According to the Wall Street Journal, the historic balance of power has shifted, with potential students now negotiating scholarships to get the best deal. Increasingly, law schools are considering financial offers individually and presenting attractive scholarships to candidates.

Open dialogue

The newspaper cites a letter sent last March from the University of California at Los Angeles law school told one student, which said ‘we very much hope you find this offer competitive with others you have received’, and to ‘please let us know’ about the offer. Robert Schwartz, the school’s dean of admissions and financial aid, said: ‘We want to keep the dialogue open.’
As US law schools become more desperate to fill spaces, the rate of scholarships is increasing, with every member of University of Illinois law school’s class of 2014 gaining a scholarship, at a cost of $3.6m to the institution.

Maintaining prestige

However, official tuition fees remain high, with commentators speculating that schools are attempting to appear prestigious.
Where this spiral of scholarships is heading is open to speculation, with William Henderson – a law professor at Indiana University – telling the Journal: ‘People are groping for models on how to deal with this but none really exists; we’re in uncharted territory.’