Comments on: Is Your Law School Tuition Being Wasted?

By: Meg

Meg — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:13:28 +0000

I go to law school in Canada.

We also have the chairs, but as one student mentioned earlier, we also have plaques in front of each classroom listing a firm’s name, indicated that the firm paid for said classroom. We also have one in front of our library.

Our student lounge has satellite TV and a variety of video game consoles. Which is actually pretty freaking sweet. Oh, and a cappuccino machine. I love our student lounge, but I think it was paid for by the student’s society, not the faculty (though the fees are in our tuition…sooo)

By: Vince Collaso

Vince Collaso — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:43:15 +0000

Clearly, there’s a bit of waste going on at law schools.
The furniture shouldn’t be cheap, but this is ridiculous

By: Louis Grube

Louis Grube — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:32:39 +0000

I had a similar feeling about ridiculous costs at Oberlin College one time. Upon returning from a lazy summer I walked into the newly renovated computer science lab. Every chair in there was one of the wheeled versions that Josh mentioned. I was pretty pumped. These are VERY comfy chairs. The hype is warranted. Then I looked around at the computers. I noticed that they all had the same names (half LOTR characters and half famous computers) which was confusing. I guess I thought that they would have made sure to have brand new tricked out computers before they spent the entire budget on sweet cosmetic stuff.

I can’t really complain though. The renovation was sweet. They took the lab from something like the basement office in “The IT Crowd” to the bridge of the NEW Star Ship Enterprise.

By: Warren

Warren — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:58:20 +0000

I visited a (private) law school last spring with those aero chairs, and thought the same thing as you basically: “Oh, this is why it’s going to cost me $140K to go here.” I later visted a cheap, in-state, lower-ranked school, where my tour guide (a student in the top 10%) said, “Hey, you get what you pay for. This building [and the chairs too] kinda stinks, but think about what effect that will have on your actual legal education and the kind of lawyer you will be someday.”

I opted for the cheap school, and I’m no worse the wear. Definitely not as comfy now, but when I come out with a hundred thousand less in debt, I will be be more comfortable then because of it.

By: John Infante

John Infante — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:07:48 +0000

Ask if those classrooms are named for law firms. More and more law schools are accepting large donations to name mock courtrooms, conference rooms, even standard classrooms.

By: Joshua Auriemma

Joshua Auriemma — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:14:46 +0000

So I’m not saying that $150,000 is cheap. I’d guess it could support a full-time faculty member for a year. But in the scheme of things, I’ll almost cover that alone in tuition costs by the time I graduate. Take me and my three closest friends and we’ve already outfitted the entire school in awesome chairs that are going to last for quite a long time.

As an aside, I believe that I am in a minority of students that actually hates these chairs in the lecture halls. I like the wheeled versions, but the ones attached to tables don’t have any knobs for back support.

One day I’ll show you our uber techy seminar room. You’ll probably have an aneurysm and die.