A Stitch in Haste

My Constitutional Law professor once said, "The hardest part of law school is getting in."

Unless, of course, you go to CUNY Law School, where the hardest part is getting out:

After two years of dismal performances on the high-stakes test, CUNY Law School grads ratcheted up the school's passing rate on the 2004 exam to 67 percent — a 12-point increase over 2003.

With one-third of the class flunking the exam, the rate is still about 10 points shy of the state average for all law-school students and 7 points below CUNY Law's 74 percent passing rate in 2000.

But school officials touted the improvement as significant and a reflection of rigorous new policies imposed last year.
...
In the 2003-04 year, [more than 10% of] CUNY Law students were either dismissed or placed on academic probation for failing to meet standards.
...
CUNY Law came under fire in 2002 when half of its graduates failed the state bar exam -- by far the worst record in the state. The shameful distinction prompted school officials to tighten admissions standards and strengthen grading policies for the 2003-04 year.

Created in 1983, the school is one of the few law schools in the country with a focus on "public service" and nonprofit practice. It has a higher percentage of poor students, minorities and immigrants than other law schools.

First of all, I have no idea what it means for a law school to have "a focus on public service and nonprofit practice." A tort is a tort regardless of whether you work for BigLaw or Legal Aid. Regardless, you can't do much "public service" if you're not admitted to practice in the first place.

CUNY's in-state tuition is $4,365.85 per semester, or $26,115.00 for a traditional three-year course of study (of course, that's not adjusted for inflation). Certainly that's a relatively small fraction of the comparable cost of a private New York City law school education (assuming a CUNY law student could even get in). But what good is low tuition (low, of course, because of taxpayer subsidization) if the education you're receiving is worthless? How is that a "bargain"?

It's one thing to advocate public elementary and secondary education (I personally prefer public financing with strictly private provision), based on positive externality arguments. But that justification for public education becomes strained at the collegiate level and is flat-out untenable at the post-secondary level. How exactly is society better off by subsidizing law schools (i.e., producing extra lawyers)? Even worse, how can subsidizing a substandard law school make any sense whatsoever?

And even if you assume that the government should be subsidizing legal education, why not subsidize students rather than their deficient law school? How many millions of CUNY dollars could be redirected toward establishing scholarships to let poor students go to better law schools? Or why not fund debt forgiveness after the fact for those who do indeed opt for public service or non-profit law?

It's one thing to spend taxpayer dollars on inappropriate things. It's another thing entirely to waste taxpayer dollars on an unproductive, even counterproductive, boondoggle.

Even if CUNY Law School can be "fixed," with seven much better law schools in New York City alone (not counting schools in Long Island, New Jersey and Westchester), the question should probably be, "Why bother?"

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