New law school will charge only $24K in full-time tuition
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Wilmington University is opening a new law school in Delaware that will charge $24,000 in tuition for full-time students, the lowest price of any law school in the region.
The Wilmington University School of Law is taking applications for fall 2023, according to its website. The school is the third new U.S. law school announced this year, Reuters points out. The others are the recently opened Jacksonville University College of Law in Florida and the planned law school at High Point University in North Carolina.
In an online message to students, Phillip Closius, the Wilmington University law dean, said the intent is to “create a law school that didn’t repeat what every other law school was doing.”
Tuition is low, at $838 per credit, and will remain at that level until new students get their law degrees. Scholarships will range from $1,000 to $3,000 per year and will continue each year that students receiving them remain in good standing.
Day students will be required to take the school’s curriculum for the first two years, while evening students will have to take the required curriculum for three years. The aim is to provide a background for practice in any area.
The school also hopes to provide students “with an education in taking legal examinations,” according to Closius’ online message. Students in all required classes will have to take closed-book essay and multiple-choice exams.
The final year, students can participate in externships for credit, classes in their areas of interest, or a combination of the two.
The law school plans to start small and remain small, with an initial “first-year day class of 50 and a first-year evening class of 15.”
Accreditation will be sought in 2024, according to the Delaware Business Times and Delaware Public Media. The aim is to complete a new building for the school by January 2025.
Closius was formerly the dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law and the University of Toledo College of Law. He told the Delaware Business Times that Wilmington University is giving him the chance to create the kind of law school that he wants.
“I just see opportunity here,” Closius said. “I know it’s a small state, but for the things that I want to do, nobody’s doing it.”
More information is available here and here
