Über-toilet update: Valpo not moving, apparently closing; Thomas Jefferson not admitting students

VALPO STAYING PUT, APPARENTLY CLOSING

The über-toilet law school of Valparaiso University, which oddly uses the hideous nickname Valpo, will not be moving to Middle Tennessee State University after all. The Tennessee Higher Education Commission voted 8–5 against the proposal to absorb Valpo.

The commission relied on a feasibility study that, in sharp contrast to the one that justified the creation of defunct über-toilet Indiana Tech, found that the acquisition of Valpo would harm Tennessee's many other law schools and the law students as well, without fostering access to justice. In addition, the study reported that Valpo has a poor reputation and that the acquisition would cost a great deal of money that Tennessee could ill afford.

Hackademic scamsters predictably denounced the decision.

So what becomes of Valpo? Apparently it is being closed down. The Web site refers over and over again to a commitment to keep the school open for "current students". New students are not being accepted, and indeed the information about admissions has all been removed. Spokeswoman Nicole Niemi has just said that Valpo "will continue to provide the opportunity for all currently enrolled students at Valparaiso University Law School to complete their legal education through Valparaiso University Law School in a timely manner". This language suggests an intention to shut up shop once the currently enrolled students are gone.

If Valpo is indeed closing, it is doing so a damn sight more responsibly than many other toilet law schools. Charlotte, for instance, simply locked everyone out, without so much as an announcement until it had ceased operations. Arizona Summit recently cancelled all classes less than two weeks before the start of the academic year. Valpo at least deserves recognition for doing more or less the right thing.

THOMAS JEFFERSON NOT ADMITTING STUDENTS IN SPRING 2019

Despite its usual practice of admitting students in the fall and spring, über-toilet Thomas Jefferson has decided not to admit students for the coming spring semester. According to interim scam-dean Linda Keller, "[t]he law school is committed to providing the best environment for our students. We’ve decided to forego [sic] the revenue that a spring entering class would provide because a proportionally smaller spring entering class might not provide the vibrant, collaborative atmosphere for our new students that is an essential part of the first-year law student experience."

Note that the decision is explained first and foremost in terms of "revenue". So much for the typical pretense of selfless devotion to the profession and the public; what matters is money, and this scamster doesn't even have the taste to shut her tacky-ass mouth on that subject.

Thomas Jefferson would not forgo revenue lightly. It is deep in debt. Recently it had to leave the lavish building that it had built just a few years ago; now it operates out of shabby rented offices that reportedly are altogether unfit for the classrooms, library, and other facilities that it needs. On top of that, it is under probation from the ABA and has recently applied for alternative accreditation from the state of California in case the ABA gives it the boot. I suspect that Thomas Jefferson canceled its admissions for the spring because it would not have had the money, even with that precious "revenue", to support another entering class.

The Truth Rears Its Ugly Head, Again

 

Um, guys...these tuition, student and employment statistics don't measure up, at all...

 

 

 

Thanks to commentators on this blog, an interesting study concerning changes to the Legal Academy has been brought to our attention.  Per the Faculty Lounge:

 

From 2010-11 through 2016-17, the number of unique applicants to accredited law schools fell 36%...[t]he conventional metrics by which most admissions decisions are made – [LSAT and GPA] – declined even more, as more highly credentialed applicants disproportionately stayed away...

 

But the effects on the academy have been profound, and far more widespread than many realize.  By 2016-17, the average accredited American law school had an entering class that was nearly one-third smaller and had a median LSAT score seven percentiles lower than in 2010-11.  And while Base Tuition (a school’s published “sticker price”) had risen 15% on average over that period, the average tuition discount per student had doubled, causing the average net tuition paid per student to fall over 6% in constant dollars. 

 

The authors of this study blame contraction in the legal job market due to the Great Recession as the cause for Law School Cartel woes.  While that is no doubt true and a highly-pronounced effect in and of itself, the history of commentary on this and other blogs would demonstrate that the situation was unraveling for decades.  Not unlike the housing market marching along, getting progressively riskier, operating on less and less reliable information, until the bottom abruptly dropped out.  The rise of the internet and greater transparency also certainly got the word out, a word that had only been whispered in select circles heretofore and only mentioned in occasional press publications.  While the academy derision of scamblogs was certainly high at first, it has certainly quieted down as the evidence continues to mount.  It sucks when the truth comes out, I guess.

