Carlson School Of Management

Private Funding of Public Law Schools = Bad News For Future Law Students

Do you know an easy way for moderately priced public law schools to make even more money? Charge more for tuition. Do you know an easy justification for jacking up tuition rates? Say that you are moving to a “private funding model” while you bemoan the lack of public support for your institution.

After that, it’s all profit baby!

The big news in the law school is that another major public law school is toying with moving to a private funding model. The logic for eschewing public funds for an increase in private dollars is, as always, disingenuous. But hey, as long as the law school keeps paying its tithe to the university, few will object to increased gouging of prospective law students…

Deans of the Law School and the Carlson School of Management say they have not sought this change and that their schools would remain as committed to the public as they are now.

“We will be, in every respect, a public law school,” Law School Dean David Wippman said. “Our tuition plan has to be approved by the regents. We are not opting out of our financial obligations to the university. Nothing really changes — except where your revenue comes from.”

Well, the other thing that’s going to change is how much revenue you are pulling in, right Dean Wippman? In any event, I trust you all caught the “financial obligations to the university” line. Dean Wippman isn’t a fool. He knows that as long as the law school continues to be a cash cow to the university system, nobody will much care how Minnesota Law generates the revenue or who risks financial ruin in their efforts to get a legal education.

In terms of the “where” part of the equation, obviously in-state Minnesota residents are being set up to pay the price:

In 2006-07, state money constituted about 17.6 percent of Carlson’s operating budget. This year, under a budget approved in June, it will account for just 3.6 percent. The Law School’s share will drop from 22 percent as recently as 2008-09 to single digits.

For the coming year, first-year resident tuition for law students is $32,928 — about 20 percent less than the nonresident rate of $41,496. But the school plans to shrink that discount to 10 percent in coming years, documents show.

“We want to maintain the advantage for Minnesota residents,” Wippman said. “But given the decline in state support, we thought it should not be as large as it was.

New Deans Take the Helm at Yale SOM, UM Ross | Stacy Blackman ...

Two top business schools– Yale School of Management and University of Michigan Ross School of Business –experienced a changing of the guard before the holiday weekend as each welcomed new deans to the helm.

Edward A. Snyder began his term as dean of Yale SOM on July 1st, and is regarded as the most successful business school dean in the nation, Yale University President Richard C. Levin has said. Prior to accepting the position at Yale SOM, Snyder served as dean of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and has also held that position at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business . He is an economist with expertise in industrial organization and antitrust economics.

In a statement issued last week, Snyder talks about the growing complexities of the business world today and how business schools need to teach what he calls a “third competency” in addition to leadership, and markets and competition: the ability to integrate a big-picture, societal context into one’s thinking and decisions. “No leader can run an enterprise without understanding the broad context,” says the dean.

Over at the Michigan-Ross School of Business, Alison Davis-Blake , the school’s first female dean, took the reigns on Friday. Davis-Blake had served as dean of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota since 2006, where she was also the first female to lead the school. Previously,  she was a management professor and associate dean at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas .

“The role of business schools in society is more important than ever, as we find ourselves at a critical inflection point in history,” writes Davis-Blake in her first blog entry as dean. “Leadership, creativity, and innovation are at a premium as business plays an increasingly significant role in addressing the globe’s most pressing social and economic issues.”

Davis-Blake calls multidisciplinary thinking, the ability to learn quickly from experience, and cross-cultural teamwork the essential skills for today’s global business leader, and says no school is better equipped to help individuals hone those skills.

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