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Does a University\u27s Enslavement History Play a Role in Black Student-White Faculty Interactions? A Structural Equation Model
No full textDrawing upon Hartman’s (1997) notion of the afterlife of slavery and Critical Race Quantitative Inquiry, this study examines whether Black college students’ emotional responses to their institution’s history of slavery plays a role in contemporary interactions with white faculty. Using structural equation modeling techniques on a sample of 92 Black students from a southern U.S. institution historically involved in slavery, findings highlight the significance of background characteristics, students’ emotional responses to their institution’s slavery history, and experiences with racial microaggressions during college in predicting negative interactions with white faculty. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed
Professors Cure, Academic Support Cares: The Potential Role of Academic Support in Increasing Graduation Rates at Law Schools at Historically Black College and Universities
No full textThis article examines the vital role of academic support in law schools at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, where minorities and the underprivileged are the vast majority. The article consists of three parts. Part 1 defines Historically Black Colleges and Universities (known as HBCUs and briefly examines their history and evolution...
Part 2 of this article examines how some public undergraduate institutions were able to close the graduation gap between minority and non-minority students. The reason behind this in-depth examination is to assist us with drawing from the experience of these successful programs that can be implemented at HBCUs to better help minority students. The achievement gap represents \u27the disparity in academic achievement between minority and disadvantaged students and their white counterparts.\u27 The focus of this article is on public, nonprofit institutions because two-thirds of minority students who attend a four-year college attend a public institution. Examining ASP at these successful institutions provides useful lessons that could help law schools at HBCUs better serve their students. It is important to note that, in discussing ways to close the graduation gap between minority students and non-minority students in undergraduate institutions, this article does not look at the admissions criteria. There is also no consideration on whether non-minority students are doing better or worse than minority students. The focus is on how academic support programs are helping minority students succeed in undergraduate institutions and thus reducing the graduation gap. In other words, this article is only looking at colleges that narrowed gaps by making gains in graduation rates among minority students, while either keeping graduation rates for non-minority students steady or by improving rates among these students as well.
Finally, Part 3 of this paper discusses how ASP can help faculty and students at HBCUs law schools drawing from the experience of successful programs that other public undergraduate institutions have implemented in order to close the graduation gap
JD-Next: A Randomized Experiment of an Online Scalable Program to Prepare Diverse Students for Law School
No full textWe sought to expose diverse potential law students to the methods of JD education and to prepare them for success in law school. This paper reports on the efficacy of the 2019 pilot test of the precursor to the JD-Next program: a fully-online, non-credit, 7.5-week course to train potential JD students in case reading and analysis skills, prior to their first year of law school. We recruited a national sample of potential JD students, enriched for racial/ethnic diversity so that less than half were White non-Hispanics, and randomized them to the course or an active placebo control group (where participants watched legal television shows). We also recruited a sample of volunteers at one university who self-selected into the course and who were propensity score-matched to non-participants, using university archival data. We found that participating in the course is associated with substantial improvement in grades for the targeted 1L course (Contracts) and overall first semester 1L GPA. We also report substantial student confidence gains and satisfaction with the course, in qualitative and quantitative terms, based on a survey at three points in time (pre-course, post-course, and post-semester). In a companion article, we report on the validity and reliability of the JD-Next exam for use in law school admissions
Undergraduate Financial Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors: The Impact of Financial Life Skills Course on College Students
Get PDFThe end goal of any program focused on financial literacy is to ultimately improve consumer well-being. Although financial literacy is widely acknowledged as increasingly important for consumers (Keshner, 2021), application of financial literacy programs and provision of supports and resources for consumers has not been consistent in the United States. Currently, thirty-three states require basic financial education in high school, though specific content, depth, and structure varies both within and across states. At the college-level, courses are often elective and content vary significantly from one college or university to another (Goetz et al., 2011; Jobst, 2014; LaBorde & Mottner, 2016; Wann, 2016). Whereas evaluations of state-mandated financial literacy courses at the secondary-level have shown positive outcomes (Chan et al., 2012; Gutter & Copur, 2011; Harvey, 2019; Kaiser et al., 2020; Postmus et al., 2015; Stoddard & Urban, 2020), little is known about the impacts of college- level financial literacy courses. It is inherently difficult to gauge the success of such programs due to the previously mentioned lack of uniformity in structure and the fact that individuals often self-select into these courses. The current study considers a one-credit financial life skills course for undergraduates at a major Midwestern university. We are primarily interested in how students who select the course might differ from those who do not take the course, and further explore potential course impacts on financial well-being, stress, attitudes, and student loan debt awareness.
