Will My Law School Perish?

Higher education is facing an economically challenging time due to lost revenues brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic. And as we saw with the closure of Concordia Law School this summer, law schools are no exception. NYU advertising professor Scott Galloway has crunched the numbers for “the immunities and comorbidities of 436 universities included in US News and World Report’s Top National College Rankings.” And he predicts about 20% of these institutions entered the pandemic on such shaky ground that COVID-19 will be the death blow to them. In short, one in five of these universities or colleges will perish.

To calculate this, he looked at a series of variables to create the following scores:

• Credential score (US News ranking, undergrad admit rate, average monthly Google search volume)
• Experience score (student life grade and score)
• Education score (various return on investment measures)
• Average undergrad tuition & fees score
• Value-to-cost ratio
• Vulnerability score (endowment per full time student and percentage of international students)

From these he created two main measures: Value and Vulnerability. And based on whether one was high or low on these measures, he created four quadrants of schools: Thrive, Survive, Struggle, or Perish. Thus, a university with low value and high vulnerability falls into the perish quadrant, whereas a university with high value and low vulnerability falls in the thrive quadrant. The data can be found here.

I took these institutional assessments and matched them up with the U.S. News Law School Rankings (see below). Based on Professor Galloway’s predictions, 18 law schools will perish in the near future (because their university will perish). That is 1 school in the top 50, 5 in the 51-100, 5 in the 101-147, and 7 in the unranked law schools. I have listed them below in order of ranking:

27 Fordham 53 Cardozo (Yeshiva) 62 Seton Hall 70 Loyola (Chicago) 83 Chicago-Kent 93 Drexel 102 Hofstra 111 Chapman 118 DePaul 136 Pace 141 Willamette 148-194 Campbell 148-194 Elon 148-194 New England 148-194 Nova Southeastern 148-194 Detroit Mercy 148-194 Massachusetts-Dartmouth 148-194 Pacific

Another 28 schools are predicted to struggle:

50	Baylor
93	Lewis & Clark
105	Drake
111	Catholic
111	Tulsa
118	U. St. Thomas (MN)
122	Quinnipiac
122	Maine
122	Montana
126	Loyola-New Orleans
126	Mercer
129	Belmont
129	Seattle
141	Dayton

Now, before too much panic sets in, Professor Galloway doesn’t think this is all set in stone. Things can be done to save these universities.

What is more, as the old saying goes, all models are wrong, some are useful. Just how wrong is his model? From anecdotal evidence, quite wrong at times it would seem. Take my institution, for example. Chapman is designated to perish under Prof. Galloway’s calculations. Yet Chapman is doing quite well right now--so well, that not only has it not had to lay off faculty, it hasn’t even had to cut their pay. Hardly the stuff of an institution that is about to perish. Chapman isn't even struggling, so it seems it would be better to put it in at least the Survive, if not the Thrive category. That shows how far off Galloway's model is, at least in that once instance. And there are a host of questions regarding whether these are the correct measures to include in the model, whether they have been given the right weight, and whether anything important is missing? So these predictions must be taken with a gallon of salt. Further, just because a university perishes doesn't necessarily mean that its law school will.

Still, there is no doubt the pandemic may thin the herd, so to speak, of American law schools. Just how much thinning, and which schools, remains to be seen.

