Consistent with the intuition that the economics of legal education largely lie downstream from the economics of higher education as a whole, I draw attention to Michael Horn, “New Study: Business As Usual Could Doom Dozens Of New England Colleges” (Forbes.com, Nov. 18, 2025). Horn summarizes Michael Horn and Steven M. Shulman, “A Looming Crisis: New Analysis Shows Dozens of Well-Known Colleges Are Near Financial Trouble“:

While much of the country remains fixated on the tensions between the Trump administration and elite research universities, a more insidious threat to many other institutions of higher education is brewing.

Shulman’s analysis using audited fiscal year 2024 results indicates that 15 of the 44 schools he studied are already facing serious liquidity challenges at their current levels of enrollment—or will do so shortly. Specifically, assuming business as usual, these schools will only be able to cover their typical operating expenses and other normal uses of cash for a maximum of three years before they must spend beyond 5% to 7% of their unrestricted quasi-endowments to sustain operations—which risks undermining their long-term sustainability. Six have already stepped into that dangerous territory, as they are, on average, drawing down 12.7% of their endowment for operations—well in excess of the industry norm of roughly 5%.