Will the Student-to-Faculty Ratio in Law Schools Be 7.6:1 in 2038?

Why is tuition up? Look at all the profs in the March issue of National Jurist reports that the average law school faculty size has increased by 40 percent between 1998 and 2008. The average full professor's salary has increased almost 45 percent during the same time period. No data on typical teaching loads for the same time period but clearly it has been trending downward to three courses per academic year (nice job if you can get one).

If profs are teaching less, more profs need to be hired and someone has to pay for that. The article reports that between 1998 and 2008, private law school tuition has increased 74 percent and public law school tuition has increased 102 percent. Some 48 percent of the tuition increase can be attributed to staffing increases according to the National Jurist's study. See also GAO's Oct. 2009 report entitled Issues Related to Law School Cost and Access.

What's driving this tuition-increasing hiring binge? Rankings, of course. The average student-to-faculty ratio has declined from 18.5-to-1 in 1998 to 14.9-to-1 in 2008 and student-to-faculty ratio is a metric used by US News to rank law schools each year. Of course, to improve it's overall US News ranking, a law school's student-to-faculty ratio must be lower than this average ratio and each law school must continually strive to reduce it. ABA accreditation standards be damned, meaning, if memory serves, the current ABA accreditation standard calls for a 20:1 student-to-faculty ratio

At this latest 10-year rate of change, the average student-to-faculty ratio in the legal academy in 2018 will be something like 11.9:1, 9.5:1 in 2028, 7.6:1 in 2038. You get the idea. For a little historical perspective, the article estimates that the average student-to-faculty ratio was 25.5:1 in 1988 and 29:1 in 1978. In other words, the current student-to-faculty ratio in the legal academy is about half what it was three decades ago. 

Law schools also believe their faculty reputation scores, another important metric used by US News, is driven by scholarship. Do note, there is absolutely no hard evidence to believe this is the case but it provides fodder for a rationalization to teach less courses so that time can be freed up to write more articles few read and fewer cite. If profs are teaching less (3 course per year instead of 4 or 5 as in the past), more profs have to be hired and "good ones," meaning ones with a proven scholarly reputation don't come cheap because they are so rare. Hiring more law profs conveniently reduces the student-to-faculty ratio which also helps improve a school's chances for moving up in the rankings so law schools get a 2-fer under this rationalization.

While the US News does measure reputation by peers and members of the bench and bar, the scholarship-push started a couple of decades ago by the ABA's accreditation standards. So let's not place the entire blame on US News for creating the following situation:

"There is a real disconnect in law schools since Langdell, between what the faculty is interested in and what the students are interested in. Faculty care about research while students are focused on how to practice law. There is a gigantic disconnect and the academics have the accreditations rules to promote their views -- at a very high salaries." Lawrence Velvel, dean of Massachusetts School of Law.

How does the legal academy bridge this "gigantic disconnect?" Just comply with the ABA's 20:1 student-to-faculty ratio while making law profs work harder; require them to teach more classes while also producing scholarship. Burn the midnight oil like they did while attending law school and like their students do once they enter the practice of law, assuming there will be jobs for them upon graduation to pay off their law school debt. That's going to go over well in the next faculty meeting; good luck to any conscientious law school dean who is striving to get law profs back into the classroom. Unless the dean has a 10-year appointment, the odds of success are slim to none under the current circumstances.

The reality is that law schools do set their academic and institutional objectives with an eye toward improving their U.S. News rankings (and the ABA's accreditation standards are a contributing factor to escalating law school costs; one complaint being heard about the ABA's draft "outcome measures" is that it will increase the legal academy's compliance costs) but the National Jurist's analysis is overly simplistic. Student-to-faculty ratios, faculty scholarly reputation, and faculty salaries are part of a larger picture. How much cash-per-student being spent is what really drives the U.S. News Law School Ranking results. See Brian Leiter's Per Capita Expenditures is the Tail that Wags the US News Ranking Dog. [JH]