24,000. If there really are students who want to go into public service, they can already attend SNESL or Mass School of Law and take the bar in Massachusetts or Connecticut.
SNESL could continue the mission it claims that UMass could only provide. SNESL could increase enrollment to pay for better teachers, better curricula and better facilities without giving itself away to UMass. All the plans for the UMass Law School could be accomplished by SNESL without sticking UMass with any of the mess. SNESL will not undertake this plan because it knows it will fail, and it hopes that by merging with UMass that UMass will finance the millions needed to save their unaccredited school.
When someone comes up with a good, legitimate reason for a UMass Law School, they'll be the first.
Here, Southern New England School of Law is trying to say it really is not the horrible law school that the ABA purports it is. They found 18 alumni who were successful attorneys and would vouch for the school. SNESL states that they started a law review to show that their students are serious, but then states that the tuition is too low at SNESL for them to provide rigorous bar study curricula for the students and that in the last three years, 43% of SNESL bar takers passed, at a time where the average pass rate has been around 85%.
The big argument for the UMass Law School is that keeping the tuition low will allow attorneys into public service. The problem with this argument is that SNESL's current tuition is lower than the planned UMass Law School tuition. Currently the tuition at SNESL is $21,800. The planned UMass Law School tuition is about $24,000. If there really are students who want to go into public service, they can already attend SNESL or Mass School of Law and take the bar in Massachusetts or Connecticut.
SNESL could continue the mission it claims that UMass could only provide. SNESL could increase enrollment to pay for better teachers, better curricula and better facilities without giving itself away to UMass. All the plans for the UMass Law School could be accomplished by SNESL without sticking UMass with any of the mess. SNESL will not undertake this plan because it knows it will fail, and it hopes that by merging with UMass that UMass will finance the millions needed to save their unaccredited school.
When someone comes up with a good, legitimate reason for a UMass Law School, they'll be the first.
Monday, October 19, 2009
More UMass Law School Madness
Today the Boston Globe has an article purportedly explaining the critics of a UMass law school. However, the article then speaks about how the new low priced UMass law school would help lawyers who wouldn't otherwise be able to pursue public interest law into public interest. A couple more points on why a UMass law school is a bad idea.
1. Despite the fact that Southern New England would "become" UMass law and despite the fact that it sounds like this would not really create a new law school, Massachusetts would in fact be creating a new law school through ABA accreditation. There are two tiers of law schools, ABA and non-ABA. The ABA ones count, the non-ABA ones do not. Right now, Southern NE grads can only take the bar exam in MA and CT. A UMass law school would seek ABA accreditation and would be in effect be adding a law school to the list of "real" law schools in Massachusetts.
2. A $24,000 tuition will drive ZERO more lawyers into public interest law. If UMass is serious about driving public interest students to its law school it should do what Cal-Irvine did, give free tuition to its entire opening class. $24,000 tuition means that after three years of tuition and expenses, a UMass graduate will likely have $80-100K in law school debt at graduation.
3. Assuming that these grads have undergrad debt, and UMass law students will be just in need of real jobs as every other law graduate in Massachusetts, and unless UMass law were to raise the millions of dollars needed to finance loan repayment, the only way UMass law accomplishes that is by using tax money. The UMass people are adamant that their plan won't cost public money, but there is no chance it won't. If not on loan repayment, on scholarships or capital contributions or anything to drive people to UMass.
4. Massachusetts already have law schools dedicated to public interest law. Harvard and Northeastern specially, but the other Massachusetts law schools already turn out hundreds of public interest lawyers every year. The restriction on the amount of public interest jobs out there has nothing to do with the number of lawyers, it has to do with the amount of money that public interest employers have. If the state really were interested in the number of public interest lawyers, they would put money in the budget for hiring public defenders, not take over a 5th rate law school.
5. Criticism of the UMass law school by legislators is not just because they went to private law schools supposedly "threatened" by a UMass law school. It is because it is a bad idea. In this economy, a new law school makes no sense, especially when the motivation behind it is as a profit center to UMass-Dartmouth. It will be selling false hope to prospective lawyers that a low debt load will be more help to them than internship opportunities and a thriving alumni community.
