Law School Admissions
A Vehicle to Inequity: Law School Merit Scholarships
Document Type
Law Review Article
Publication Date
2021
Keywords
merit aid criteria, law school diversity, student financial aid, merit-based financial aid
Abstract
This article aims to analyze data gathered from students offered admission to law school and the scholarships that they were or were not offered. Through careful examination, Black and Latinx applicants are adversely impacted at a disproportionate rate compared to their White counterparts. The merit scholarship inequality is compounded for first-generation law students.
If law schools continue to gatekeep the legal profession, the processes in which students are awarded scholarships, educated, and retained must be entrenched in equity and inclusion. At an extreme, law schools can eliminate merit-based scholarships full-stop and revert all scholarship funding into a need-based program that helps students based on financial status. Short of eliminating merit-scholarships, law schools can redefine merit so it does not align so closely with the LSAT—an exam that has a disparate impact on Black and Latinx students. Outside of scholarship allocation, law schools could adopt loan forgiveness programs that make law school affordable for all students regardless of what, if any, scholarship they receive. Finally, law schools could encourage the ABA to require reporting of merit-scholarships awarded, broken down by race, class, socioeconomic status, and gender in the 509 report. If legal education is to serve as a means of opportunity for individuals seeking better lives for themselves and others, equity must underlie how students are financially supported.
