Southern University Law Center

What are the graduation rates for students at Southern University Law Center?

The most useful completion measures for Southern University Law Center are law-school-specific outcomes, particularly J.D. attrition, degrees awarded, and bar passage. Conventional four- and six-year undergraduate graduation rates do not describe the experience of a J.D. cohort.

Applicants can use the Law Center's ABA-required disclosures to distinguish students who left, transferred, or completed the program and to examine bar outcomes for graduates who took an examination. These measures have different denominators and reporting periods; a bar-passage percentage, for example, is not the percentage of entering students who graduated. Part-time students may also follow a longer course of study than full-time students.

What is the earning potential for graduates at Southern University Law Center?

There is no sound basis for treating earnings reported for Southern University undergraduate majors as earnings for Southern University Law Center J.D. graduates. Fields such as engineering, nursing, and undergraduate criminal justice represent different students, degrees, and labor markets.

For a law-school-specific financial assessment, applicants should start with the Law Center's ABA employment disclosures. These report employment categories and timing after graduation, allowing readers to distinguish jobs requiring bar admission from other work. Employment status is not the same as salary, and reported outcomes do not promise a particular job or income.

Potential earnings also need to be weighed against borrowing, interest, time away from paid work, and the market in which a graduate intends to practice. Public-interest, government, small-firm, and large-firm careers can have substantially different pay structures.