Obviously, these are but a few reasons for not adding a UMass law school, but these are clearly some of the most obvious.
1. Despite the fact that Southern New England would "become" UMass law and despite the fact that it sounds like this would not really create a new law school, Massachusetts would in fact be creating a new law school through ABA accreditation. There are two tiers of law schools, ABA and non-ABA. The ABA ones count, the non-ABA ones do not. Right now, Southern NE grads can only take the bar exam in MA and CT. A UMass law school would seek ABA accreditation and would be in effect be adding a law school to the list of "real" law schools in Massachusetts.
2. A $24,000 tuition will drive ZERO more lawyers into public interest law. If UMass is serious about driving public interest students to its law school it should do what Cal-Irvine did, give free tuition to its entire opening class. $24,000 tuition means that after three years of tuition and expenses, a UMass graduate will likely have $80-100K in law school debt at graduation.
3. Assuming that these grads have undergrad debt, and UMass law students will be just in need of real jobs as every other law graduate in Massachusetts, and unless UMass law were to raise the millions of dollars needed to finance loan repayment, the only way UMass law accomplishes that is by using tax money. The UMass people are adamant that their plan won't cost public money, but there is no chance it won't. If not on loan repayment, on scholarships or capital contributions or anything to drive people to UMass.
4. Massachusetts already have law schools dedicated to public interest law. Harvard and Northeastern specially, but the other Massachusetts law schools already turn out hundreds of public interest lawyers every year. The restriction on the amount of public interest jobs out there has nothing to do with the number of lawyers, it has to do with the amount of money that public interest employers have. If the state really were interested in the number of public interest lawyers, they would put money in the budget for hiring public defenders, not take over a 5th rate law school.
5. Criticism of the UMass law school by legislators is not just because they went to private law schools supposedly "threatened" by a UMass law school. It is because it is a bad idea. In this economy, a new law school makes no sense, especially when the motivation behind it is as a profit center to UMass-Dartmouth. It will be selling false hope to prospective lawyers that a low debt load will be more help to them than internship opportunities and a thriving alumni community.
Obviously, these are but a few reasons for not adding a UMass law school, but these are clearly some of the most obvious.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
No Public Massachusetts Law Schools
Tim Cahill is right, Massachusetts does not need a public law school. Sure, the idea of getting to go to law school without incurring that much more debt is appealing, but students to the proposed UMass law school would not be getting much for their dollar.
For one, Massachusetts should not be spending tens of millions of dollars to get the Southern New England School of Law up to snuff for ABA accreditation. UMass-Dartmouth says it won't be spending state money, only university money to get the law school improved, but university money comes from the state one way or another. Massachusetts does not need to spend the money because there are already a myriad of choices of law schools in Massachusetts, whether they are Harvard, Boston College, Suffolk, Western New England or the others. If a student can't spend the money for law school and does not care about ABA accreditation, Mass School of Law in Andover is an option to go to law school inexpensively without sacrificing the ability to take the bar exam in Massachusetts. For the first few years, the proposed law school would likely not be even provisionally accredited by the ABA, a status given to most new law schools like Drexel and Cal-Irvine that are likely to be accredited on the standard ABA timetable.
The UMass law school is not needed because there is no need for more lawyers than the current law schools provide. A UMass law school would be a patronage dump for legislator/attorneys who leave office. UMass claims that the $24,000 tuition would more than cover the cost of attendance, and would turn the law school into a profit center, which would create more patronage hires in UMass. If students have a legitimate financial need in attending law school, the current private law schools already have many aid packages available for qualified students, from need based grants to zero interest loans to loan repayment assistance. A UMass law school is likely to not offer any of these options. People who go to law school have many options to cut their tuition expenses down, and don't need to resort to going to a public law school.
The UMass law school will be in Dartmouth. This will put the students at a severe disadvantage. All other ABA accredited Massachusetts law schools are in major population centers, either Boston or Springfield, giving law students ample opportunity to supplement their education with internships and employment after the first year. A law school in Dartmouth will be too far from the Boston market and the Providence market to give the students any real chance to participate in meaningful clinics, clerkships and other externships. UMass law students will graduate with fewer skills than current law students because of this.
