Forty percent of ABA-accredited law schools are in severe financial distress. Another 30% are in considerable difficulty. If you went to law school, there's a decent chance your alma mater is struggling to keep the lights on.
Paul Campos, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School who has been tracking law school economics with unusual candor for over a decade, just posted a data-heavy SSRN paper that puts hard numbers on the slow-motion collapse. As he describes it on his blog, what he calls "Peak Law School" hit in 2010, when total JD tuition revenue reached its all-time high. Since then, "JD tuition revenue is down 41% - 24% per capita, with the rest of the decline attributable to falling enrollment."
The culprit, in Campos's telling, is the three-decade pursuit of U.S. News rankings:
