The College Fix

A law school dean in Boston makes nearly $900,000 a year. Meanwhile, the school hiked tuition by more than 80 percent in just a few years while doubling the percentage of applicants it accepts. What’s worse? It’s a mediocre law school, at best.

Via The Boston Globe:

New England Law, Boston has operated in the shadows of the ­region’s more prestigious law schools for decades, trailing so far behind in some measures of excellence that US News & World ­Report does not include the downtown campus in its widely read ranking of 145 better law schools in the nation.

Yet the school’s longtime dean, John F. O’Brien, may be the highest paid law school dean in America, pocketing more than $867,000 a year in salary and benefits, includ­ing a “forgivable loan” that he used to buy a Florida condominium. … Indeed, New England Law could not name a single law school dean in the country who makes more than O’Brien.

… (The law school) has hiked tuition by more than 80 percent in just a few years while doubling the percentage of applicants it accepts, generating the funds for increased student aid but also for the big salaries paid to O’Brien and other top administrators even as the demand for law school graduates dries up.

… O’Brien’s salary is drawing private criticism from some within the school and public barbs from outside observers who question whether the school is really worth the $40,000 ­tuition it charges students. … Some indicators suggest that O’Brien’s impact on New England Law’s performance has been limited. US News & World Report, in its listing of 199 law schools, includes New England Law among the bottom 50 or so schools that it does not publicly rank because they fall “below the US News cutoff.”

In addition, only 34 percent of students in New England Law’s 2011 graduating class were able to land jobs requiring a law degree within nine months of graduating, according to the American Bar Association, compared with 68 percent at Boston College Law School, and 90 percent at ­Harvard Law.

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