I want to pass along a message I received from Florida Coastal School of Law (FCSL). Please feel free to post this analysis on BIDER as an example of how ludicrous this school is for charging students a fortune for a clearly substandard product. It would be good to save prospective FCSL students from financial disaster and heartache.
Text from the e-mail:
"Coastal Law provides a joint degree program with the Davis College of Business at Jacksonville University (JU), the only AACSB accredited private business school in all of North Florida and South Georgia. This program allows students to enroll in the Coastal Law J.D. and the Davis MBA courses simultaneously and they often earn both degrees one year earlier than if pursued separately.
Learn more about our JD/MBA joint program here: www.fcsl.edu/academics/jdmba
I would like to tell you more about Florida Coastal- please reply to this email or call me on my direct line at (904) [xxx-xxxx]"
Bottom-Tier
FCSL is a bottom-tier school in a state that has at least 10 law schools. I know that US News and World Report school rankings have flaws, but a school probably isn't that great if it lands in the bottom tier.
High Costs
0Ls should be wary of scholarship offers from this school. An online search of the school's name and the word "scholarship" indicates that many students lose their scholarships after 1L. A recent NY Times article covered this type of phenomenon, but at some other schools. According to US News, 91 percent of the class of 2010 took on debt for FCSL, and the average amount for those debtors was $120,410 (http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/grad-debt-rankings/page+2).
Few Benefits
Meanwhile, the class of 2010's average starting salary was only $48,615, with less than one third of graduates reporting. The low response rate means that it is possible that the true average is even lower, assuming that graduates with lower salaries may be less likely to report their salaries than graduates with higher salaries. More information can be found at https://www.fcsl.edu/sites/fcsl.edu/files/ERSS%20Class%20of%202010%20Statistics.pdf.
The MBA joint degree offering does not change the conclusion that the FCSL JD is not worth getting. In the MBA world, in general, there is a significant weakening of employment outcomes as one moves from a top business school to a middle-of-the-pack school to a lowly-ranked school.
In summary, it doesn't take an MBA to do a business analysis and conclude that Florida Coastal School of Law is a bad investment of time, money, and energy.
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I, for one, haven't heard of this shit hole. If I haven't heard of it, don't go. Also, if it has a buzz word in it--like "coastal"--it's obviously a trick. They are trying to attract the beach bum/swimming/fishing types. All of the best school are in shitty, cold, locations. Or they're in the middle of nowhere.
Also, if I haven't said my rule of thumb in the past, I'll say it here. The total amount of your debt should be equal to your salary the first year that you graduate. At FC, you debt load could be $120,000. However, your starting salary will be (if you're lucky) $48,000. That's bad economics. You will be broker than you were when you sold lemonade in your front yard for $1.50 a pop. You actually can't even conceive of the poverty you will suffer. You will look at homeless people with envy because they don' have bills. Trust me on this one.
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