May 6, 2019

What the U.S. News Law School Rankings Looked Like in 1987

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What the U.S. News Law School Rankings Looked Like in 1987Spivey Consulting Group

The U.S. News & World Report law school rankings have changed quite a bit over the years. In 1987, the methodology included just one metric—the percentage of law school deans who ranked the school, in their subjective estimation, as a "top 10 law school." See below the resulting top 20. As a bonus, you can also see what tuition rates looked like in 1987—the highest figure of which is under $14,000 (Columbia), and the lowest of which is just $4,500 (UT Austin—which is out-of-state) (note that all public law school figures are out-of-state tuition).

Rank School Rating Tuition
1 Harvard 91.7% $11,400
1 Yale 91.7% $12,450
3 Michigan 88.5% $11,400
4 Columbia 84.4% $13,496
4 Stanford 84.4% $12,180
6 U Chicago 83.3% $12,525
7 UC Berkeley 77.1% $5,796
6 UVA 57.3% $7,504
9 NYU 56.3% $13,200
10 U Penn 42.7% $12,300
11 UT Austin 32.3% $4,500
12 Duke 31.3% $12,100
13 Georgetown 25.0% $11,500
14 UCLA 17.7% $5,746
15 Cornell 16.7% $12,750
16 Northwestern 14.6% $12,681
17 Illinois 7.3% $9,394
17 USC 7.3% $12,900
19 Minnesota 6.3% $6,621
20 Wisconsin 5.2% $7,252
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Spivey Consulting Team
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