Of particular note is a subset of (imperfectly formatted - Ed.) published figures, where law schools are subdivided into three broad “reputation” categories:

 

Metric	Reputation Group	2010-11	2016-17	Change
Base Tuition**	Stronger	49,225	56,595	+15%
	Middle	41,400	45,492	+10%
	Weaker	35,580	39,817	+12%
Avg. Net Tuition**	Stronger	39,787	37,772	-5%
	Middle	34,252	28,914	-16%
	Weaker	30,974	29,231	-6%
Avg. Discount**	Stronger	9,438	18,823	+99%
	Middle	7,148	16,577	+132%
	Weaker	4,606	10,585	+130%
Tuition Revenue (millions)**	Stronger	1,349 (2011)	1,129	-16% = -$  5.9 million annually/school
	Middle	970 (2011)	554	-43% = -$11.6 million annually/school
	Weaker	958 (2011)	507	-47% = -$12.2 million annually/school

** 2018 Dollars

 

More below the fold -

 

Cooley scamster Thomas Brennan dead at 88

Thomas Brennan, the founder of the odious über-toilet Western Michigan University Cooley Law School (until recent years known as Thomas M. Cooley Law School), died on September 29, 2018, at age 88.

We have discussed Brennan many times. Most recently we revealed that he was being paid nearly a third of a million dollars a year for working five hours per week, some 16 years after resigning as dean. In the same article, we quoted his recent celebration of minstrelsy (good clean "fun", according to him) and his vituperation against Islam and same-sex marriage.

Cooley, of course, is the very poster child of über-toiletry. As long as I can remember, Cooley has had the lowest LSAT scores of any ABA-accredited law school (other than two of the three in Puerto Rico, which probably get a pass because most of their students take the test in a foreign language). It is often called the worst law school in the US. Yet it charges more than $51k per year to its 1000+ students, of whom half get no discount and most of the rest only a small discount.

Let's hope that there is a special place in Hell for the scamster who created this godawful über-toilet and milked it for decades like a feudal baron.

LSAC Updates its Data Reporting Methods in Honor of 2018 Applicant Increase

A brief-update:  long-time readers of this blog know that I have poked fun at LSAC and their difficult-to-compare data reporting methods for some time now.  Varying start dates, compressed eyestrain-o-vision scaling methods, x-axes that are not uniform, changing how students are counted, strong indications of miscalculated year-to-year comparisons...all have come into play one way or another.  I won't go through it all again, but suffice it to say it has been a problem.

 

Why does it matter?  For the same reasons the SEC requires accurate data for trading - (some) people (at least) attempt to make informed-decisions based on the data at hand, and accurate market valuation is key to that process, or so I'm told.  It does no good to chide people for not "doing their research" when the available information is slanted, or at worst, faulty.  Scamdeans and Judges alike may blame "sophisticated consumers" for having the temerity to believe the false-statistics generated by the Cartel, as blaming the victim is easier than instituting real reform.  Law School Transparency did not arise in a vacuum, nor did the troubles of Whittier, TJLS, Valpo, Indiana Tech, the Infilaw schools, Cooley, and others.

 

In that vein, I do have to commend LSAC for the new data presentation and ability to even run reports over more than a three year time span.  This information is clear to the eye and denominated in a way everyone can follow.

 

 

 

Call me cynical, though, but this change strangely comes about after several years of declining applications as have been previously documented.  Now that the Cartel has finally had an upswing year in several past years, look at all this new, easy to read information!  Clearly, the conclusion is "everything has recovered!" and "buy now!"

 

But that's the law school "market" for you.  As we all know, caveat emptor, 0Ls...

Charlotte SOL Taps its CGL Policy to Pay-Off Students

In an interesting stroke of "justice," it appears that Charlotte School of Law is reaching a settlement with its former students:

 

The school and student plaintiffs on Tuesday asked a federal judge in North Carolina to preliminarily approve the class and the settlement, saying it was the best deal the students could hope to achieve given the dire financial circumstances of the shuttered school and its parent company, InfiLaw Corp. Judge Graham Mullen of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina granted preliminary approval Wednesday.

 

Should it move forward, the class-action settlement would end four federal suits and 90 state court suits targeting the school.

Charlotte School of Law ran a net $8 million deficit in 2017, the year it closed, according to the settlement motion. InfiLaw lost more than $7 million in 2017 and $6 million through June 2018, the motion said. The settlement consists of the $2.5 million left from the school’s insurance policy, as well as an additional $150,000 directly from InfiLaw.

 

As it should be.  Anyone who honestly thought InfiLaw and its affiliated schools were anything but a cynical cash grab should have their heads and consciences examined.  This is at least a pyrrhic victory for these students, compared to prior suits against schools where the student plaintiffs were essentially told they were "sophisticated consumers" and "should have known" the Law School Cartel was peddling pipe dreams.  Better to settle rather than have "bad law" on the books showing that the student-loan conduits might have an actual case, at least from the Cartel perspective.

 

This from the school that blamed its own students and told them that "It is on with these f***ing morther****ers" to pass the bar, dammit, while the dean continued to obfuscate and misdirect.  These paragons of legal virtue certainly deserve what they have coming.

 

Hopefully these payments, while not making students whole by any means, doesn't interfere with getting a student loan discharge from the DOL given that the school is closing.  Make sure you read the fine print, and run away now.  Go pursue something that is actually worth your time and effort. 

