Decelerated Degrees

April 16th, 2013 / By Deborah J. Merritt

Accelerated degree programs, which allow students to obtain a JD in two calendar years, are starting to spread. Law schools offering these programs include Northwestern, Vermont, Arizona State, and Regent. Students generally pay as much tuition as they would for a three-year JD, but they join the workforce a year earlier and save a year of living expenses. For some students, two-year programs offer a way to reduce the cost of a JD.

What about the opposite approach? What if students could spread their classwork over four or five years, while paying no more than they would for a three-year program? Students in a “decelerated degree program” could work year-round, defraying at least some living expenses and perhaps securing more meaningful work. Law schools could create these programs with relative ease; deceleration doesn’t require establishing a formal night program, making major curricular changes, or obtaining ABA approval. Deceleration just requires thinking about the JD from a different perspective.

Outdated Assumptions

Most law schools assume that it’s best for students to complete the JD in three full-time academic years. The standard three-year track promotes camaraderie; supports conventional moot court and law review programs; and moves students relatively quickly into the workplace. In the late twentieth century, the three-year model also gave students adequate opportunities to gain workplace experience and offset their expenses: they could work full-time over two summers, plus part-time in the second and third year.

Changes in the legal market, however, have sharply curtailed job opportunities for law students. The shifts haven’t just undercut post-graduate employment; they’ve affected summer and part-time work as well. Fewer paid jobs are available and, when they exist, employers have little interest in accommodating student schedules. Employees who work only 10-15 hours a week offer little value to most employers. The headaches of training, supervising, and scheduling such “low-time” workers quickly outweigh the benefits. As a result, students tell me that their employers press them to work 20 or more hours per week.

The ABA caps employment at 20 hours per week for students enrolled in more than twelve class hours. Even 20 hours, though, is challenging for students to juggle if they are taking a full load of classes and participating in co-curricular activities such as a journal or moot court. Some students have asked me why they can’t stretch their legal education out for an extra year–or take summer courses–without paying extra tuition for the degree.

The answer is that they can–if we let them.

Deceleration

Decelerating the JD is simple: we allow students to spread their degree work over as much as six years, paying for their classes by the credit. We also remove the obstacles (petitions to the academic affairs committee, special permission from the associate dean) that discourage students from extending their work in this manner. Students can choose the best way to integrate their classes with workplace opportunities.

One student might complete the first year full-time, then stretch the remaining two years over three part-time years while working 30-40 hours a week year round. Another might complete her degree in the standard three years by taking summer classes and a reduced academic-year load, while working 25 hours a week. Another might take a semester’s leave to work full-time for an employer, then continue working 30-40 hours a week with a reduced load.

We can even extend deceleration to the first year. Although we think of first-year courses as an integrated block of learning, the courses are less integrated than we assume. My school regularly accepts transfer students who have completed a different first-year curriculum; they make up the missing courses as 2Ls sitting in our first-year classes. We also allow academically challenged students to lightload during the first year; again, they make up the missing classes during the second year. We could offer this kind of schedule to more students, allowing them to split the first year into two halves–or into a 3/4 chunk followed by a few remaining classes integrated with upper-level offerings.

Deceleration Versus Night Programs

How does deceleration differ from traditional part-time or night programs? There are three major differences: (1) Deceleration does not require creation of a separate schedule or set of classes. Students who choose to decelerate enroll in the same curriculum as students who remain on the full-time track. (2) There is no separate admissions process. Deceleration is an option for all students in the JD program. (3) Students may change their course over time. A student might attend school full-time for a year, decelerate for a year and a half, and return to full-time study. The program adjusts to the student’s needs.

Deceleration depends upon a key assumption about today’s workplace: Employers want employees who can work more than 15 hours a week, but they are increasingly flexible about when and where those employees work. Students who decelerate to work may need some early morning, late afternoon, or evening classes, but they will not depend upon them to the same extent that part-time students have in the past.

Advantages

What’s the point of a program like this? As explained above, deceleration would give more students an opportunity to work during law school. Some students might keep the jobs they held before applying to law school; others might find new work while in school. Either way, students who can work 20 or more hours a week are likely to find better opportunities than those with less flexibility.

Those jobs could pay off in at least three ways. First, students will be able to pay some of their expenses, reducing the amount they borrow for law school. Second, serious jobs (those that require 20 or more hours per week) are more likely to lead to post-graduate employment. Finally, those jobs can complement classroom work by giving students the hands-on experience we used to expect from summer clerkships.

Based on my reading of ABA rules, deceleration raises no accreditation issues. ABA Standard 304 requires students to complete a minimum number of instructional hours in residence, but deceleration simply spreads those hours over more time. The same standard requires students to complete their degree within 84 months (7 calendar years); the deceleration I have proposed fits well within that time frame. ABA Interpretation 301-5, finally, requires schools “providing more than one enrollment or scheduling option” to give all students “reasonably comparable” educational and co-curricular opportunities. Deceleration programs would satisfy that requirement because all students could choose from any classes or activities.

Deceleration, finally, should not affect most students’ elibility for federal loans. The Direct Loan program requires students to register at least half- time, but the definition of half-time is very liberal for professional and graduate students. Students, however, would need special counseling if they dropped below half-time status; under those circumstances, they would lose both loan eligibility and deferment.

Negatives

What are the drawbacks? First and most important, deceleration doesn’t solve the major issues confronting law students today. It won’t create more jobs, and it won’t lower tuition below the cost of a standard six-semester program. Deceleration might give some students an advantage in finding available jobs, and it might help some students cope with the high cost of law school, but it doesn’t solve either of those serious systemic problems.

Second, the approach might help only a small number of students. There may be relatively few employers who are interested in hiring law students, even if those students can devote substantial time to the job. Students themselves may not be interested in prolonging the agony of law school. Three years and out may be better than four years and more.

Third, deceleration might raise the cost of law school for some students. Although students would pay by the credit, rather than the year, tuition has been rising faster than inflation. If that trend continues, students will pay more for credits earned later in their law school careers. Delaying entry into the full-time workplace can also be costly. A student who is confident of securing a high-paying job after bar admission has a financial incentive to secure that job as quickly as possible.

Finally, deceleration will work best if schools are willing to change some of their course offerings. The concept doesn’t require night courses, but some evening and night courses would help students pursuing this option. Schools might also need to beef up their summer programs to meet the needs of students spreading work and classes more evenly over the full calendar year. Those changes take administrative time–and may not appeal to some faculty.

Conclusion

Deceleration is a small change, but it’s an option that might appeal to some students, reduce their debt, and improve their job prospects. The approach also complements the growth of externships, distance learning, and other new modes of legal education. The contemporary workplace is in flux, but it seems to be moving toward an era in which individuals integrate education and work more flexibly than in the past. Decelerated JDs might be part of that evolution.