As of 11/24/17, there are 81,877 applications submitted by 15,083 applicants for the 2018–2019 academic year. Applicants are up 14.2% and applications are up 17.1% from 2017–2018.
Strangely enough, there appears to be at least two data points on the graph, not one. Comparing the new data to the older data I have been recording as LSAC publishes it, this time last year the first data point was 14,892 applicants, so I show an increase this year of 1.24%, not 14.2%. Maybe they are representing a point with a small line, but this would indicate another data point we are not privy to, regardless.
Another small anomaly - for the past four years by my reckoning, LSAC always produces their first data point from "Week 48" of the calendar year. This year, they produced it from "Week 47", which leads me to believe there is another data point out there. "Who cares?" one may ask, but in the past it has been notoriously difficult to line up yearly data in an apples-to-apples fashion, so I personally believe that the 14.2% increase has to be taken with a grain of salt. Perhaps it's correct, perhaps not.
In any event, expect the Diamonds and Simkovics of the world to declare Mission Accomplished, Problem Solved in the legal education arena. What more evidence do you need, other than more dupes flooding through the doors? Although, I do want to make special mention of Matt Leichter's analysis (who is already on our blogroll) - back in 2012-2013, when the Cartel was declaring that by 2016 "things would be different," it appears it is yet still more of the same on the job front.
Happy Days are most decidedly not here again, but now that a handful of law schools have decided to call it quits, everyone must think all of the slack is out of the market. Time will tell.
The legal jobs that were wiped out by automation and other workers will not return. And there is not an uptick in the use and need for lawyers among the middle and upper classes, i.e. those who can afford to pay for legal services. Yet, the cockroaches at several ABA-accredited cesspits are now making it easier to get into law school - in a cynical move to get more asses in seats. Tuition is at idiotic levels, but now more commodes are accepting the GRE as an alternative entry test. This is irresponsible, shameful, and shows that the swine truly have no integrity or concern for the students they screw over each year. To the law schools, these young men and women are mere marks.
ReplyDeleteOh my God! The Trump Bump is real!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-lsat-registration-up-trump-bump-20171116-story.html
“People against Trump are saying, ‘I want to be the judge that stood up to him.’ People for Trump are saying, ‘I could’ve won that case for him’,” said Kellye Testy, president and CEO of the Law School Admission Council, which administers the LSAT. “Young people were saying, ‘Wow, the lawyers are really stepping up to talk back to power and help guard the rule of law and democracy.’ The positive role of a lawyer was made visible in a way that it’s often not.”
DeleteThis is where people get scammed. Yes, it's sexy to think "I'll be arguing before the Supreme Court!" They reality is that so, so, so few lawyers do that kind of policy-making work, especially via the judiciary. And the Kellye Testys of the world smile and nod while thousands of students sign up for debt-serfdom to pursue these pipe dreams.
Scamsters like Testy sell monstrously expensive fantasies to gullible 0Ls who think that a bullshit degree from Cooley, or even a respectable degree from Harvard, will get them to the Supreme Court. Funny, those scamsters never talk about the tens of thousands of graduates every year who cannot find work of any kind in law—but are saddled with a quarter of a million dollars in debt for law school.
Deletehttp://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-lsat-registration-up-trump-bump-20171116-story.html
Deletejesus fucking christ. i should expect nothing more. just like the pre-2007 lending bubble, borrowers gonna borrow. lemmings gonna lemming.
Trump will be giddy watching the law-school-bound social justice set condemn themselves to a lifetime of debt-repayment slavery. Sad!
DeleteSave the dolphins from Trump! Apply today!
Delete***No one in the world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the plain people [e.g., the American public]****.
ReplyDeleteI just read this.
ReplyDelete"The American Bar Association (ABA) has urged lawmakers to preserve the student loan interest deduction. 'Of particular interest to the American Bar Association is the powerful financial disincentive for law students to enter the important function of public service in our society. The deduction of interest on law school loans helps recent graduates to accept lower-paying, public-service jobs that they might not otherwise be able to afford,' the ABA told lawmakers on November 28.
HAHAHAHA. There are almost none of these jobs, and recent grads are fighting tooth and nail over the few that exist.
How out of touch is the ABA?
To protect the (un)sophisticated consumers of legal education, the ABA should be campaigning against the Grad Plus loans and against all of the federal subsidies, both direct and indirect.
Plus, if people "really cared," the student loan deduction would be capped at a higher value than $2,500.00, with more taxpayer-friendly phase-outs.
DeleteAs it stands, $2,500 is paltry anyway given the debt burdens most law students (and med students, and mba students, and phds, etc.) have. Money is money, of course, and I will miss the deduction if tax reform goes through, but I won't miss it that much, either. The deduction always felt like tossing pennies to beggars, not a real acknowledgement of the financial investment students have made in their educations. The fact that the ABA is all of a sudden "concerned" as of November 28 is laughable, and goes to the heart of what the Cartel actually wants - moar student loan conduits.
Rewrite it as follows:
DeleteOf particular interest to the American Barf A$$ociation is the viability of the law-school scam, which depends on free and easy access to federally guaranteed student loans in amounts arbitrarily set by the law skules. The deduction of interest on law-school loans helps scam schools to entice ignorant or foolish 0Ls into accepting obscenely high fees that they otherwise would not be able to afford.
Rich people with an expensive house can transfer ordinary debts (from credit cards or other sources) into loans against equity in the house and deduct the interest. Poor slobs who borrow money in order to get a degree get at most a limited deduction, even though the degree is intended to increase their earned income. And guess whose deduction may be withdrawn.
DeleteBy the way, Old Guy never got to deduct a single penny's worth of interest on student loans, as there was no such deduction in his day. Cherchez l'erreur.
dupednontraditional is spot on. The $2500 deduction is at most worth about $625 to a taxpayer due to the low phaseout amounts and small maximum deduction amount. That's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but hardly something that will even dent a pile of student debt in the tens or hundreds of thousands with bearing a 6% interest rate.
DeleteAnd married couples only get one, so it actively discriminates against households with two student debtors.
DeleteYou know, the ones that actually need the tax break the most.
Wait until word gets out that PLSF is getting eliminated.
ReplyDeleteNo more taking a low-wage public-interest job to get your student loans forgiven.
Why the dramatic increase in applicants/applications? The information is out there about what a terrible gamble law school is; I just don't get it.
ReplyDeleteSome say it's the "Trump effect," although I'm thinking that may be a bit exaggerated.
DeleteMore likely it's the GRE effect, combined with the fact that top 50 law schools have been accepting lower LSAT scores in recent years.
I don't trust any "information" released by LSAC, the ABA, or individual law schools. Why analyze lies? It's a waste of time.
DeleteBecause, 9:20, the ugly truth has to be at least as bad as the information from the scamsters suggests. The scamsters may well be understating their shabbiness, but they certainly aren't exaggerating it. Thus when a toilet school admits to, say, 40% unemployment, we know that the real figure may be 50% but certainly won't be 30% or 20% (which still would be appalling enough).
Delete