Forget for a moment about the cool factor of the schools you want to attend, or their nice campuses, or some renown program. Figure out what region of the country in which you wish to attend law school, make a list of the law schools and compare bar passage rate with the average for that state. Then compare this with the tuition and fees the school charges to see the value you are likely to receive.
One of the best sources I know of to gather this information is the Internet Legal Research Group's Overall Bar Passage Rate site.
Take for example the law school I attended, South Texas College of Law and its cross town rival, and the law school my daughter attends, the University of Houston Law Center. Both are good schools, but should you get accepted to both, which would you chose?
The average bar passage rate in Texas is 80% of those taking the bar exam.
STCL has a bar passage rate average of only 77.5%, while UH Law has a bar passage rate average of 84.2%. Although really both bar passage percentages are good, STCL falls under the state's average, meaning it is slightly below average and UH falls just slightly above average.
This might not make the biggest difference to you, but STCL likes to bury their cost of tuition in their website, while it is a little more findable in UH's website. STCL is currently charging $21,840 a year in tuition, which is cheap for a private law school. UH charges substantially less in tuition because it is a public law school. It currently charges $12,971.40 a year in tuition. It would cost a full time student $26,605.80 more to graduate from STCL than UH if tuition and fees stay the same.
I did not get accepted to both schools and I am very proud to have graduated from STCL. My daughter did get accepted to both and chose UH. From my standpoint, I will be very happy to save the $26,605 that I would have had to spend if she chose STCL.
There might be other reasons to chose one law school over another, but if you are looking for a good value you cannot seem to beat a law school that beats the state average in passing the bar and costs substantially less than the other school that has a lesser bar passage rate.
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