The Buchanan County Board of Supervisors understandably wants to save the Appalachian School of Law, a standalone law school in Grundy, rather than see it close or merge with Roanoke College.
The county is in the process of coming up with some money, although it’s unclear whether the amounts talked about ($3.4 million to $6 million) are sufficient and whether the county can afford that. One supervisor, Roger Rife, has warned that these expenditures could lead to a tax increase in one of the poorest counties in the state.
It’s also unclear whether Buchanan officials fully understand that Appalachian’s economic struggles are more than a temporary fiscal challenge — they are part of broader trends across higher education. Appalachian’s essential problem is that it doesn’t have enough students. It has 184. It needs 300. Unfortunately, law school enrollment nationwide is declining — part of the so-called “enrollment cliff” brought on by lower birth rates. Does Buchanan County have a way to fix that? For that matter, does Roanoke College? Before either puts money into the school, both may want to have a realistic plan other than simply hope.
I’ve asked that question before, so I’ll move on. Appalachian is one of just 14 independent law schools across the country. Appalachian is the smallest; the next-biggest is Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, Florida, which has an enrollment of 300. Six have enrollments north of 1,000. We’ve reported that before, too.
Today, I aim to offer new information, by looking at the financial status of these schools, as documented in their public tax filings known as 990s, after tax form 990 that nonprofits must file.
Let’s start with the bad news: Appalachian has lost money for 10 of the past 11 years (2014-2024).
For tax year 2024, Appalachian recorded revenues of $3.72 million but expenses of $7.27 million — a deficit of $3.55 million.
While the numbers vary year by year, that is pretty typical of the past decade-plus.
From 2014 to 2024, Appalachian lost $19.37 million — an average of $1.76 million a year.
Unfortunately, these deficits are growing. The one in 2024 was the biggest; its three biggest deficits have come in the past four years.
This does not appear to be a case of Appalachian being profligate. When we compare Appalachian’s expenses with the other independent law schools, we see that Appalachian is quite frugal.
For the past 13 years, only once have the school’s expenses exceeded $8 million. For eight of those 13 years, they were under $7 million; for three years they were under $6 million.
Given the size of some of those independent law schools, it seems unfair to compare Appalachian to all of them, so let’s just compare it to the smallest ones.
Ave Maria School of Law in Florida, with 300 students, recorded expenses of $22.4 million in 2024, about triple that of Appalachian even though it has less than twice as many students.
Cooley Law School in Michigan, with about 500 students, had $32.7 million in expenses in 2024.
Vermont Law School, with 700 students, recorded expenses of $45.7 million.
Since Ave Maria is the size that Appalachian says it needs to be, let’s focus there.
In 2024, Ave Maria posted revenues of $22.9 million against expenses of $22.4 million.
Reminder: Appalachian saw revenues of $3.72 million against expenses of $7.27 million.
Where Ave Maria spent almost $75,000 per student, Appalachian spent $39,150.
Appalachian’s problem isn’t on the expense side, it’s on the revenue side, which brings us back to the enrollment question. While Appalachian may need a short-term infusion of cash now, what it really needs is a long-term solution to its low enrollment. It’s important to stress, for the umpteenth time, that Appalachian’s enrollment struggles should not be seen as a reflection on the school, but a function of larger demographic trends — and, yes, the challenge of being a standalone school in a rural area. University-affiliated law schools have a built-in feeder system. Of the 14 independent law schools, 12 are in metro areas. Appalachian and Vermont are the only two in rural areas and Vermont is the only law school in its state. Appalachian is very much an outlier in the law school ecosystem. It would be great if that were an advantage, but it does not seem to be.
In conversations in Buchanan County, the law school is often compared to the Appalachian College of Pharmacy, another standalone specialty school. The pharmacy school has 117 students, according to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, not that much different from the 184 that the law school has. However, the economics of running a law school and a pharmacy school are quite different. Here’s the key comparison: While the law school has consistently run a deficit for the past decade, the pharmacy school hasn’t.
In 2024, the pharmacy school ran a slight deficit — revenues of $7.56 million against expenses of $7.86 million.
That was also only the second time in 14 years that the school lost money. While it’s never good to lose money, those two years might just be blips due to the natural ups and downs of the education market — they are not structural problems like the law school has, through no fault of its own.
More comparisons: While both institutions have roughly the same level of expenses, the pharmacy school’s revenues are almost twice as high as the law school.
The pharmacy school also has twice as many assets to fall back on. The tax forms list the pharmacy school’s assets at $35 million; the law school’s at $16.7 million.
The risk for Buchanan County taxpayers is that passion clouds good judgment: Is it realistic that the law school’s enrollment will increase when the overall pool of law school students is decreasing? If the goal is to buck that trend, what’s the plan? Buchanan County rightly doesn’t want to lose an institution it’s proud of, either through closure or seeing the school whisked away to the Roanoke Valley. The risk, though, is that the county puts more money into the law school — and still loses that investment.
Looking at these figures, it seems clear that the county shouldn’t think in terms of a one-time loan or gift or however the money is given. Instead, the county needs to think long-term: Maybe it needs to consider the prospect of an annual appropriation of multiple millions to keep the school solvent, unless and until the law school can build up its enrollment. If it ever can. A one-time check seems unlikely to solve what amounts to a demographic problem. For the sake of Southwest Virginia, we should hope Appalachian can survive in its present location — but that might require a long-term subsidy. Is Buchanan County willing to do that?
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