Whittier Law School announced it will no longer enroll 1L classes but will graduate the students it has. It is the first fully accredited law school that is straight up closing, i.e. it isn’t merging with another school or finding some other way out of its problems. It’s going for good.
Whittier is not the school I would’ve predicted to be the first to close. Certainly it was in a high-risk category, but I thought others were in direr straits, and Whittier isn’t even freestanding. Charlotte lost its federal loan funding. The ABA censured Valparaiso (pdf), put Arizona Summit on probation (pdf), and told Ave Maria it was out of compliance with its standards (pdf). La Verne lost its provisional accreditation once, and the fates of (un)merged Camden and Penn-State Dickinson appear sealed. Indiana Tech immolated on the launch pad. These days the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar’s Web site looks more like an academic police blotter than an accrediting body’s homepage.
The question all this raises is: What law schools might be in situations similar to Whittier’s?
We can answer by comparing Whittier to other law schools on various dimensions, particularly debt, employment outcomes, and estimated revenue from full-time students paying full tuition. (Others have already done most of the work on bar-passage rates.)
This past year, U.S. News ranked Whittier as number two for average disbursed graduate debt, $179,056, but its figure was 20 percent higher than last year. It’s a volatile measure, but this year some of its notable nearest neighbors were Thomas Jefferson, San Francisco, American, Golden Gate, John Marshall (Chicago), and Florida Coastal. Most of these law schools featured prominently on debt rankings in previous years.
A couple years ago, I applied the Department of Education’s “gainful employment” rule to all law schools—not just for-profits—and found that Whittier’s 2014 graduates would need to earn more than $80,000 to avoid a failing grade. Four years of failing would mean losing access to federal funding, and nearly a quarter of Whittier’s graduates were totally unemployed after graduating. That figure hasn’t improved since (~23 percent for class of 2015 grads). We’ll soon learn how bad the class of 2016 is doing, but Whittier’s full-time, long-term, bar-passage-required employment rate has been so abysmal that it ranks near the three law schools in Puerto Rico. (Yes, bar-passage rates feed into this outcome.)
The one metric where Whittier wasn’t doing as badly as many other (private) law schools was its cumulative losses in tuition revenue from full-time students. In 2015-16, it took in nearly $6 million, but in 2011-12 it received $13.5 million. The 56 percent drop puts it at number 64 among private law schools (though the top schools, Vermont, Brooklyn, WMU Cooley, and California Western, reported more students receiving grants than they had full-time students, which would probably bump Whittier up a few notches). 56 percent is rough, but a bunch of private law schools lost even larger shares of money—and some took in only a few hundred thousand dollars in full-time tuition revenue last year.
