Graduate school applicants increase due to economy
Students opt to attend graduate school rather than face the job market.
Published April 27, 2009
Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions conducted a survey in February 2009 to find why pre-law students are seeking higher degrees in their field. The results found 40 percent of pre-law students are applying to law school to ride out the bad economy.
Jeff Thomas, director of pre-law programs at Kaplan, said the testing company surveys their students regularly and students see graduate school as a safe place to ride out economic downturns. Thomas said the data gathered from the survey is very relevant for the company because law schools are in the middle of the admissions cycle for the fall.
"We want to make sure that our students realize just how competitive getting into law school will be," Thomas said.
Thomas said obtaining a degree from graduate school is a way to make more money in a bad economy. He said about 67 percent of law school applicants reported earning power was very or somewhat influential in their decision to apply.
A spike in applications to graduate school is typical for a period of economic recession. Thomas said this occurred when the country hit an economic slump in 2001 after the attacks on the World Trade Center and that an overall rise in applications is not necessarily a sure thing.
"We expect to see an overall increase, but it is too early to tell exactly how much," he said.
School of Law Dean Lawrence Dessem said people seek out higher degrees to expand their options after college rather than getting a bachelor's degree in arts or science.
"People find that they do not have the opportunities that they would like with a BA or BS, so they seek an advanced degree in law or other disciplines," Dessem said.
Dessem said admissions to law schools have not increased nationally during the recession to the extent predicted.
"Some have suggested that this may be because of the increasingly high cost of legal education and the many stories in the media about layoffs of lawyers and other impacts from the recession on the legal profession," Dessem said. "We have, however, experienced a strong applicant pool for next fall."
Law school Assistant Dean Tracy Gonzalez said the nation's law schools anticipated a lot of applications for the year. While the number of applications increased, it didn't increase as much as expected.
"They are up nationally, but it's not to the extreme we had anticipated," Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said some students view law school as an investment. Although the tuition is steep for any graduate school, for some students, the job security after graduation is worth the extra debt, she said.
"The chances are great the economy will turn around by the time they graduate," Gonzalez said.
Thomas said aspiring applicants must keep in mind the importance of an impressive resume and to study hard for the Law School Admission Test.
"They have to take the admissions process very seriously," Thomas said. "According to a Kaplan survey from 2008, 70 percent of law schools said that the LSAT score is the most important factor in law school admissions."