The fact that this school doesn’t get more private support is disturbing! Graduating from a prestigious law school opens up doors leading to productive careers in private and public sectors. Without more private financial support for the University of Minnesota Law School, the bragging rights to having such a prestigious law school in our State will be gone, and our best and brightest will seek opportunities elsewhere!

I also point out the stat because Anon #2 seems to assume that eliminating the state subsidy would create significant savings for the budget, while the real amount of state funding the U law school receives suggests otherwise.

I think you also raise a point worth noting regarding the “nationally ranked” tag. If the U were to shut down, I’m not sure the would-be applicants would automatically flow to the other three law schools.

Compare the difference in the LSAT scores and GPAs among the entering classes at each of the law schools. The difference is quite significant. It’s clear that the U’s ranking allows it to attract applicants that the other three law schools do not. I think having a nationally ranked school here helps the legal market. Without the U (or another school with a similar national ranking), I certainly would have attended law school outside of the state and may not have wound up here to practice, given the provincial nature of the legal hiring.

But how do we fix the problem? State schools generally have an easier time of it because they can rely on government subsidies. But even then, tuition at the U of M has gone up dramatically since I was applying to law school and it shows no sign of slowing down. The private institutions are even worse, as students inevitably bear the majority of operating costs.

I honestly don’t see how the trend in higher costs can be reversed. Law schools need to attract the “best” professors, so salaries are heavily incentivized. Law schools need to attract the “best” students, so higher and higher amounts available for scholarships become imperative, and negative shifting occurs toward the non-scholarship students. And what about something so simple as heating and cooling the campus, or the massive electrical bill? All these factors point toward a steady and expensive climb.

Perhaps it’s just the market at work. Hypothetically speaking, if a law school charging $30,000 tuition were to suddenly and permanently reduce that number by half, I’d bet good money that it would close within a few years, barring significant intervention from government or private donors. Regardless, I wouldn’t want to sit in on those budget meetings.