It is a huge red flag that the law school UMass wants to acquire, Southern New England School of Law, is willing to turn over all its assets to UMass, including its cash, for $0. This makes clear that the administration, the physical plant, the facilities and the people clearly are nowhere close to making the law school ABA ready, and it will cost much more than the tens of millions that UMass claims will take to get the school accredited. Accreditation will still make the law school the worst ABA law school in Massachusetts, and without replacing almost the entire faculty and facilities, will ensure that a UMass law school will be a symbol of mediocrity. A mediocre UMass law school would bring down the reputation of all other UMass schools, from UMass-Amherst to UMass Medical School.
As a UMass-Boston and Suffolk Law School graduate, a UMass law school will cause much more damage to the UMass name than challenge Suffolk Law for law students. A Suffolk Law school will thrive even if UMass creates a law school because of its location, faculty and huge alumni base located within Massachusetts. UMass-Boston will only be lumped in with another mediocre school and will be guilty of mediocrity by association with a UMass law school. A public law school in Massachusetts is a mistake for these, and many other, reasons.
For one, Massachusetts should not be spending tens of millions of dollars to get the Southern New England School of Law up to snuff for ABA accreditation. UMass-Dartmouth says it won't be spending state money, only university money to get the law school improved, but university money comes from the state one way or another. Massachusetts does not need to spend the money because there are already a myriad of choices of law schools in Massachusetts, whether they are Harvard, Boston College, Suffolk, Western New England or the others. If a student can't spend the money for law school and does not care about ABA accreditation, Mass School of Law in Andover is an option to go to law school inexpensively without sacrificing the ability to take the bar exam in Massachusetts. For the first few years, the proposed law school would likely not be even provisionally accredited by the ABA, a status given to most new law schools like Drexel and Cal-Irvine that are likely to be accredited on the standard ABA timetable.
The UMass law school is not needed because there is no need for more lawyers than the current law schools provide. A UMass law school would be a patronage dump for legislator/attorneys who leave office. UMass claims that the $24,000 tuition would more than cover the cost of attendance, and would turn the law school into a profit center, which would create more patronage hires in UMass. If students have a legitimate financial need in attending law school, the current private law schools already have many aid packages available for qualified students, from need based grants to zero interest loans to loan repayment assistance. A UMass law school is likely to not offer any of these options. People who go to law school have many options to cut their tuition expenses down, and don't need to resort to going to a public law school.
The UMass law school will be in Dartmouth. This will put the students at a severe disadvantage. All other ABA accredited Massachusetts law schools are in major population centers, either Boston or Springfield, giving law students ample opportunity to supplement their education with internships and employment after the first year. A law school in Dartmouth will be too far from the Boston market and the Providence market to give the students any real chance to participate in meaningful clinics, clerkships and other externships. UMass law students will graduate with fewer skills than current law students because of this.
It is a huge red flag that the law school UMass wants to acquire, Southern New England School of Law, is willing to turn over all its assets to UMass, including its cash, for $0. This makes clear that the administration, the physical plant, the facilities and the people clearly are nowhere close to making the law school ABA ready, and it will cost much more than the tens of millions that UMass claims will take to get the school accredited. Accreditation will still make the law school the worst ABA law school in Massachusetts, and without replacing almost the entire faculty and facilities, will ensure that a UMass law school will be a symbol of mediocrity. A mediocre UMass law school would bring down the reputation of all other UMass schools, from UMass-Amherst to UMass Medical School.
As a UMass-Boston and Suffolk Law School graduate, a UMass law school will cause much more damage to the UMass name than challenge Suffolk Law for law students. A Suffolk Law school will thrive even if UMass creates a law school because of its location, faculty and huge alumni base located within Massachusetts. UMass-Boston will only be lumped in with another mediocre school and will be guilty of mediocrity by association with a UMass law school. A public law school in Massachusetts is a mistake for these, and many other, reasons.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
