For the past several years, law schools across the country have been facing declining enrollment. In fact, a number of them have actually closed over the last few years. One of them, as Halona Black reports on Education Dive, was Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, which recently closed its branch campus, the Savannah Law School.
How are law schools addressing this declining enrollment?
One solution adopted by Harvard Law School and Syracuse University is to offer — at least in part — online law courses. But what if a college offered more, or even all of its classes online?
In August, the American Bar Association adopted a resolution that said law schools can allow students to take up to one-third of their credit hours via distance education, in order to earn a Juris Doctor degree. For prospective students who do not live near a college offering a law degree, being able to take online law courses is a boon.
Beginning in August 2019, Black reports, the University of Dayton will offer a hybrid J.D. degree — and the law school is working with 2U, an online course management provider, to develop and deliver that program.
Certainly there’s debate over how such a program could work. The ancient and time-honored Socratic Method, say some school officials, may not work online. And yet, Syracuse University’s College of Law implemented the method in its online courses back in 2016. Cloud-based classes meet in real time — and professors can still call on students for answers.
At Capture, we work with colleges offering online courses. In today’s market, there are more and more non-traditional students — students returning to college to further their education, adult students looking to further their career, and even students who don’t live near your college or a university. How can you reach them?
To start, you can utilize Capture Behavioral Engagement (CBE) marketing automation to reach out and gather the students who are ready to learn what you’re teaching, whether it’s law, nursing, business administration and more.
By Sean Hill, Senior Content Writer, Capture Higher Ed