Here’s what the situation looks like for all private law schools, sorted by the percent decline. Note that for once, I am including the two private law schools in Puerto Rico because I feel their performance is indicative of the worst. These figures are adjusted for inflation.
| REVENUE FROM FULL-TIME STUDENTS PAYING FULL-TUITION | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | SCHOOL | 2011 | 2015 | CUMULATIVE LOSS | PERCENT CHANGE |
| 1. | Vermont | 10,860,119 | -5,422,079 | -16,282,198 | -149.9% |
| 2. | Brooklyn | 10,782,779 | -3,509,376 | -14,292,155 | -132.5% |
| 3. | WMU Cooley | 1,557,772 | -478,900 | -2,036,672 | -130.7% |
| 4. | California Western | 25,045,967 | -897,940 | -25,943,907 | -103.6% |
| 5. | St. Thomas (MN) | 5,743,284 | 37,941 | -5,705,343 | -99.3% |
| 6. | Appalachian | 9,093,131 | 125,300 | -8,967,831 | -98.6% |
| 7. | Washington and Lee | 6,903,362 | 185,988 | -6,717,374 | -97.3% |
| 8. | Tulsa | 4,599,211 | 142,116 | -4,457,095 | -96.9% |
| 9. | DePaul | 14,469,813 | 681,750 | -13,788,063 | -95.3% |
| 10. | Albany | 19,114,661 | 1,952,910 | -17,161,751 | -89.8% |
| 11. | Widener (Commonwealth) | 9,036,506 | 965,862 | -8,070,644 | -89.3% |
| 12. | New York Law School | 41,803,974 | 4,530,080 | -37,273,894 | -89.2% |
| 13. | Northeastern | 4,283,568 | 511,720 | -3,771,848 | -88.1% |
| 14. | Syracuse | 8,186,463 | 1,132,272 | -7,054,191 | -86.2% |
| 15. | Florida Coastal | 33,851,726 | 4,908,200 | -28,943,526 | -85.5% |
| 16. | Duquesne | 12,035,146 | 1,749,704 | -10,285,442 | -85.5% |
| 17. | Ohio Northern | 8,637,468 | 1,301,500 | -7,335,968 | -84.9% |
| 18. | Pacific, McGeorge | 11,571,986 | 1,786,138 | -9,785,848 | -84.6% |
| 19. | Campbell | 15,454,205 | 2,407,975 | -13,046,230 | -84.4% |
| 20. | Regent | 2,904,848 | 453,570 | -2,451,278 | -84.4% |
| 21. | Mercer | 15,437,642 | 2,719,980 | -12,717,662 | -82.4% |
| 22. | Lewis and Clark | 8,873,433 | 1,611,792 | -7,261,641 | -81.8% |
| 23. | Case Western Reserve | 8,801,033 | 1,705,620 | -7,095,413 | -80.6% |
| 24. | St. Louis | 18,241,963 | 3,605,940 | -14,636,023 | -80.2% |
| 25. | Southern California | 15,531,071 | 3,075,166 | -12,455,905 | -80.2% |
| 26. | Charleston | 10,513,451 | 2,206,380 | -8,307,071 | -79.0% |
| 27. | Faulkner | 7,911,732 | 1,822,600 | -6,089,132 | -77.0% |
| 28. | Seton Hall | 13,687,741 | 3,163,116 | -10,524,625 | -76.9% |
| 29. | Southern Methodist | 6,211,571 | 1,448,898 | -4,762,673 | -76.7% |
| 30. | Charlotte | 35,712,406 | 8,517,688 | -27,194,718 | -76.1% |
| 31. | Catholic | 10,588,407 | 2,528,010 | -8,060,397 | -76.1% |
| 32. | Dayton | 8,333,640 | 1,997,240 | -6,336,400 | -76.0% |
| 33. | Wake Forest | 7,890,988 | 1,923,210 | -5,967,778 | -75.6% |
| 34. | Ave Maria | 9,074,461 | 2,293,830 | -6,780,631 | -74.7% |
| 35. | Widener (Delaware) | 15,458,193 | 3,989,430 | -11,468,763 | -74.2% |
| 36. | Western State | 5,821,292 | 1,517,250 | -4,304,042 | -73.9% |
| 37. | Loyola (LA) | 15,784,287 | 4,123,950 | -11,660,337 | -73.9% |
| 38. | Touro | 11,489,969 | 3,078,650 | -8,411,319 | -73.2% |
| 39. | Quinnipiac | 4,800,111 | 1,297,323 | -3,502,788 | -73.0% |
| 40. | Boston University | 9,809,602 | 2,762,480 | -7,047,122 | -71.8% |