For the present study, we conduct a broad survey of undergraduates, half of whom opted to take the financial life skills course as freshmen or sophomores, and the other half who did not elect to take the course. Whereas this course does not allow us to determine causal impacts of course exposure, we can explore population differences by comparing students who opted to take the course with those who had no course exposure. Areas of particular interest include financial literacy, well-being, stress, attitudes, and behavior. Another aspect of concern involves student awareness of their existing debt load and potential future balance. Previous studies suggest that college students often lack awareness of this critical information (Akers & Chingos, 2014; Andruska et al., 2014). For this study, we explore whether course exposure has any impact on student debt awareness. We do this by comparing existing administrative data to students’ self-reported debt holdings among a sub-sample of participants who grant permissions for data access
The Effect of the Uniform Bar Examination on Admissions, Diversity, Affordability, and Employment across Law Schools in the United States
Get PDFThe Uniform Bar Examination (UBE), first implemented in February 2011 in Missouri and North Dakota, is a multijurisdictional or cross-state test designed to assess a minimum shared core of legal knowledge and lawyering skills. Since its implementation, UBE has now reached 37 states and territories, including the District of Columbia. Despite this prevalence, no empirical evidence exists regarding its effects on law schools’ admissions, diversity, affordability, and employment mobility of law students and graduates or of its effects on law schools’ application volumes or average bar passage rates. This study addresses this gap by providing a comprehensive examination of the effects of UBE adoption. Specifically, we apply rigorous quasi-experimental and causal-inference methods to a law-school level dataset to test whether UBE adoption influenced admissions, enrollment, affordability, degree production, bar passage rates, and employment mobility for law schools in UBE states. Our findings indicate that institutions located in states participating in UBE (compared to institutions located in states where no UBE has been implemented) realized higher applications (nearly 9% increase) and higher enrollments (reaching increases over 6% in total JD enrollments). We also found that these increases were driven predominantly by White student enrollments and women enrollees. With respect to affordability, no changes were observed in neither tuition increases and net price changes. Despite increase in enrollment, we found no evidence of increases in neither degree production nor in Bar passing rates. Based on this findings, we can conclude that UBE has had an effect in applications and enrollment, but if UBE aims to affect the diversification of the law profession, this program alone may be falling short in expanding access for minoritized students
JD-Next: A Valid and Reliable Tool to Predict Diverse Students’ Success in Law School
No full textAs one of two companion articles, this report tests the validity and reliability of a 2019 pilot test of the exam developed as the precursor to the JD-Next program: a fully-online, non-credit, 7.5-week course to train potential JD students in case reading and analysis skills, prior to their first year of law school. We recruited a national sample of potential JD students, enriched for racial/ethnic diversity, and randomized them to the course or an active placebo (consisting of television shows). We also recruited a sample of volunteers at one particular university who self-selected into the course. All participants (treatment and placebo) took a multiple-choice and essay exam, graded with a standardized methodology. We found that the course exam was a valid and reliable predictor of law school performance, comparable to other standardized tests frequently used for law school admissions. In a companion article, we report on the efficacy of the course for preparing students for law school
Reducing Debt and Increasing Access to the Profession: An Empirical Study of Graduate Debt at U.S. Law Schools
No full textLegal education in the United States is in crisis because it is so costly and the number of law school graduates has consistently exceeded the number of entry-level law jobs by a wide margin, while starting salaries are low in comparison to student loan debt for most graduates. This article contributes to the work of addressing the current challenges by reporting the results of an empirical study of the nature and scope of law graduate debt across U.S. law schools.
We focus on findings in two areas. First, the data indicate that the legal education system places a greater financial burden on minority and women students than on non-Hispanic white male students. The cost of attendance, average amount borrowed, percentage of the class that borrowed, and percentage of students paying full tuition are all higher at schools with lower LSAT/UGPA medians and larger percentages of minority and women graduates. Moreover, these schools also report weaker employment outcomes for their graduates.
