17 Mar 2016
The University of Nebraska College of Law ranked 57th in U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of law schools published this week. I want to highlight some key statistics provided in the report, because I think those numbers demonstrate that Nebraska Law students get terrific results from their education for a comparatively low cost.
Two numbers provided by U.S. News should be paramount to law students and prospective law students: job placement rate and bar passage rate. These numbers best reflect the quality of education a law school provides. Nebraska Law’s rates in both of those categories (87.2% and 90.4%, respectively) place it in the top 30 law schools in the country.
Importantly, Nebraska Law achieves these results while charging the lowest tuition rate among schools U.S. News ranked in the top 100. Our combination of successful outcomes and low tuition is why National Jurist Magazine rated Nebraska Law the No. 1 Best Value law school in the United States. Our students graduate with the fourth-lowest debt load in the country, pass the bar, and start real legal jobs where they put their legal education to work.
The consistency of our overall ranking over the last three years is good given that prospective students consider it as they select a law school. Nevertheless, as you may know, the methodology that creates these rankings is flawed. For example, the U.S. News methodology undervalues results: the job placement rate and bar passage rate I mention above together count for only 20 percent of a school’s total score. “Reputation” and incoming class statistics count for 65 percent of a school’s ranking, although they arguably have little to do with the quality of education a student receives once on campus. The ranking takes into account what schools spend on their services, but does not consider what students spend on tuition.
If you care about outcomes and value, U.S. News can tell you a great deal about the education one might receive at a law school. You just have to look deeper than the final rankings, compare schools based on what they produce by looking at bar passage and job placement, and then look up how much they charge for those results. I am very pleased to report that those metrics demonstrate that Nebraska Law continues to provide real value to its students.
Richard Moberly
Interim Dean