| 41. | Gonzaga | 4,965,149 | 1,423,890 | -3,541,259 | -71.3% |
| 42. | Golden Gate | 14,318,443 | 4,263,350 | -10,055,093 | -70.2% |
| 43. | Chicago-Kent, IIT | 12,104,788 | 3,979,870 | -8,124,918 | -67.1% |
| 44. | Pace | 11,888,268 | 3,993,088 | -7,895,180 | -66.4% |
| 45. | Atlanta’s John Marshall | 16,084,711 | 5,613,700 | -10,471,011 | -65.1% |
| 46. | Mississippi College | 12,823,594 | 4,506,420 | -8,317,174 | -64.9% |
| 47. | Washington University | 11,705,942 | 4,181,706 | -7,524,236 | -64.3% |
| 48. | Stetson | 22,598,743 | 8,212,224 | -14,386,519 | -63.7% |
| 49. | Valparaiso | 15,710,039 | 5,732,824 | -9,977,215 | -63.5% |
| 50. | Northwestern | 28,591,723 | 10,570,038 | -18,021,685 | -63.0% |
| 51. | Fordham | 38,473,640 | 14,340,740 | -24,132,900 | -62.7% |
| 52. | Oklahoma City | 10,178,065 | 3,810,630 | -6,367,435 | -62.6% |
| 53. | Elon | 3,280,392 | 1,233,358 | -2,047,034 | -62.4% |
| 54. | Capital | 7,447,505 | 2,820,480 | -4,627,025 | -62.1% |
| 55. | Cardozo, Yeshiva | 21,942,175 | 8,838,095 | -13,104,080 | -59.7% |
| 56. | John Marshall (Chicago) | 25,576,716 | 10,437,840 | -15,138,876 | -59.2% |
| 57. | Villanova | 13,909,852 | 5,785,440 | -8,124,412 | -58.4% |
| 58. | Thomas Jefferson | 17,301,310 | 7,207,200 | -10,094,110 | -58.3% |
| 59. | Samford | 11,286,294 | 4,822,480 | -6,463,814 | -57.3% |
| 60. | Santa Clara | 16,091,642 | 6,913,980 | -9,177,662 | -57.0% |
| 61. | San Diego | 19,178,183 | 8,350,101 | -10,828,082 | -56.5% |
| 62. | Roger Williams | 12,099,840 | 5,362,380 | -6,737,460 | -55.7% |
| 63. | St. John’s | 18,866,076 | 8,366,530 | -10,499,546 | -55.7% |
| 64. | Whittier | 13,502,174 | 5,989,950 | -7,512,224 | -55.6% |
| 65. | Seattle | 15,747,526 | 7,248,700 | -8,498,826 | -54.0% |
| 66. | Creighton | 7,850,075 | 3,625,800 | -4,224,275 | -53.8% |
| 67. | Hofstra | 23,812,510 | 11,012,750 | -12,799,760 | -53.8% |
| 68. | Drexel | 2,205,873 | 1,056,750 | -1,149,123 | -52.1% |
| 69. | Drake | 6,852,106 | 3,342,476 | -3,509,630 | -51.2% |
| 70. | Vanderbilt | 5,452,630 | 2,670,720 | -2,781,910 | -51.0% |
| 71. | Loyola (CA) | 29,845,203 | 14,914,900 | -14,930,303 | -50.0% |
| 72. | Detroit Mercy | 15,782,962 | 7,903,740 | -7,879,222 | -49.9% |
| 73. | Michigan State | 12,439,389 | 6,453,892 | -5,985,497 | -48.1% |
| 74. | Tulane | 13,779,350 | 7,311,590 | -6,467,760 | -46.9% |
| 75. | Barry | 6,669,908 | 3,727,776 | -2,942,132 | -44.1% |
| 76. | Chicago | 12,401,406 | 7,083,930 | -5,317,476 | -42.9% |
| 77. | Arizona Summit [Phoenix] | 12,828,297 | 7,562,152 | -5,266,145 | -41.1% |
| 78. | St. Thomas (FL) | 16,799,445 | 9,990,390 | -6,809,055 | -40.5% |
| 79. | South Texas | 17,958,443 | 10,704,870 | -7,253,573 | -40.4% |
| 80. | Pontifical Catholic | 8,442,917 | 5,132,426 | -3,310,491 | -39.2% |
| 81. | Nova Southeastern | 24,168,295 | 14,852,135 | -9,316,160 | -38.5% |
| 82. | Marquette | 11,533,718 | 7,312,710 | -4,221,008 | -36.6% |
| 83. | Miami | 34,008,712 | 21,832,718 | -12,175,994 | -35.8% |
| 84. | San Francisco | 15,483,541 | 10,028,040 | -5,455,501 | -35.2% |
| 85. | Western New England | 3,630,743 | 2,375,332 | -1,255,411 | -34.6% |
