An article in last week's In Business Las Vegas suggests that state budget cuts could send UNLV's Boyd School of Law "into a free-fall, causing the Boyd School of Law to drop out of national rankings, lose vital community legal aid programs and leave students paying much more for a lot less education." The law school has already increased tuition from $9,800 last academic year to $20,000 (in-state) in 2011.[Tuition] increases were proposed to bring the law school's tuition on par with similar law schools across the West. They would enable the school to fund further growth in faculty, staff and other essentials.
The goal was to make the Boyd School one of the best law schools in the country.
But the combination of higher tuition and decreased state funding could turn the now
well-regarded Boyd School into a "diploma mill," informed sources said. Diploma mills, which are usually privately owned, accept law school applicants no one else will admit, often charge very high tuition, and have high rates of attrition and low rates of bar passage.If this were to happen, the community service mission currently at the core of Boyd School's curricula would likely disappear along with a top 100 ranking from U.S. News & World Report.
Nevada Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, executive director of Clark County Legal Services, has suggested that the budget would change the nature of Boyd School, eliminating the school's innovative legal services programs and altering the curriculum. She suggests the changes would result in fewer Las Vegans going to law school here and a reduction in pro bono services provided to Nevada's poor.
Ouch. Boyd School just recently lept into the Top 100 law schools. If the cuts are as drastic as projected, the school may drop through the rankings like a rock. Combine that with an $11,000 increase in tuition and I'm not sure who's going to enroll.
Boyd students didn't used to have to worry about the state's budget, because we used to have a dean who actually had fundraising as his top priority. We now have an administration that puts racial/ethnic/sexual diversity before academic diversity, and we have lost some of our best professors as a result. The classes offered have dropped dramatically, and the tuition will double in the coming years. Good luck with that Boyd, Godspeed.
ReplyDeleteBTW...that $11,000 increase in tuition is for in-state residents. Out-of-state tuition will jump to $40,000. $40,000! To attend Boyd! Really?!
ReplyDeleteI've now a 3L at Boyd. The quality of education has dropped so dramatically in the past year that it is staggering. Many of the good professors are already looking for other jobs or have been forced out. The only thing Boyd is teaching its students right now is how to mismanage a law school.
ReplyDeleteI am a Boyd 3L as well. I don't know much about all this "trouble at boyd," however, i do know that the start of the year barbeque is on friday august 22. see you there.
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