U. of Baltimore Will Let Law School Retain More of Its Revenue

October 14, 2011, 10:19 am

Two and a half months after the popular law dean of the University of Baltimore was forced to resign in a dispute over how much of the school’s revenues were being diverted to other parts of the institution, the university has agreed to increase the law school’s budget by $5-million over the next five years, Baltimore’s Sun newspaper reports. The extra money will add about 5 percent per year to the law school’s budget, according to Robert L. Bogomolny, the university’s president. The law school will be able to retain more of the revenue it generates, and the additional money will come from fund raising and possible tuition increases, the president says.

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Unemployed_Northeastern

A few extra points to be made:

- law schools are extremely profitable, as far as academic programs go. Maybe not as profitable as study-abroad programs where students pay their home university $50,000 to study for the year at a $5000/year university in Italy or Australia, but very profitable nonetheless.

- Because law is still, somehow, viewed as a prestigious, well-paying career, there is no shortage of applicants willing to borrow staggering sums of money to attend, despite ever-increasing evidence that a majority of recent law grads can’t find legal jobs at ANY salary level, and are often disqualified for other jobs because of their law degree. DOL released a study about a month ago which concluded that the legal profession is the most difficult field in the country to break into at the moment.

- I haven’t seen a list of “most expensive law schools” in quite some time, but I do know that Northwestern Law School is charging something along the lines of $78,000 next year for tuition + living expenses. Multiply by three years, add bar expenses and even minimal undergrad debt, and you’re looking at around $300,000 in student loans. One can find any number of attorney jobs on Craigs List Chicago offering less than $30,000/year.

- Many, perhaps most law schools have to give some of the tuition to their parent university. Understandably, universities get very cagey when asked about such practices, but most commentators on the subject feel that 20-25% or more of law school tuition leaves the law school in favor of building new undergrad dorms or underwriting the medical or engineering school or something. At U of Baltimore, the dean postulated in his resignation letter that the university was taking 45% of law school tuition.

Given the above, does this seem horribly unethical to anyone else?