Many law schools, such as Loyola Law School, have participated in U.S. News’ college rankings, but recently the question of validity and fairness has come into question.
In the future, Loyola Law School may reconsider their place in U.S. News’ college rankings, as top universities have withdrawn from the ranking list.
Many top universities have criticized the criteria that define schools’ rankings.
Asst. News Editor
Many law schools, such as Loyola Law School, have participated in U.S. News’ college rankings, but recently the question of validity and fairness has come into question.
Since 1987, U.S. News and World Report have been compiling and publishing an influential list of top law schools annually. Despite its importance for both aspiring law students and the schools themselves, the methodology behind the ranking system has been a source of criticism for years by members of the legal community. However, this past November, Yale Law School’s decision to boycott the list has opened the floodgates for other law schools to follow suit.
Yale has consistently taken the no. 1 position every year since the list’s inception, but Dean Heather Gerken explained in an announcement that the flawed methodology within the ranking system has finally reached a breaking point as it threatens to interfere with the school’s core values.
“In recent years, we have invested significant energy and capital in important initiatives that make our law school a better place but perversely work to lower our scores. That’s because the U.S. News rankings are profoundly flawed,” said Gerken.
Following Yale’s decision, Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and Stanford Law School have joined the growing boycott.
Schools within the boycott will no longer supply data to U.S. News, but will still be included within the rankings list, as a large part of the data utilized by the ranking system is made publicly available by the American Bar Association.
Several factors within the methodology of the ranking system have been called into the question. The category of “employment rates following graduation” scores graduates who landed full-time jobs higher than those receiving public interest fellowships and funding from the school itself.
Compared to the private sector, legal careers in public interest carry comparably lower salaries and create difficulties for graduating students interested in pursuing careers in this category. As a result, law schools support and incentivize students by offering fellowships that supplement the salaries of graduates as they pursue careers aiding underserved communities and demographics.
With less weight given to students pursuing these public interest fellowships, the methodology behind this category may incentivize law schools to reward students pursuing higher paying careers within the private sector compared to those seeking jobs in other fields.
In the future, Loyola Law School may reconsider their place in U.S. News’ college rankings, as top universities have withdrawn from the ranking list.
A closely related category, “average debt incurred,” has been a factor in Yale’s decision as well. The U.S. News rankings do not include loan forgiveness programs offered by schools within their methodology, which can substantially aid or completely erase student debt for those seeking careers within lower paying public interest positions, further distorting the credibility of the rankings.
A final criticism is directed at the importance placed on median test scores within the ranking system, and the impact on the potential diversity of law schools.
While the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) act as standardized tests for aspiring law students, the uniformity of the testing does not account for the unequal backgrounds faced by minority or low-income students. The cost of textbooks, online or in-person prep courses, and private tutoring can easily total thousands of dollars for prospective students and a clear boost in scores is shown for students with access to these resources.
Without factoring in diversity, and placing an outsized role on median test scores, U.S. News’ ranking incentivizes schools to accept and provide scholarships to the highest scoring students rather than those from diverse backgrounds and in critical need of financial resources.
An informal category exists within the rankings list known as “T14 schools” referring to the top 14 schools whose rankings rarely fluctuate year after year. As members of the T14, the decision by Yale, Harvard, Georgetown and Stanford to boycott erodes the credibility of the list and opens the door for lesser known and lower ranking schools to make similar decisions.
However, not all schools carry the same historic reputations as Yale and Harvard and face the risk of falling lower in rankings if they join the boycott.
A drop in rankings carries with a significant impact on the perception of a given school, and has been shown to lead to weaker applicant pools.
The Loyolan reached out to Loyola Law School’s (LLS) director of Communications, Brian Costello, for comment. Costello responded to the Loyolan but was unavailable to interview.
Many top universities have criticized the criteria that define schools’ rankings.
However, over email Costello explained, “LMU Loyola Law School has convened a task force to provide faculty input on a potential LLS response to the decision of several law schools to pull out of the U.S. News rankings.” According to Costello, more information will be available in the coming months following the winter break.
Loyola Law School is currently ranked no. 67 within the list of top law schools, and no. 7 in part-time law. Offering a number of public interest fellowships, as well as loan forgiveness programs, it’s unclear where LMU would rank if the methodology used within the list accounted for these factors.
In a 2011 Huffington Post article, LLS professor of law Kimberly West-Faulcon criticized the ranking system’s decision to not include diversity as a factor.
“The conclusion is hard to avoid: The fairness argument is a smokescreen for the subjective judgment that diversity is irrelevant to educational quality. In this, U.S. News is at odds with the ‘experts’ in the legal academy,” said West-Faulcon.
The Loyolan will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.
Asst. News Editor
Stepan Sarkisian (’23) is a journalism major from Los Angeles. He enjoys bouldering, house music and thrift shopping.
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