Touro Trying to Reduce Class Size

Remember how Albany has decided to reduce its enrollment? It looks like Touro has joined in (maybe I just missed the news on it). From the Wall Street Journal:

[Albany and Touro] plan to admit 10 fewer students.

Still, the cuts represent an unprecedented acknowledgment among law deans that the product they’re churning out isn’t as highly valued now as it was, say, 5 years ago.

“It is the ethical and moral thing to do,” Touro Dean Lawrence Raful told the NLJ. “I don’t think the [job] placement situation is going to turn around for a number of years and I think we are concerned about the ethics of turning out quite so many students in debt when we know that not everyone can get a job to pay off that debt.”

According to the NLJ, if the Touro board agrees to Raful’s proposal, enrollment in this fall’s first-year class will dip to 270 from the 280 in 2010. Raful is proposing further 10-student reductions in the falls of 2012 and 2013.

Are they a few years late? Absolutely. But good for them for taking this stance rather that certain other states' deans*. It's not like anyone could reasonably expect the schools to just cut off 50% of their graduates at once.

They aren't completely waving the flag of justice and "the ethical and moral thing to do," but you have to applaud steps in the right direction. Good for Dean Raful for scaling Touro's wreckage back despite his self-interest. I wonder if we can expect the other New York lower-ranked schools (Hofstra, New York Law School, Syracuse, St. Johns, Pace, Brooklyn, Buffalo) to do likewise and help ease the saturation in the Empire State.

*My prime example here is Minnesota's four law deans, notably Thomas Mengler. Their sharp wit and brilliant approach to oversupplying the market can be seen here. Among the highlights are Mengler's assertions that lawyers are no different than coffee shops and that the market should be able to handle all St. Thomas grads because St. Thomas is a unique educational experience unrivaled by any other.

On Advertising, Law School v. Medical School

When I run a simple google search for "medical school," I don't see any legitimate American medical schools advertising, not even for lower-regarded, lesser-known ones. The only advertisements I see are for places in the Caribbean (like this and this) or Mexico.

Even if they were allowed to (I'm not sure that they are), I'm not sure medical schools would advertise on the internet. They really have no need to.

But law schools? I wasn't surprised to see Thomas Jefferson advertising on this site, or St. Thomas advertising on other sites, but some of the following surprised me. Even when Thomas Jefferson advertises, it amazes me that they don't censor what articles their advertisements appear on better:


Extremely dignified, isn't it? Advertising on an article about law school being overpriced, right below the "sympathetic" family law people?

In case you cannot read it, the one on the lower right is Hofstra, a top 100 school; upper left is St. Thomas, a Catholic law school in Minnesota.

But if I had to guess who the real high-roller on google ads would be, it'd be Syracuse:

Yes, if you run a search for law schools near ARIZONA, Syracuse Law comes up. I'm pretty sure you have to pay quite a bit of last year's tuition money to get a placement so absurd.

If salaries really were in the stratosphere and being a lawyer really was the cat's meow, would school really have to take such steps of desperation, the same routes as countless "get-your-degree-now!" places?

You expect cheap ads from lawyers trying to pull in mesothelioma clients or pushing for father's rights, but for law school?

That's some pathetic, desperate penny stock advertising for a $100k+ investment that alleges a high rate of return. Medical schools don't (and don't have to) do this.

Just some food for thought.