Saturday, September 3, 2016

Great leap backward: Lemmings scurry to Indiana Tech

Score another victory for the law-school scam. Indiana Tech reports that 55 lemmings enrolled in its entering class this year:

http://law.indianatech.edu/general/indiana-tech-law-school-records-new-high-enrollments/

Last year Indiana Tech got only 15 lemmings, and to do so it had to drop tuition to zero. Now it is charging $19,750 per year—plus $660 for each credit hour beyond 16 in a semester. (Yes, taking Law & Hip-Hop with Dougie Fresh can set you back a cool two grand.)

Scam-dean Charles Cercone attributes this rise in enrollment in part to the provisional accreditation that the ABA predictably conferred upon that glittering center of juridical excellence that graces Fort Wayne. And he is right. With the ABA's rubber-stamped imprimatur, suddenly the toilet looks less risky in the eyes of benighted lemmings. But the difference is negligible. Provisional accreditation will enable the graduates to take the bar exam, but it won't bring them jobs. An accredited toilet is still a toilet.

Even with 55 entering students, Indiana Tech is probably losing money. The previous class had only 15 students, and the one before that about 25. Probably some of those have left, and not many have transferred in. Let's say that all 95 are still there. If they're all paying full price (an unrealistically generous assumption), the law skule's revenues from tuition are less than $1.9 million. I doubt whether Indiana Tech's law skule, with its 25 employees, can operate on that amount. Most likely it is still drawing down the university's endowment, which was healthy until this vanity project of a law skule was launched.

In a couple of months, we shall get to see some interesting facts, at least as reported by Indiana Tech. How deep into the 140s, if not the 130s, did Indiana Tech have to dip? How many people got their tuition waived or heavily discounted? And a few months later we shall learn just how well that first class of valiant Warriors™ have fared in their quest for work as lawyers or global leaders or experts in hip-hop. How many of this past year's 21 graduates have landed in Big Law? How many in federal clerkships?

Eventually these facts will catch up with Indiana Tech and do it in. Unfortunately, for now Indiana Tech continues to lure in dolts who never should be allowed to enroll in law school at all. How many more lives must be ruined before the flow of readily available guaranteed loans is checked?

23 comments:

  1. The clowns that enroll at this uber-toilet probably had trouble graduating high school. I mean, can't you get 140 on the LSAT by basically guessing?

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    1. Guessing would yield an expected score of 125. But, yes, 140 is a very poor score. It is at the 13th percentile.

      André Douglas "Dougie Fresh" Pond Cummings, erstwhile dean and current star profe$$or at Indiana Tech, called 143 a "serviceable" score. The truth is that it is a horrible score.

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  2. I eagerly await the day when they admit the first class with a sub-125 median LSAT. I know UTexas was admitting some mouth breathers at that level, but those were some connected twerps. I know that with a little more effort, law schools can reach median LSAT scores of 125 or below. Finally, the underserved will have JUSTICE.

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    1. Actually, that would be difficult, for the same reason that it's difficult to assemble a class with a median LSAT score of 175 (no law school achieves that): there just aren't that many people at that level. Only a few hundred people a year score 125 or less. Getting a large number of them to attend a single law school would take some doing. But surely Indiana Tech and its fellow toilets are up (or should I say down?) to the task.

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  3. Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance KingSeptember 3, 2016 at 9:28 PM

    Folks still purchase Mitsubishi Mirages, Chevy Aveos and in the past Chevette Scooters (backseat delete) and Yugos. They wanted a NEW car and couldn't afford anything better. Everybody knows. Similarly, these folks couldn't get into a better law school, yet are desperate to be lawyers. It's on them if they put that Yugo quality law school on their resumes.

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  4. I'm sure they're waiving tuition or awarding "more than full tuition" scholarships to some of the 1L students. If I lived in the Fort Wayne area and they were willing to pay me a couple grand to "enroll" at their prestigious law school, I'd do it. You'd only have to show up for exams, and you could flunk out after the first year. I'm a cheap date, but I'd go for that.

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    1. Not a bad idea, 11:56. I remember, many moons ago, someone made a similar comment on TTR about some school in California or thereabouts; It would be a cool idea to get them to pay you for a full ride there, go to classes just often enough to avoid flunking out, do as little work as possible, have another job on the side just to avoid a big gap on the resume, and drop out just before graduation (thereby avoiding the scarlet JD). Heck, I'd do that too if I could, if I could find a school desperate enough to do that, situated in a part of the country where I'd like to live for 1-3 years.

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    2. I've thought about making an offer to each of the 190 or so toilet law schools in the US: I'll enroll at your toilet if you pay me enough. Here are copies of my LSAT score and my transcripts from an élite law school and an élite undergraduate program. For the right price, you can boast of having attracted Old Guy. Who will start the bidding?

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    3. Maybe I'm ill informed, but I haven't seen a deal sweeter than free tuition and $10k per year in cash. That money wouldn't cover living expenses, let alone relocation. Old Guy would need to see quite a bit more before he'd sully his name by association with one or another Cooley.

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  5. I must correct myself: Last year's 509 report shows that actually only 13, not 15, people enrolled at Indiana Tech. I wonder how many of that baker's dozen of lemmings transferred elsewhere or otherwise left that toilet after enduring Dougie Fresh and Lamparello for a year. At least they didn't have to pay tuition; that would have added insult to injury.

