For many, the decision to go to law school is a costly investment in their future. That cost may jump for students aiming to attending University of North Dakota for law school. After mathing the math and realizing that the school would be facing a $2.1M deficit if it stayed the course, the school’s Dean Brian Pappas is looking to make some changes to the cost of attending.
Grand Forks Herald has coverage:
The dean of UND’s law school says he is bringing forward a proposal to increase tuition for current and future students in a bid to stave off a projected deficit…Pappas proposes raising tuition by up to 15% for incoming first-year law students and up to 6% for current students, beginning next year.
US News Report prices the current tuition cost of the school at $17,462 a year. No student wants to hear that their (prospective) law school is going to be bumping up the costs, but the good news is that even a 15% tuition increase would keep the cost of attending ND Law leagues below any of the schools that hit our most expensive list.
The costs of doing business aren’t the only issue Dean Pappas has his sights on:
The School of Law is also considering increasing its class size from 85 to 100 students to increase revenue and meet the demand for legal professionals in the state, Dean Brian Pappas wrote in the Gavel, the state bar association’s magazine, last week.
Increasing class size to meet the state’s legal needs also increases the pool of freshmen that pay towards the school’s deficit. Sounds like a win win!
There’s more to it than to do it — Pappas has to get the tuition increase approved by the state legislature first. It looks to be an uphill battle given how many people fought for them to freeze tuition increases, but something has to change if UND wants to stay out of the red.
UND School of Law faces $2.1 million deficit by 2028 [Grand Forks Herald]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.