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Earlier this week, the University of Toledo's Board of Trustees approved a plan to cut the college's law school tuition prices by 13 percent.
The move is one way the law school is trying to remain competitive."Nationally, there's been a 42 percent decline in law school applications since 2010," said UT’s law school dean Daniel Steinbock. "Regionally, in the Great Lakes region, it's gone down 46 percent. For any industry, this is a big drop in demand."In 2011, more than 1,400 prospective lawyers applied to The University of Toledo’s Law School.But just three years later, that number shrank to 475 applicants.People could be lukewarm on law degrees because the recession left fewer job openings for lawyers, Steinbock explained. But another big contributing factor, both at Toledo and nationwide is money.“There’ve been fairly large tuition increases, increases in our tuition and really, almost every law school’s tuition over the last 10 or 15 years,” Steinbock said. “We believe we’ve reached the point where we’ve priced some people out of law school who might be interested in going.”By dropping prices, he said, Toledo’s law school will become a better value for prospective applicants.Beginning next fall, tuition for full-time, in-state students will come in at around $17,000 per year-- down from this year’s rate of slightly more than $20,000.Out-of-state students will see about an 8 percent drop, and both current and new students will pay the cheaper rate.As for the four other law schools within the state system, a spokesperson from the Ohio Board of Regents said none have announced similar cuts.