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  6. They can charge $50K after full accreditation. They probably plan to, to make up for the tuition give-aways.. Then they can do what all the bottom-feeders do: Discount as needed to get just enough competent students to get the minimal bar passage % required to stay accredited and keep the federal loan money coming in.
    Concern for keeping tuition low will vanish once that seal of approval is in place. Look at other new schools. They all started with law tuition.

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  7. Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance KingSeptember 4, 2016 at 6:18 PM

    You fellers and I need to apologize to the State of Indiana. I recently hopped on the Indiana Toll Road (Main Street of America) and connected with the Skyway. We drove through Gary. You know what? It actually didn't smell that bad and I think I saw a tree growing too! Their trying to improve the joint! Maybe poach some Marshall and NIU students from Illinois.

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  8. When Indiana Tech Law opened, it set its nondiscounted tuition at $29,500/yr., and its per-class enrollment target at 100. Now, even post-accreditation, it can still only lure an entering class of 55, and as noted, its nondiscounted tuition is down to $19,750/ yr. Plus, last year it provided free tuition for all in order to retain its meager enrollment following its initial ABA rejection. So I assume that OG is right that this preposterous vanity project of Indiana Tech President Arthur Snyder is hemorrhaging money. Still and all, it is so disappointing that this embarrassment to our profession is still in business.

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  9. Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance KingSeptember 6, 2016 at 11:20 AM

    This is rich. On the Faculty Lounge Blog for law prawfs and deans, the comment thread section for the Indiana Tech faculty opening is closed. Truth hurts.

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  10. Last year (when tuition was free), Indiana Tech only accepted 33 out of 99 applicants and the median GPA/LSAT for those that enrolled was 3.42/151. In this day and age, that actually passes for decent admission standards when it comes to fourth tier schools. It will be very interesting to see if the school maintained those standards with the 2016 incoming class. The fact that the class size has increased to 55 makes me suspect that IT's admission standards were lowered substantially once it cleared the accreditation hurdle. Time will tell.

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    1. Yes, Indiana Tech's numbers went up last year, when the entering class had only 13 students. It's not hard to figure out why: to appear "selective", Indiana Tech rejected lots of people whom it would have admitted in the previous year, when they would have had to pay tuition of $20k or more. Indiana Tech wrote last year off as a total loss, with not a penny of tuition coming in. Since it was going to lose big money no matter what, it might as well have kept the class tiny so as to appear more selective and less toilety than it is.

      But that ruse cannot be repeated year after year. It was a one-time stunt calculated to achieve provisional accreditation. Now Indiana Tech has to draw in large numbers of people who will pay outlandish sums for tuition. And it won't be able to maintain the already disgraceful median LSAT score of 151 when it has to take just about every goddamn jackanapes that applies.

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    2. But that's the problem-no matter how low IT's admission standards fall, it is still attracting applicants who will now have their loan guarantees, much to IT's pleasure.
      And it's clear that this scamschool has been losing big money since it opened its doors, but it's still chugging along. There must be one set of massively deep pockets underwriting this mess, as the losses have to be in the tens of millions of dollars by now.
      Under any sane economic analysis, this place ought to have closed its doors already, and even if it attracts droves of dolts the next few years it's going to remain in debt a while. This is the mystery and aggravation of the scam-not one school has closed despite seemingly terrible financial news-not TJ or Vermont or the Infilaw schools or IT. Over the past 18 months or so all appeared to be a death's door, but all are still open and cranking out useless/worthless JDs. It's utterly mystifying.

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    3. Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance KingSeptember 7, 2016 at 1:39 PM

      What part of politics is "mystifying?" Each one of these schools is entrenched in their respective communities and have their connected supporters and officials. Some Mayor, etc, will NOT allow these schools to close. It's about jobs and injecting federal dollars into the local community. Federal politicians are ranked and rated on how much money they bring back to the local economy, whether its a new road, new military hardware contracts, playground equipment, and this, federal student loan dollars. These law schools, even the lowliest, represent high paying, skilled jobs. The big news yesterday was the closing of ITT Tech by the DOE and 8,000 people lost jobs. Maybe we just need to be honest with each other and just say its about jobs. Then it won't be so mystifying.

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    4. The Captain is correct. Just for fun, do a Google search that includes the terms Patrick Leahy and Vermont Law School. You will find that Vermont’s senior Senator has scrounged up millions of dollars for this trash heap school over the years.

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  11. The market is so saturated in Indiana. For a state with 6 1/2 million people, there were already four established schools: the two IU schools, Valpo, and Notre Dame (not to mention overflow from the huge Chicago market).

    Why attend Indiana Tech when you could just as easily go to Valpo, a school that, while garbage, at least has an established alumni network and local brand recognition in the legal community?

    The two IU schools and Notre Dame are more than enough to satisfy the state's legal service market. Valpo should not be in business, but at least it isn't a naked cash grab like Indiana Tech.

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    1. Nope. You got it all wrong. I went to Indian Beach State Park. Given the amount of open booze consumed and the toddlers running around unsupervised near water with bulging overfilled Pampers, I would say there are not enough lawyers for these shirtless, cigarette dragging folks.

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