HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Catholic University Imposes 20% Budget Cut Due to Declining Law School Enrollment. “The law school accounts for about 10% of the university’s overall enrollment, so the mind reels at the extent to which the rest of the university has been depending for its solvency on encouraging the law school to produce massively indebted graduates who are unable to get any sort of legal job in what is at present the worst place in the country to try to get a job as a lawyer (Washington DC).”

Yes, law schools are the canary in the coal mine for the higher education bubble — but because they’re also cash cows that subsidize the rest of the campus, their problems are also part of the bubble bursting elsewhere. The notion that the law schools’ problems won’t affect the rest of the university is wishful thinking.