Note: In the future, there are likely to be more such questions - of the type excerpted below - about campus plans for new programs, schools, and even grand hotels.
Dan Walters today in the Sacramento Bee:
Was UC-Irvine's Law School Strictly Necessary?
Six years ago, yours truly wrote a column about a proposed law
school at the University of California's Irvine campus, suggesting that
it was more about academic ego and Orange County boosterism than a
shortage of lawyers. The column pointed out that the state already
had 25 accredited law schools and the number of graduates taking the
State Bar examination had been rising steadily to nearly 7,000 a year. It
also cited a study by the California Postsecondary Education
Commission's staff, concluding that there was simply no need for another
law school, especially one whose construction and operation partially
depended on public funds...
UC – both
its Irvine campus and the statewide Board of Regents – ignored the
commission's criticism and created the law school anyway. Fast
forward to 2012. The UCI law school graduated its first class and
boasted that 46 of its 51 graduates who took the State Bar examination
passed... Fast forward again. Last
week, the Los Angeles Times published a lengthy article describing the
angst felt by recent law school graduates who cannot find jobs while
struggling to repay huge loans they took out to finance their legal
educations.CPEC
was absolutely correct six years ago in concluding that the state had
more than enough lawyers and didn't need another expensive,
taxpayer-subsidized law school....
There is – or should be – a lesson in this tale.
Full column at http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/08/v-print/5323708/dan-walters-was-uc-irvines-law.html
Contemplating necessity isn't always pleasant:
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