Cooley maintains relationships with a number of historically black colleges and universities, and increases its pool of minority candidates not by maintaining a quota system or offering race-based scholarships but through a unique, two-week professional exploration program (PEP), which reaches out to students who don’t quite qualify for. Below are the 2020-2021 J.D. Tuition rates and details on the cost of attending WMU-Cooley Law School. The benchmarks used for admissions, including Professional Exploration Program (PEP) and scholarship eligibility, are subject to change based on periodic review and without notice. Nov 23, 2018.
Published 5:23 PM EDT Aug 18, 2020
LANSING — Western Michigan University Cooley Law School will consolidate its two Michigan locations into one Lansing campus, closing its Grand Rapids campus next year. The move follows the closure of Cooley's Auburn Hills campus in Southeastern Michigan and a 21% tuition cut.
Cooley once was the largest law school in the country with nearly multiple campuses and a peak enrollment of nearly 4,000 students in 2010. Since then, enrollment has fallen and the number of campuses has shrunk. Closing its Auburn Hills campus merging the Grand Rapids campus will leave one Michigan location, another in Tampa Bay, Florida and course offerings at Western Michigan University's main campus in Kalamazoo.
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Cutting back to one Michigan campus helps the law school rid itself of unneeded infrastructure, cut tuition, operate without a significant deficit and focus on enrolling students who will be able to pass the state bar exam, said President James McGrath. Cooley had 1,156 students enrolled in the fall of 2019, according to its website.
Operations will conclude at the Grand Rapids campus on Aug. 31, 2021, according to a press release.
'Going forward, I think one campus in Michigan is plenty,' McGrath said on Tuesday. 'It's just the final step in rightsizing the school for the future.'
Cooley will have plenty of space to host students and operations on its Lansing campus and still have room for further future growth, McGrath said.
McGrath was tasked with finding ways to increase the number of Cooley students passing the bar exam when he arrived in 2019. Of Cooley's 2016 graduates, only 69% had passed the bar by May 2019. Omniplan pro 3 8 1 for mac free download.
An American Bar Association standard now requires 75% of graduates from all ABA-accredited law schools who take the bar pass it within two years. Schools would have two years to come into compliance or risk losing their accreditation if the standard isn't met.
While the law school is working to identify and enroll students they think can pass the bar, McGrath said some students come to Cooley with low LSAT scores but still do well on the exam.
McGrath has said before that Cooley tends to attract students who don't have the highest GPAs or test scores, but it doesn't mean they're not smart people. Rather, they struggle on standardized tests and need help, which is where Cooley comes in, he said.
“WMU-Cooley’s Board is committed to placing the law school in a position of strength as we continue to provide broad access to legal education,” Board Chairperson and 54-A District Court Judge Louise Alderson said in the press release.
Contact Mark Johnson at 517-377-1026 or at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @ByMarkJohnson.
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Published 5:23 PM EDT Aug 18, 2020