Five stand-alone law schools settled claims with the U.S. Department of Education, after they were accused of disbursing federal student aid to students enrolled in unaccredited Master of Laws (LL.M.) programs.
The law schools included three in New York — Albany Law School, Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School — along with Atlanta’s John Marshall School of Law, and New England Law-Boston.
The five schools gave out a combined $2.9 million in student aid to 92 students between 2017 and 2022.
The 92 students were ineligible for the funds because they were enrolled in a Master of Laws program that lacked accreditation. While the American Bar Association accredits J.D. programs, it does not accredit graduate degrees. For purposes of Federal funding, most law schools’ graduate programs are covered by the broader university’s accreditation. But these five schools are not affiliated with a university.
The settlement between the Department of Education and the five schools requires reimbursement of the misattributed funds. The law schools are also not able to seek repayment of the financial aid from the students.
“Today’s actions demonstrate our commitment to protect the integrity of the federal student aid programs,” said Richard Cordray, chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid, in a release. “Through our ongoing work, we will continue to protect both students and taxpayers.”
Three of the law schools were fined, but the Department of Education did not specific which schools those were.
“The settlement agreement resolves a dispute concerning whether independent law schools require further accreditation, beyond that provided by the American Bar Association for the JD program, to offer additional degree programs such as the LLM,” said David Meyer, President of Brooklyn Law School, in a statement. “The Department acknowledged that there was no admission of wrongdoing by BLS. The settlement agreement will have no negative impact on current or future students.
Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School’s Dean Jace Gatewood said in a statement that the law school inadvertently disbursed Title IV funds to one student in its LL.M. program during the 2017-2018 academic year.
“Upon notification by the Department’s Investigations Group, AJMLS cooperated fully with the U.S. Department of Education throughout the inquiry process,” Gatewood said. “We are pleased to share that an amicable settlement agreement was reached, wherein AJMLS made a repayment of $1,378.76. This amount represented the estimated loss the Department incurred in relation to the ineligible loan disbursement.”
The law school said no students or former students will bear any financial burden because of the settlement.
Other law schools did not respond for comment.
“Moving forward, AJMLS has implemented rigorous policies and procedures to ensure full compliance with all Title IV requirements. We remain committed to the highest standards of educational excellence and integrity,” Gatewood said.
In recent years enforcement in this area has grown as seen by the creation of an enforcement office within the FSA. Despite a settlement being reached, this does not denote any admittance of guilt for any of the five law schools involved, the U.S. Department of Education said in a press release.
These are not the first instances of an ABA-accredited law school coming under Department scrutiny for disbursing Title IV funds to students enrolled in an unaccredited LL.M. program. In October 2021, another freestanding law school notified the Department of its own violation. The Department opened a program review and assessed liabilities against the school for improper disbursements. In that case, however, the Department determined not to impose a fine on that school in recognition of the school’s responsible conduct in self-identifying and self-reporting this violation.
