Will Vermont Law School Soon Start a Coffee Kitty?

"Vermont Law School Makes More Cuts as Class Size Drops,"  by Alicia Freese (VTDigger.org, June 27, 2013)

Money Quote: "Starting last September, VLS enacted a plan to shrink the school in response to a tuition dollar drought that left it with a $3.3 million budget gap. The school attracted national attention last winter when it cut 12 staff positions -- 10 were through voluntary buyouts and two were involuntary."

"This past spring, in a quieter move, VLS whittled down its faculty. Eight professors, of the 40 who were eligible, voluntarily moved from full-time to part-time positions. Mihaly estimated that two or three other positions were eliminated when professors departed for personal reasons."

"VLS has been pruning expenses elsewhere, too. It has cut down on cleaning services and changed the hours and offerings of its food service, among other changes. At one point, there were conversations about whether coffee would continue to be available in offices, according to one staff member."

See also Vermont Law School gets rid of 21.4% of its full-time tenure track faculty positions.

Coming soon, a coffee kitty?

*****

"Aloofness will cost WSU, others their franchise," by Nolan Finley (Detroit News, June 27, 2013)

Money Quote: "'There's not much market force at work in higher education,' [Outgoing Wayne State University President and former auto executive Allan Gilmore] says [explaining a 8.9 per cent tuition hike]. For example, he can't ask his professors, who make on average $117,000 a year, to increase their productivity by teaching more than two three-hour classes a week. Why? Because competing schools don't. He agreed to an eight-year contract with annual raises for professors of 2.5 percent, despite the school's crumbling finances. Why? Because other schools might lure them away. While some professors are fully engaged in instruction, research and mentoring, Gilmour admits that not all are fully occupied. And while some of his professors could leave for more prestigious positions, Gilmour says most would be hard-pressed to find a better job than the one they have at Wayne. And yet he can't make innovative changes that might save money and spare students from tuition hikes unless all the other universities Wayne competes with do the same thing, at the same time, for fear of losing his few world-class professors. Talking with Gilmour, I couldn't stop drawing comparisons to his former industry. For decades, the Big Three automakers made poor decisions in lockstep, signed the same destructive labor contracts and believed that as long as they were united in their disregard for their customers, they would be shielded from competition. When the competition came, it brought innovation and customer-focused thinking to the industry, and nearly destroyed the Big Three. Higher education risks the same fate. Students can't keep taking on an average of $27,000 in debt to get jobs that start at little more than that, or no job at all."

Great article start to finish.

*****

"Is Legal Education Solely Law Schools' Responsibility? ABA Task Force Thinks Not," by Mark Hansen (ABA Journal, June 26, 2013)

Money Quote: "Task Force chair Randall T. Shepard, retired chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, said after Monday's meeting that the discussion reflected an 'earnest concern' among task force members over the costs of a legal education and an 'earnest interest' in trying to identify steps that schools and the legal profession can take that might reverse that long-term trend....But there appears to be no consensus as to what, if anything, the task force can say or do that would help control the costs of a legal education or lessen the impact that U.S. News and World Report's annual law school rankings have had on law school admissions and the broader legal culture."

See article above about Big 3 Auto industry.

*****

"At Law School Graduations, Scant Talk About Job Market,"  by Grace Tatter and Claire Zillman (The AmLaw Daily)

Money Quote: "What do you say to an audience of would-be lawyers who just spent thousands of dollars -- much, if not all, of it borrowed -- to earn a degree that only two-thirds of them will even use in their first post-graduation job?...What we found was plenty of sage advice, but little blunt talk. Several of those who didn't dance awkwardly around the subject or punt on it altogether chose to joke about graduates' job prospects and debt obligations. It's unclear how well those wisecracks played."

Those Raman Noodle jokes will even be less funny when the student loans start coming due.

*****

"Art School is a Tragic Rip Off,"  by Kate Seamons (Newser, June 27, 2013)

Money Quote: "Move over, law school: There's a new worthless degree in town...."

Artist Noah Bradley lays out a $10,000 art education and tells students to skip the $246K Rhode Island School of Design route. He explains you can't support yourself as an artist with a $3K a month student loan payment for 10 years. That might work for artists, but lawyers have no choice but to go the expensive route to pursue a career as an attorney.

Law school is a tragic rip off too. Art students knew they would be eating Raman noodles most of their lives when they went that route. It's a shock for the newly minted lawyers.