Fourth Tier Bottom Feeders

The tuition checks are being cashed and the school doors are about to open wide to another incoming class of blissfully naive students. I’ve blogged repeatedly about the crappy second and third tier schools in New York, but haven’t yet touched on the fourth tier, or what I call matchbook schools, because that’s where you’ll find most of their advertising.

Fourth Tier Albany and Touro law schools are for the truly delusional. Even in the best of times, these are schools with students who have no hope to find work even if they graduate at the top of their bottom of the barrel class.

I knew a woman who graduated from one of the fourth tier toilets “with honors” (which means she showed up sober to most of her classes) and she spent most of her career as a glorified paralegal with delusional aspirations to be an in house counsel. She was extremely impressed with her intelligence, so at least there was one person on the planet who appreciated her. I wouldn’t let her defend me for a traffic ticket.

These schools shouldn’t be accredited and students who go there shouldn’t be offended when asked if they are. It’s a valid question. Here’s what these students missed: If your LSAT score was so low that the only law school you could get into was either Touro or Albany, then you should have either waited and taken the LSAT again, or realized this just wasn’t the field for you.

Frankly, I would have forgotten that they existed if a reader hadn’t asked me to mention Touro. But someone who went to Touro will never be able to forget: They charge $20,475 PER SEMESTER for tuition. Yes, $40,950 big ones a year for a TTTT. Albany is about the same, $39,970 per year just for tuition.

Columbia, a T-5 or 6 depending on the year, charges $48,648. Even going to Columbia in this economy is a risk, going to TTTT Touro or Albany to get a degree that will at best get you a job as a paralegal, is just flushing it down a toilet.

You can still get a refund, the doors haven’t closed yet; grab your money and run out!