Three years' tuition and fees for a California resident at Boalt Hall now totals slightly more than $77,000. Nonresidents who remain non residents throughout (but who would?) actually pay MORE ($114,000) than they would at Stanford Law School (a mere $106,000) These are full time day programs. The student must also somehow support himself without working the first semester, and working no more than 15 hours a week the second semester and 20 hours per week thereafter. And, of course, there's summer employment... I find it impossible to wrap my brain around these figures.
By way of comparason, three years at UNM Law for a resident totals about $26,500, still a lot of money but nothing like the above. There are several CalBar accredited programs that come out to within a few thousands of UNM's tuition though, of course, UNM is ABA accredited.
The need for more truly affordable law schools -- preferably ABA-approved, but even not... at least in the states that allow non-ABA-approved JD graduates to sit for their bars -- is a clear and unfilled niche. For newbies to this subject, nosborne48 makes this point -- and has so much passion about it, generally -- because he has observed (and, in my opinion, correctly) that young JD grads from the expensive schools have such a debt load that they cannot afford to go become some tiny town's only lawyer; or to go work as full-time, on-staff (and, therefore, paid peanuts) counsel for a non-profit environmental organization; or work in very many full-time lawyer positions in local or state government... or hold any of a number of other positions that don't pay alot, but where employers are desperate for qualified attorneys to fill them. Pity.
