A little more than a month after being placed on academic probation by the American Bar Association, the Charlotte School of Law has been dealt another blow. The school was informed Dec. 19 that its access to federal student aid dollars is being pulled.
The Department of Education announced in a press release that after Dec. 31, it will no longer provide federal student aid to Charlotte’s students in an effort to protect those students while safeguarding taxpayer dollars and increasing “institutional accountability among postsecondary institutions.”
In the release, Susan Crim, director of the department’s Administrative Actions and Appeals Service Group, wrote that Charlotte’s noncompliance with ABA standards has been “substantial” and “persistent,” and that the school has made “substantial misrepresentations regarding the nature of its academic program.”
Among the Title IV Higher Education Act of 1965 programs Charlotte will lose access to, save a successful appeal, are the Federal Work Study, Perkins Loan, and Direct Loan programs.
In a separate news release, U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell said that the ABA repeatedly found that despite its claims of forging practice-ready attorneys, Charlotte fails to prepare its students for participation in the legal profession.
“Yet CSL continuously misrepresented itself to current and prospective students as hitting the mark,” Mitchell said. “CSL’s actions were misleading and dishonest. We can no longer allow them continued access to federal student aid.”
According to the DOE, the ABA first made Charlotte aware of its noncompliance in February, though it informed the school nearly two years ago, after conducting a site visit in March 2014, that it had “reason to believe” that Charlotte had not demonstrated compliance with certain ABA standards. The ABA also requested at that time additional information regarding the school’s compliance with several other standards.
Ultimately, the ABA concluded that while Charlotte was in compliance with the standards originally questioned by the accrediting body, it failed to comply with standards 301(a), 501(a), 501(b), and Interpretation 501-1.
In a nutshell, the ABA found that Charlotte had not demonstrated that it maintained a rigorous program of legal education preparing its students for bar admission and participation in the legal profession and that it was admitting students who did not appear capable of completing law school and passing the bar exam.
Too little, too late?
Earlier this year, Charlotte’s dean, Jay Conison, said that the school was considering dismissing on the front end students whose performance raised red flags regarding their ability to be successful practitioners of law. He told Lawyers Weekly last month that he hoped the school’s recruiting campaign and scholarships would bring its academic profile to the days when it boasted a median LSAT higher than 150. Numerous initiatives were being rolled out, he said, to better academic and bar exam outcomes.
Conison declined to be interviewed for this story, but referred Lawyers Weekly to a statement the school released the day the DOE announced its decision.
“We strongly disagree with this determination and are evaluating all available options to challenge the decision, particular the Department of Education’s mischaracterization of Charlotte Law’s academic accreditation from the American Bar Association and our representation of that status,” the statement reads.
According to the DOE, Charlotte substantially misrepresented to students and prospective students the “nature and extent” of its accreditation and the “appropriateness of its courses and programs to the employment objectives that it states its programs are designed to meet.”
In her letter, Crim noted that despite the ABA’s February finding that Charlotte was out of compliance, neither the school nor the ABA publicly announced such until last month’s revelation that Charlotte was being placed on probation.
Before that, Crim wrote, the DOE was unaware of any public disclosure that would let students and prospective students know that the ABA was concerned about the school’s failure to maintain an appropriately rigorous program, and its practice of admitting high-risk students.
Further and in contrast, according to Crim, Charlotte made misrepresentative public statements regarding its program. On its website, Crim wrote, Charlotte promoted, even after the ABA’s advisement, its “full compliance” with ABA standards and its “rigorous curriculum.”
“Each of these misleading statements constitutes a substantial misrepresentation because students and prospective students could reasonably be expected to rely on each of these statements to their detriment,” Crim wrote.
The DOE also accuses the school of misrepresenting in a recent news article the bar passage rates of its graduates between 2009 and 2013. According to the Charlotte Business Journal article, school officials claimed that its bar passage rate during that period was consistently “at or above” the state average. Records show that of the nine tests administered between July 2009 and July 2013, Charlotte’s first-time testers fell below the state average four times.
Hard numbers
Charlotte, a for-profit school owned by the InfiLaw system, touts itself as a school of opportunity for those who may not otherwise be able to pursue their dreams of becoming a lawyer.
Conison said that Charlotte is “trying to be careful” and stay true to its mission of giving people a chance, even those who may not have all the indicators that are “conventionally required by law schools.”
But the DOE pointed to several numbers to suggest that the approach currently being taken is not working. It cited an ABA Accreditation Committee’s statement that it is not clear how Charlotte’s admission practices show that applicants with low academic and LSAT credentials are capable of graduating and passing the bar.
Among those numbers is the school’s high attrition rate, especially for those scoring in the 25th and 50th percentile on the LSAT. For ABA report year 2016, Charlotte had a first-year total attrition rate of 49.2 percent. Nearly 37 percent — or 130 of an entering class of 354 — dropped out due to academics, the ABA reports. Those numbers have increased steadily each year since at least 2013, when the rates were 22.6 percent and 8.34 percent, respectively.
Of more than 200 ABA-accredited law schools, more Charlotte students attrited for academic reasons than any other. The runner-up was another school within the InfiLaw consortium, Florida Coastal School of Law, with 77.
The committee also noted that the school’s bar passage rates “remain low, often significantly so,” pointing out that February’s bar exam result for first-timers was 15 points lower than the state average. Overall, just more than 28 percent of Charlotte graduates passed that exam.
Less than 40 percent of its graduates passed July’s bar.
What’s next?
It’s unclear exactly where the 10-year-old law school goes from here. During the 2015-2016 award year, it enrolled 946 federal aid recipients and received more than $48 million in federal student aid funds.
In its released statement, Charlotte officials said that they will continue to work closely with the ABA to “seek clarification on this unprecedented decision” and that it will preserve all avenues of appeal and recourse available.
“We will continue to put the best interest of our students first and foremost as we assess our options going forward,” the statement reads.
Charlotte has until Jan. 3 to submit evidence to the DOE disputing its findings, according to the department’s letter, which makes clear the degree to which it finds Charlotte’s academic status telling.
“Not only is the probation sanction the most severe sanction that can be imposed by the ABA, short of withdrawal of accreditation,” the letter says, “the Department is unaware of any instance in the last 10 years which the ABA has placed an accredited law school on probation.”
That might not bode well for Charlotte, especially considering that over the last three years, the DOE has denied recertification applications for more than 40 institutions.
Conison said in November that he was confident Charlotte could effect the change the ABA is requiring.
Whether the opportunity to do so still exists after this latest development remains to be seen.
Follow Heath Hamacher on Twitter @SCLWHamacher