US News Ranking	Law School	Galloway Categorization
1	Yale	Thrive
2	Stanford	Thrive
3	Harvard	Thrive
4	Columbia	Survive
4	Chicago	Survive
6	NYU	Survive
7	U. Penn.	Thrive
8	Virginia	Thrive
9	Northwestern	Thrive
9	UC-Berkeley	Survive
9	Michigan	Thrive
12	Duke	Thrive
13	Cornell	Thrive
14	Georgetown	Survive
15	UCLA	Survive
16	UT-Austin	Thrive
17	Wash. U.	Thrive
18	USC	Survive
18	Vanderbilt	Survive
20	Boston University	Survive
21	Minnesota	Survive
22	Notre Dame	Thrive
23	George Washington	Survive
24	Arizona State	Survive
24	Emory	Survive
24	Florida	Survive
27	Fordham	Perish
27	UC-Irvine	Survive
27	Iowa	Survive
27	North Carolina	Thrive
31	Boston College	Thrive
31	Alabama	Survive
31	Georiga	Thrive
31	Illinois	Survive
31	Washington & Lee	Thrive
31	William & Mary	Survive
37	BYU	Thrive
38	Indiana	Survive
38	Ohio State	Survive
38	UC-Davis	Survive
38	Wisconsin	Survive
42	George Mason	Survive
42	U. Washington	Survive
42	Wake Forest	Survive
45	Utah	Survive
46	Colorado	Survive
47	Pepperdine	Survive
47	Arizona	Survive
47	Maryland	Survive
50	Baylor	Struggle
50	Florida State	Survive
50	Connecticut	Survive
53	Cardozo (Yeshiva)	Perish
54	Tulane	Thrive
54	Richmond	Thrive
56	Southern Methodist	Thrive
56	Temple	Survive
56	Houston	Survive
59	UC-Hastings	n/a
60	Penn State-University Park	Survive
60	Texas A&M	Thrive
62	Loyola Marymount	Survive
62	Penn State-Carlisle	n/a
62	Seton Hall	Perish
62	UNLV	n/a
62	Villanova	Thrive
67	Northeastern	Survive
67	Miami	Survive
67	Missouri (Columbia)	Thrive
70	Loyola (Chicago)	Perish
70	Kansas	Thrive
70	Kentucky	Thrive
70	Tennessee	n/a
74	St. Johns	n/a
74	Denver	Survive
76	American	Thrive
76	Case Western	Survive
76	Georgia State	Survive
76	Rutgers	Survive
76	Nebraska	Survive
76	Oklahoma	Survive
76	Pittsburgh	Thrive
83	Brooklyn	n/a
83	Chicago-Kent	Perish
83	Cincinnati	Thrive
83	San Diego	Thrive
83	Wayne State	Thrive
88	New Hampshire	Thrive
88	Oregon	Survive
90	Florida International	Survive
90	St. Louis	Thrive
90	Arkansas-Fayetteville	Thrive
93	Drexel	Perish
93	Lewis & Clark	Struggle
93	Michigan State	Survive
96	LSU-Baton Rouge	Thrive
96	Hawaii	Survive
96	South Carolina	Thrive
99	Buffalo-SUNY	Survive
99	Louisville	Thrive
99	New Mexico	Survive
102	Cleveland State	n/a
102	Hofstra	Perish
102	Marquette	Thrive
105	Drake	Struggle
105	Stetson	n/a
107	CUNY	Survive
107	Howard	Thrive
107	Santa Clara	Survive
107	Washburn	n/a
111	Chapman	Perish
111	Syracuse	Survive
111	Texas Tech	Survive
111	Catholic	Struggle
111	Mississippi	Thrive
111	Tulsa	Struggle
111	West Virginia	Survive
118	Albany	Survive
118	DePaul	Perish
118	Gonzaga	Survive
118	U. St. Thomas (MN)	Struggle
122	Indiana-Indianapolis	Thrive
122	Quinnipiac	Struggle
122	Maine	Struggle
122	Montana	Struggle
126	Loyola-New Orleans	Struggle
126	Mercer	Struggle
126	Baltimore	n/a
129	Belmont	Struggle
129	Duquesne	Thrive
129	New York Law School	n/a
129	Seattle	Struggle
133	Creighton	Thrive
133	Missouri-Kansas City	Survive
133	Wyoming	Thrive
136	Pace	Perish
136	Suffolk	n/a
136	Idaho	Thrive
136	Toledo	n/a
140	Illinois-Chicago	Survive
141	Mitchell Hamline	n/a
141	Akron	n/a
141	Dayton	Struggle
141	Memphis	Survive
141	South Dakota	Thrive
141	Vermont	Thrive
141	Willamette	Perish
148-194	Appalachian	n/a
148-194	Atlanta's John Marshall	n/a
148-194	Ave Maria	n/a
148-194	Barry	n/a
148-194	California Western	n/a
148-194	Campbell	Perish
148-194	Capital	n/a
148-194	Charleston	n/a
148-194	Elon	Perish
148-194	Faulkner	n/a
148-194	Florida A&M	n/a
148-194	Florida Coastal	n/a
148-194	Golden Gate	n/a
148-194	Liberty	n/a
148-194	Lincoln Memorial	Struggle
148-194	Mississippi College	n/a
148-194	New England	Perish
148-194	North Carolina Central	n/a
148-194	Northern Kentucky	n/a
148-194	Nova Southeastern	Perish
148-194	Ohio Northern	n/a
148-194	Oklahoma City	Struggle
148-194	Regent	Struggle
148-194	Roger Williams	n/a
148-194	Samford	Struggle
148-194	Southern Illinois	Struggle
148-194	Southern University	n/a
148-194	South Texas	n/a
148-194	Southwestern	Struggle
148-194	St. Mary's	n/a
148-194	St. Thomas (FL)	n/a
148-194	Texas Southern	n/a
148-194	Touro College	n/a
148-194	Arkansas-Little Rock	n/a
148-194	Detroit Mercy	Perish
148-194	Massachusetts-Dartmouth	Perish
148-194	North Dakota	Survive
148-194	San Francisco	Survive
148-194	University of DC	n/a
148-194	Pacific	Perish
148-194	Western Michigan	Survive
148-194	Western New England	Struggle
148-194	Western State	n/a
148-194	Widener-Delaware	Struggle
148-194	Widener-Pennsylvania	Struggle
148-194	Inter-American	n/a
148-194	Pontifical Catholic	n/a
148-194	North Texas-Dallas	Survive
148-194	Puerto Rico	n/a