| 86. | Chapman | 13,208,102 | 8,859,600 | -4,348,502 | -32.9% |
| 87. | New England | 12,668,264 | 8,665,140 | -4,003,124 | -31.6% |
| 88. | Suffolk | 27,272,730 | 18,739,094 | -8,533,636 | -31.3% |
| 89. | Cornell | 18,586,044 | 12,775,953 | -5,810,091 | -31.3% |
| 90. | Boston College | 16,102,424 | 11,277,420 | -4,825,004 | -30.0% |
| 91. | Inter American | 6,898,330 | 5,040,051 | -1,858,279 | -26.9% |
| 92. | Loyola (IL) | 4,583,328 | 3,351,312 | -1,232,016 | -26.9% |
| 93. | Southwestern | 20,968,555 | 15,449,600 | -5,518,955 | -26.3% |
| 94. | American | 31,922,411 | 23,868,936 | -8,053,475 | -25.2% |
| 95. | Notre Dame | 7,908,972 | 5,918,036 | -1,990,936 | -25.2% |
| 96. | Denver | 17,465,736 | 14,026,950 | -3,438,786 | -19.7% |
| 97. | Emory | 8,896,804 | 7,211,400 | -1,685,404 | -18.9% |
| 98. | Richmond | 7,438,055 | 6,232,200 | -1,205,855 | -16.2% |
| 99. | Georgetown | 52,209,277 | 43,872,470 | -8,336,807 | -16.0% |
| 100. | Baylor | 5,148,380 | 4,777,042 | -371,338 | -7.2% |
| 101. | St. Mary’s | 14,146,074 | 13,128,560 | -1,017,514 | -7.2% |
| 102. | Columbia | 38,452,666 | 35,989,800 | -2,462,866 | -6.4% |
| 103. | Yale | 15,515,266 | 14,918,850 | -596,416 | -3.8% |
| 104. | New York University | 46,942,488 | 46,870,700 | -71,788 | -0.2% |
| 105. | Pennsylvania | 22,739,776 | 23,802,872 | 1,063,096 | 4.7% |
| 106. | Willamette | 3,947,758 | 4,251,625 | 303,867 | 7.7% |
| 107. | George Washington | 32,385,362 | 35,444,670 | 3,059,308 | 9.4% |
| 108. | Pepperdine | 11,117,822 | 12,539,100 | 1,421,278 | 12.8% |
| 109. | Harvard | 41,997,217 | 51,660,654 | 9,663,437 | 23.0% |
| 110. | Duke | 3,507,038 | 5,136,813 | 1,629,775 | 46.5% |
| 111. | Howard | 5,501,024 | 8,221,176 | 2,720,152 | 49.4% |
| 112. | Stanford | 11,569,636 | 17,613,762 | 6,044,126 | 52.2% |
| 113. | Liberty | 96,858 | 189,372 | 92,514 | 95.5% |
| 114. | La Verne | 171,882 | 3,369,344 | 3,197,462 | 1860.3% |
| 115. | Belmont | 4,805,640 | N/A | N/A | |
| 116. | Concordia | 203,301 | N/A | N/A | |
| 118. | Indiana Tech | 94,080 | N/A | N/A | |
| 119. | Lincoln Memorial | 387,480 | N/A | N/A | |
| TOTAL | 1,672,895,574 | 849,546,398 | -828,839,677 | -49.2% | |
| 10TH PERCENTILE | 4,583,328 | 203,301 | -14,636,023 | -89.3% | |
| 25TH PERCENTILE | 7,890,988 | 1,822,600 | -10,094,110 | -76.9% | |
| MEDIAN | 12,253,097 | 4,518,250 | -6,759,046 | -58.4% | |
| 75TH PERCENTILE | 17,465,736 | 8,517,688 | -3,438,786 | -32.9% | |
| 90TH PERCENTILE | 29,845,203 | 14,918,850 | -371,338 | -3.8% | |
| MEAN | 14,674,523 | 7,199,546 | -7,270,523 | -36.3% | |
(Source: ABA, author’s calculations)
Obviously full-time, full-tuition revenue doesn’t tell all of the story—and not just for part-time-focused operations like WMU Cooley—but it definitely illustrates the kind of circumstances many private law schools find themselves in. The same must be true for public law schools. It’s in this context that we can ponder the solvency of other at-risk law schools. Whittier is the first big closure, but it won’t be the last. Universities whose law schools are losing lots of money and have poor employment and bar-passage outcomes are watching Whittier and its neighbors.
The Last Gen X American 