Massive UNLV Budget Cuts, Law School Will Jack Tuition; No Law Faculty Harmed

The University of Nevada-Las Vegas is facing severe budget cuts:

To meet proposed budget cuts, UNLV would eliminate 33 degree programs with more than 2,000 students in them, killing 315 jobs, UNLV President Neal Smatresk told school employees and students Tuesday.
...
Philosophy, Women's Studies and Social Work would go under Smatresk's proposal, which would ultimately require approval from the higher education system's Board of Regents.

When you have a university willing to sacrifice entire disciplines at the altar of "fiscal responsibility," you know something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. Philosophy is an essential subject, indeed the foundation of many other subjects (putting the "Ph" in PhD"), including law. (side note: it's nice to see UNLV will continue its mid-major athletic existence even while sacrificing its ****ing low-cost philosophy department; I'm a huge sports fan, but c'mon!).

Of course, given such drastic measures, these cuts will go down to the The Boyd School of Law, which is ranked 78th according to the latest and greatest USNWR rankings. And the President is concerned, according to Legal Skills Prof Blog (also cited on the faculty alliance page, below):

These additional increases [in tuition] will undermine the Law School's successful formula and render it a mediocre institution.

"Mediocre, n., Moderate to inferior in quality; ordinary. See Synonyms at average."

What is the Boyd School now, if not mediocre? This is not Boston U. we're talking about. Of course, it's also not Thomas Cooley. But UNLV frankly can't drop that far. It's the only law school in Nevada, meaning it has a virtual monopoly over the students who most want to go there. And it's not like Nevada is unique in its severe budget troubles and the desperate need for cuts or tax increases no one wants.

And furthermore, what is the law school going to do, faced with these budget cuts?

From their Faculty Alliance blog:

Tuition increases will be used to cover the cuts. This will bring tuition increase totals more than triple the cost of just three years ago.

Yikes. In an age when law school demand is dropping, these counter-revolutionaries are going to raise tuition even further, as if students continuing to come are a foregone conclusion.

And according to this, despite this perilous situation, they're not cutting a single dollar of law professor salaries.

Look at this salary list from 2008:

Douglas Grant, Prof. of Law: $176,910.48
Joan Howarth, Prof. of Law: $170,468.67
Jeff Stempel, Prof. of Law: $169,206.54
John White, Prof. of Law and Dean: $167,423.65
Elaine Shoben, Prof. of Law: $164,341.98
Christopher Blakesley: Prof. of Law: $163,068.00

And so on. By the way, the cost of living in Las Vegas, Nevada is about 50-60% of what it is in New York. A salary of $160k in Nevada is similar to a salary of about $288k in New York.

Yet, with the state budget in peril and the flagship University possibly dumping its philosophy department, the school of law has chosen to drastically increase tuition rather than cut faculty positions. Tenured professors are going to get the unceremonious axe and these charlatans - in a class of people who often espouse this drivel about "public service" and "social justice" - won't take a pay-cut or see one of their own go, instead choosing to saddle the burden on students who they know will probably come to UNLV anyway.

This is absolutely deplorable, immoral decision-making. The dental school is cutting $1.3 million in salaries, but the law school can't spare a buck and would rather send tuition skyrocketing, which will inevitably put students who are actually dedicated to legal study deeper in debt.

Christ, the a public university is going to completely wipe out important programs (if you're a state institution, you should have a social work department), sending numerous professors into unemployment and the entire law faculty will continue living as comfortably as they did yesterday. They're like gluttons who eat a fourth meal while people starve next door, and if this proposal goes through, the law faculty who went along with it have no standing to tell anyone about "justice."

"Desperation" In Las Vegas; Disparities at UNLV

Those new graduates putting faith in leaving a saturated urban market like Chicago, NYC, or DC for places with less lawyer coverage should know that your peers have already beat you to it, and in droves. Check out what's going on in Nevada. Nevada is seen by some as "a magnet for young attorneys seeking their fortunes" because there is only one law school in what has been a rapidly-growing state over the last decade. But then there's this:

Alex Fugazzi, the attorney handling hiring for the Las Vegas Snell & Wilmer law office, is deluged with applications these days. He suspects desperation when Ivy League grads start filling his e-mail inbox and postal mail slot with résumés.

"I get résumés from Harvard, from Ivy League schools, and we get résumés from 'white shoe' (long-established) law firms in New York and Chicago, from lawyers who used to be able to write their own tickets," he listed.

Do you think they all had bad grades and poor networking abilities?

And that one law school in Nevada, the Boyd School of Law at UNLV, isn't giving rosy prospects, either.

Applications at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' William S. Boyd School of Law have increased steadily over the last three years, even during the worst of the economic recession, said John Valery White, the law school's dean....He expects to be able to place at least 70 percent of the 2010 Boyd Law School graduates.

While 70 percent may sound lofty in such times (and given how placement is going elsewhere, I'd like to see proof of it), remember that this is a school that is very well-positioned in-state. While some graduates from California may shuffle over, if you want to be an attorney in Nevada, UNLV is the place to go. Despite being barely in the top 100 USNWR schools, UNLV has only 16% acceptance rate and a very high yield (44%). By contrast, Fordham accepts 24% of its applicants. Minnesota is at 24%. Virginia is at 25%. Duke is at 23%. (source: lawschoolnubmers). Different application pools to be sure, but that should give you an idea of how UNLV's monopoly on Nevada legal training helps it and its graduates out.

And yet a quarter of the class just will not be placed by the dean's own admission. If they can't do it with a monopoly on new law grads, what chance do others have in more saturated markets?

And as an aside, why does the Boyd-UNLV website not reflect these adjusted employment projections?

• What is the Boyd School of Law’s employment placement rate?
  Our employment rate for 2007 to 2008 was 90.1% after 9 months. For more employment data click [dead link]

If you only project that 70% of your students will be placed in the Class of 2010, shouldn't you disclose that? By leaving the '08 numbers up, aren't you making some kind of assertion that you don't have numbers for 2009 or 2010? And since you obviously do have numbers for those years, isn't it blatant dishonesty to keep the old numbers up?