Law Schools Award Merit Scholarships to Recruit Students, Then Take Them Away

Law Schools Award Merit Scholarships to Recruit Students (and Goose U.S. News Ranking), And Then Take Them Away With Rigid Grading Curves
New York Times, Law Students Lose the Grant Game as Schools Win:

Like a lot of other college seniors, Alexandra Leumer got her introduction to the heady and hazardous world of law school scholarships in the form of a letter bearing very good news. The Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco had admitted her, the letter stated, and it had awarded her a merit scholarship of $30,000 a year — enough to cover the full cost of tuition.

To keep her grant, all that Ms. Leumer had to do was maintain a grade-point average of 3.0 or above — a B or better. If she dipped below that number at the end of either the first or the second year, the letter explained, she would lose her scholarship for good. “I didn’t give it much thought,” she said. “I didn’t think it would be a challenge.”

....

But it’s a number worth knowing. At Golden Gate and other law schools nationwide, students are graded on a curve, which carefully rations the number of A’s and B’s, as well as C’s and D’s, awarded each semester. That all but ensures that a certain number of students — at Golden Gate, it could be in the realm of 70 students this year — will lose their scholarships and wind up paying full tuition in their second and third years.

Why would a school offer more scholarships than it planned to renew?

The short answer is this: to build the best class that money can buy, and with it, prestige. But these grant programs often succeed at the expense of students, who in many cases figure out the perils of the merit scholarship game far too late. ...

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/05/ny-times-law-school.html

and : Grading on a curve is legitimate and prevents grade inflation. Which is already rampant in US Academia.

Than students that can meet the B average statistically. If the curve is set for 30% to meet the grade requirements statistically and 40% had scholarships, then at least a quarter of scholarship students will lose their scholarships. It is probably slightly higher because there may be some non scholarship students who do better than scholarship students.
If only the top 5-10% of students received scholarships or 75% or more of students received B average or higher, you might have a point.

It is completely arbitrary.

Golden Gate is among the low tier of accredited law schools in the U.S. When I was in the process of applying I got several of these 'scholarship' offers from various low ranked schools. I went to a ranked school and even though I had to pay some of the tuition it certainly was worth it in the end. Some of these schools just cause students to build up huge amounts of debt and then they graduate and fail the bar exam. Even if they pass it they find there is no real legal jobs available to them and they have no real way to pay the debt. The legal profession is shrinking in the U.S. for many reasons and no one should get into it unless they are a top student at one of the major law schools.

On the other hand, it's unusual for people to have experienced a curve that is designed to lower grades, so I can see why she's a bit surprised.