Illinois Law Professor: Make the 1L Year Free

[WSJ Law Blog]

Writing at the Conglomerate Blog, Illinois law professor Christine Hurt suggests that making the first year of law school free would benefit both students and law schools.



Hurt’s problem: Students who come to law school and decide, after a period of time, that it’s not for them. The issue, according to Hurt, is that these sorts of students typically just stick it out, go through the motions for the next few years and take the degree. They do this because they’ve already sunk a bunch of money into their legal education; why not just suck it up and finish.

Hurt’s proposal: make the first year of law school free. The cost of the first year would be defrayed over the second and third years of school — so the school would still get the money in the end. It would just get $45k over two years rather than $30k over three years. In other words, as Hurt writes, “If after the first year a student thinks this is not for her, then the student walks away with only the lost opportunity cost of nine months.”

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