Education Commons^™

Law School In A Pandemic Ungrouped: How Online J.D. Experiences Varied Across Students, Tiffane Cochran, Sherrie Godette, Gallup

AccessLex Institute Research

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, law schools and students resiliently forged ahead, endeavoring — many for the first time — to pursue their J.D. programs online. AccessLex Institute® and Gallup partnered to survey law students about their experiences with online J.D. courses during this time, releasing two Law School in a Pandemic reports in 2021 and 2022 to discuss each year’s findings. This third and final report in the series examines the extent to which student perceptions of their J.D. programs during the pandemic differed by various characteristics — namely race/ethnicity, age, enrollment status, caregiver status, and law …

The Influence Of Metacognitive Skills On Bar Passage: An Empirical Study, Jennifer A. Gundlach, Jessica R. Santangelo

Grantee Research

Working Paper

This article builds on our prior research about metacognition and its importance for law students’ learning. We hypothesized that given our past findings about the relationship between metacognition and academic performance in law school, it was possible that metacognition might also play an important role in success on the bar exam.

Our current study documents law students’ metacognitive skills during a final semester bar prep course and examines the relationship between those students’ metacognitive skills and bar passage. We found that students are capable of gaining metacognitive knowledge and regulation skills during law school and even as late …

"Freedom Is Not Enough...": Affirmative Action And J.D. Completion Among Underrepresented People Of Color, Jason M. Scott, Paige Wilson, Andrea Pals

AccessLex Institute Research

In Fall 2022, the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding the future of affirmative action in higher education. Initially, affirmative action policies were adopted to give equal opportunity to communities who have been and continue to be harmed by discriminatory systems and practices. As we wait for the Court’s decision, it is crucial to understand how existent affirmative action bans impact underrepresented people of color’s (uPOC) graduate/professional degree attainment. Data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Center for Reproductive Rights is analyzed to determine whether affirmative action bans decrease the proportion of uPOC completing …

Protecting Diversity: Can We Afford To Throw Out Grutter Before Its Expiration Date?, Jason M. Scott, Paige Wilson, Tiffane Cochran, Andrea Pals

AccessLex Institute Research

With landmark affirmative action decisions pending from the United States Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, this paper examines whether the educational benefits that flow from diversity acknowledged in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) persist twenty years later in a law school context. Using data from the American Bar Association (ABA), the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE), we model law school campus diversity as a predictor of attrition, predicted law school GPA, and first-time bar …

Distance Learning Questionnaire Findings, Accesslex Institute

AccessLex Institute Research

Distance learning is now a central component of the law school curriculum. The COVID-19 pandemic forced law schools to engage in emergency remote teaching after in-person instruction became too dangerous. As a result, nearly every law school is now engaging in some form of distance learning, at least temporarily. Fortunately, sophisticated models exist for both synchronous and asynchronous online learning. And online delivery of the J.D. curriculum is not brand new to legal education. There are hundreds of practicing lawyers today who earned their law degrees through programs that were delivered in significant part online. Just prior to the sudden, …

A Framework For Thinking About Law School Affordability, Sandy Baum, Accesslex Institute

Commissioned Research

This research report, authored by Sandy Baum, Ph.D., explores the most constructive ways to think about the affordability of legal education in the context of trends in law school enrollment, prices, debt and employment. However, the report cautions that law school affordability cannot be evaluated through simple metrics; it must be measured by taking into account the lifetime value of the investment. The report was commissioned by AccessLex Institute to add to the public discourse about what makes law schools affordable for students in different circumstances.

The Price Of Graduate And Professional School: How Much Students Pay, Sandy Baum, Patricia Steele

Commissioned Research

Like tuition and fees for undergraduate students, prices for graduate and professional study have risen rapidly over time. But average published prices tell us little about how much students actually pay. Despite high sticker prices, many students enrolled in research doctoral degree programs pay no tuition and fees because institutional grant aid, fellowships and tuition waivers cover these charges. Master’s degree students and those in professional practice degree programs are much less likely to receive this assistance. In 2011–12, one-third of full-time graduate and professional degree students received grant aid from their institutions. This included 71 percent of research doctoral …

The Contracting Market For Law School Admissions In The United States, Robert Zemsky

Grantee Research

This report summarizes the analysis of legal education market data, compiled by the American Bar Association and presented on the AccessLex website, by a research team from the University of Pennsylvania's Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (AHEAD). Robert Zemsky served as principal investigator and Richard Morgan as principal analyst. The research was conducted over two years and yielded two PowerPoint presentations to AccessLex's annual research symposium.

After Graduate And Professional School: How Students Fare In The Labor Market, Sandy Baum, Patricia Steele

Commissioned Research

This brief explores employment and earnings outcomes among advanced degree recipients. Examining these outcomes across degree, occupational and demographic categories paints a nuanced picture of the payoffs of graduate and professional education. This information is critical for prospective students and others seeking to assess the value of these degree programs.

Tuition Discounting Study Of Private Law Schools 2016, Accesslex Institute, National Association Of College And University Business Officers

Commissioned Research

The 2016 NACUBO/AccessLex Tuition Discounting Study of Private Law Schools was commissioned by AccessLex Institute in part to provide more recent information on tuition discounting practices at law schools, and to measure the effects of discounting on law schools’ finances. The use of institutional grant aid to attract and retain law students has become even more important, as many programs have had to grapple with declines in their numbers of applicants and enrollments. This challenging context has prompted law schools to implement a variety of practices and policies to raise their enrollments, including increasing their financial aid expenditures. The data …

Market Analysis For Law School Admissions, Robert Zemsky, Patricia Burch, Richard Morgan

Grantee Research

The numbers are truly astonishing. Between 2011 and 2015, total enrollments in the 200- plus United States law schools whose data are regularly tracked by the American Bar Association (ABA) decreased by more than 20 percent. The total number of “missing students” was just shy of 30,000, an amount which translates into the total enrollments of 38 average-sized law schools—24 private not-for-profit and 14 public.

Almost equally astonishing, however, is the fact that so little actually changed. None of the 200-plus law schools that reported their enrollment data to the ABA closed. The 65-35 percentage split between private and public …

Who Goes To Graduate School And Who Succeeds?, Sandy Baum, Patricia Steele

Commissioned Research

During the Great Recession, those with college degrees fared much better than those without degrees, but a number of college graduates struggled to find satisfactory employment, leading many to graduate study. The option of seeking an advanced degree has gained momentum in recent decades, and now some observers call the master’s degree the “new bachelor’s degree.” This brief is the first in a series addressing questions about enrollment and success in graduate school, funding of graduate students, the conceptual differences between undergraduate and graduate students, and the data available to address these questions. As participation in graduate programs rises, it …