Second, we also investigated the relationship between cost of attendance and debt. As to be expected, the data show that the average amount borrowed by graduates who borrowed to attend law school increased as the cost of attendance increased. We also see that different schools located in areas with comparable costs of living sometimes list very different estimated living expenses. At the same time, some schools with comparable costs of attendance report significantly different average amounts borrowed. Thus, it appears that there are differences in school practices, policies, and cultures apart from costs of attendance that may impact borrowing levels.
In light of our findings, we highlight several proposals for returning to a legal education financing model that distributes scholarships based primarily on need instead of LSAT scores and UGPAs in order to reduce law student borrowing and to promote access to law school and the profession. In addition, we urge greater attention to how institutions set estimated living expenses, provide debt counseling, and otherwise influence student borrowing; and suggest an updated approach to enforcing ABA Standard 507, which requires law schools to “demonstrate reasonable steps to minimize student loan defaults.
The Enrollment of Racially Minoritized Students in Law School: Factors Predicting Within- and Between-School Variation
No full textGiven the substantial lack of racial diversity within the U.S. legal profession, it is critically important to understand how to improve the representation of racially minoritized students at law schools. This study uses panel data from the 2010s to consider several types of factors that may shape the number and percentage of incoming law school students from several racially minoritized identities: finances, demographic representation, and rankings. The results of fixed effects analyses revealed that increases in the representation of Latinx and Asian students as well as Faculty of Color actually predict subsequent decreases in the percentage of incoming racially minoritized students, which suggests that law schools could be seeking to maintain a certain approximate level of racial representation over time. Moreover, increases in the ingroup racial representation within the state (in which the law school is primarily housed) and U.S. News rankings are both associated with greater subsequent numbers of incoming Black and Latinx law students; the provision of conditional scholarships and the combined total of tuition and fees are also significant predictors. These findings have salient implications for policy and practice
Reverse Integration: Centering HBCUs in the Fight for Educational Equality
No full textSchool integration as a means of achieving educational equality has in many ways failed. It is a great irony that the case most celebrated for dismantling our dual system of racialized education in America, Brown v. Board of Education, has wrought at best mixed results for true educational equality. One underutilized resource in the ongoing fight for educational equality is Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). In part their oversight is attributable to Brown’s desegregation mandate being pursued predominantly through the abandonment of Black schools in favor of integrating Black students into white schools. Indeed, Brown may be most responsible for relegating HBCUs to the margins of our system of higher education despite having played an outsized role in educating Black students from their origins in the nineteenth century right up to the present. The little-known (and often ignored) data on the success of HBCUs in educating Black students deserves greater attention. The unsung story of HBCUs reveals that a large part of the pursuit for educational equality has always been, and continues to be, about the success of Black students who attend Black schools.
This Article recounts both the historic and contemporary data demonstrating that HBCUs remain unparalleled in educating Black (and especially first generation and low income) students. Synthesizing the available data and extant literature, the Article identifies a unique pedagogical model common among HBCUs and suggests this model offers key lessons as we continue in our quest to realize the full guarantee of educational equality promised in Brown. While HBCUs have been relegated to the periphery of higher education since the desegregation era, this Article contends that they ought to reclaim their rightful place on the vanguard of higher education. By centering the experiences and contributions of HBCUs, we might finally realize what it takes to achieve true educational equality on behalf of Black students. In the process we might transform the landscape of higher education for first-generation and low-income (FGLI) students as well, who not only represent a disproportionate share of HBCU students but also a growing share of students served by all institutions of higher education
How Should We License Lawyers?
No full textWhat would a licensing regime designed around client protection look like? This Article proposes that it would include a narrower but more active judicial role. A one-size-fits-all exam would no longer control entry into the profession. The state judiciary would not be the gatekeeper for the entire legal profession; instead, its licensing role would focus on those attorneys who represent individual clients in court and those who manage client funds. But for this subset of lawyers, state judges should take a larger and more active role in overseeing the transition from student to advocate and should require greater practice readiness that goes beyond mere entry-level minimum competence