March 23, 2005
UMass Battles Boston Law Schools
Yesterday, the Boston Globe reported on UMass President Jack Wilson getting heated about the state Board of Higher Education, New England School of Law and Suffolk Law School. UMass has proposed merging UMass-Dartmouth and Southern New England School of Law, the state board plans to vote on March 31. Wilson is irritated because the board has distributed negative reports about the proposal seemingly in cahoots with NESL and Suffolk.
Suffolk University Law School and New England School of Law hired consultants to promote their opposition to the merger. They believe that if UMass acquires SNESL, a 260-student unaccredited law school in Dartmouth, it will cost taxpayers millions in getting the school ABA accredidation. One of the consultants, Charles Chieppo, a former policy analyst for Governor Mitt Romney, appraised the cost of the merger as $39 million.
The article did not mention Wilson's rebuttal to the reports. However, the new school would focus its program on public service and keep tuition around $19,000 per year.
Bostonist saw some budget boilerplate petitions against the merger at school the other day addressed to the Board. No other information was available.
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are you kidding me? Suffolk and NESL are against this? sorry to cut into your market share, boys. god forbid there be an affordable law school for Massachusetts residents. that is seriously messed up. how about reducing your tuition costs or giving your profesors some decnt benefits before you hire an expensive lobbyist to fight a public law school. unbelievable.
NESL isn't all the much more expensive, maybe like $22K/year. It's the least expensive law school in Boston. From a competitive standpoint, you have to look out for #1 and crush #2. These schools have tax law specialists that can write the cost of consultants off as a biz expense.