Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Can I get some of my money back?


It’s been a long time since I left law school.  Back then in the dark ages, the University of Miami School of Law was well respected, as I recall consistently ranked in the top thirty or so law schools in the country.

No longer.  I was shocked to find that it ranks 77th in this year’s U.S. News listing.

Skimming the list for Southern schools, it doesn’t even hit the top ten, trailing Virginia, Tulane, Emory, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Georgia State and Kentucky.  We whipped Louisiana State and West Virginia though.

I don’t have a big finish for this, I just can’t figure out what my alma mater did to get so bad.

2 comments:

The Curmudgeon said...

My alma mater clocks in at #71, which doesn't sound so bad, I suppose, but that's no better than fourth in the City of Chicago (or fifth in the State if you count the University of Illinois).

And I think it's probably overrated.

I did a post that talked about U.S. News ranking system in January (relying heaving on a New York Times article -- and I don't know how they can/should make money off their site either). Turns out, there's a number of tricks schools can and do play to inflate their numbers and the reporting methodology (especially re: salaries) is particularly questionable.

Good luck figuring out how to get a refund. It may be better to reflect on how lucky we are to be long out of school -- where, according to U.S. News, tuition at my alma mater, for instance, is over 10 times what it was in my last year -- and 17 times what it was in my first.

Dave said...

Yeah, were I to be starting law school, I wouldn't be. Tuition is about 8.5 times higher than my last year.