 

 

Just what we need: more Cooley

The boot-licking, apple-polishing, brown-nosing ABA has authorized Cooley to open another campus—this one in Kalamazoo. So-called students will be able to complete as much as two-thirds of a law degree and finish up at one of the Cooley outlets in Auburn Hills, Grand Rapids, or Lansing, Michigan, or even the one in Tampa, Florida.

The ABA had held up its rubber stamp of approval until it was satisfied that Cooley complied with the "standards" for admission. Lo and behold! the poster child of über-toiletry was found compliant six months ago. At least three-quarters of last year's entering class scored in the bottom 30% on the LSAT, and at least a quarter was in the bottom 11%. Such are the "standards" of the ABA.

The Cooley chain of über-toilets shut a campus down several years ago but now feels emboldened to open another, albeit one that can offer only 2/3 of the credits needed for a degree. Perhaps the opening of another branch is just the desperate act of a dying franchise, but I suspect that it manifests the reinvigoration of the law-school scam. The number of applications to law schools has been increasing even as six law schools have closed or are in the process of closing. Let me repeat what I have said for years: people who apply to law schools today, especially schools of the Cooley variety, get no sympathy from me. I don't want to hear complaints about $350k in student loans for a worthless degree, such as the one brought by a former student of now-defunct the Charlotte School of Law in a suit against the ABA. Literature exposing the law-school scam abounds. Don't come crying to Old Guy if your stupid decision to enroll in La Toilette predictably proves disastrous.

In other news, InfiLaw über-toilet Florida Coastal has lost its appeal from the ABA's finding that it did not comply with certain "standards" respecting admission and instruction. Will the ABA proceed to revoke the accreditation of InfiLaw's last über-toilet, or will it give Florida Coastal the Cooley treatment by affirming compliance with the "standards"?

Students leave Arizona Summit … for North Dakota

In my previous article, I wondered what would become of the students of Arizona Summit after their über-toilet law school, just days before the expected start of the semester, announced that it would not be offering classes after all. Now we have the unexpected answer: some 25 students from Arizona Summit have transferred to—wait for it—the University of North Dakota.

"One transfer, Morgan Cosgrove, first interacted with UND’s law school earlier last year at a conference in Los Angeles. Cosgrove said thousands of students at the conference were lined up to talk to schools like Georgetown and other big law schools. But she started chatting with Rob Carolin, director of public relations at UND’s law school…" Here's a hint, Ms. Cosgrove: you weren't going to Georgetown, even in your dreams. And there's a reason for which you were able to speak with the head of public relations (!) at the U of North Dakota without waiting behind thousands of other students.

Ryan Rehberg got out a year ago, while the going was good. He is happy with the "helpful and accomodating [sic]" people of his new alma mater: "[t]hey cared about the whole person, making sure I was set up good". (Apparently they haven't taken pains over his grammar.) Mr. Rehberg has returned the favor by promoting the U of North Dakota to his former classmates. Since he seems to have helped to persuade twenty-five of them to quit the scorching desert for the snowy prairies, perhaps he should take over for Mr. Carolin as director of public relations.

At the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles, the U of North Dakota and Arizona summit have exactly the same LSAT scores, though the U of North Dakota is ahead by about half a grade point on undergraduate GPAs. Transfer students' numbers don't count for the purposes of the idiotic rankings produced by You Ass News & World Report, however, so the gleaming legal academy of the Peace Garden State could safely admit anyone with the means to pay. As for payment, it's about $27,500 per year for non-residents (presumably these transfer students all fall into that category), which is admittedly a lot less than the $45,300 charged by the Arizona scum pit. Unsurprisingly, moving from Phoenix to Grand Forks will also reduce the cost of living.

This infusion of transfer students increases the student body at the U of North Dakota by more than 10% and adds nearly two-thirds of a million to the coffers. How did the U of North Dakota pull this feat off? First, by being "nice", as Ms. Cosgrove eloquently put it. Second, by accepting all credits from Arizona Summit. Many law schools accept no more than 45 credits, or even only the first year (understandably, since traditionally people transferred after one year at most); but the U of North Dakota was only too happy to take their mon—I mean, their credits. But the established students may not welcome a large cohort of Summitoids who are likely to keep to their group, compare their new environment unfavorably to their old one, and bitch about the weather or the distance to the nearest major city.

By contrast, Arizona Summit has now lost about a quarter of its student body to the U of North Dakota alone. Other students have transferred to Florida Coastal, and a few with only one semester to go are finishing at Arizona State (though their degrees will still say Arizona Summit). And who's to say how many were snapped up by Harvard and Yale? Now that so many have taken to the hills, will anyone be left to turn off the lights?

Some long-standing residents of North Dakota, or maybe of a nearby state, manage to parlay a law degree from the U of North Dakota into a modest, low-paying job in some small firm or government office. Those freshly arrived from Arizona, however, cannot expect local employers to swoon over people who had obviously arrived in North Dakota only out of desperation. And a law degree from the U of North Dakota will be almost useless in Arizona or elsewhere; indeed, the very name of the school will move many people to laughter.