Practice Management

Need A Free Or Cheaper Legal Education?

By chucknewton

Do not get me wrong, the tuition charged by law schools is very important, but you also have to take into account the costs of your legal education.  Some law schools perform better than others in the area of scholarships.

The king is Liberty University School of Law.  Yes, the law school that evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell built.  It's up and coming.  But, the one thing you cannot sneeze at is that they are educating a lot of new lawyers free or approaching free.  Last year fully 60% of their students had full tuition scholarships.  32% had half of their tuition provided by scholarships.  That is fully 92% of their students getting substantial scholarships to pay for their legal education.

This is followed by the University of Toledo College of Law.  14.1% of their students receive scholarships for more than the full tuition.  15.1% get full tuition scholarships.  And, an additional 5% of their students get at least half of their tuition paid.

I am a good Catholic boy.  Do not hold it against me, but I like Ave Maria School of Law.  And, the good news is that this law school is picking up and moving from Michigan to Ave Maria, Florida and to the new campus of Ave Maria University in 2009.   While only 6% of their students get scholarships for more than their full tuition, 24.7% of get their full tuition paid, and 16.9% get at least half of their tuition paid.  A full 43% of their students are either getting tuition and money, their full tuition paid, or most of their tuition paid.

The others are not quite as good in regard to full tuition.  However, where the University of LaVerne College of Law only grants full or more tuition to a little over 10% of its students, a full 32.8% of their students get half or better of their tuition paid.

Then there is the University of Connecticut School of Law.  They report that none of their students have a full tuition scholarship, but 3% do get more than full tuition, and 31.7% get at least half of their tuition covered.  But, what is amazing about these figures is that this is a public law school and the tuition is already lower than most or all private law schools in the United States.

Full post as published by Chuck Newton on February 08, 2008 (boomark / email).