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#Affordable Excellence

Let’s face the facts – with the cost to earn a law degree, rising debt, a tight job market and lower starting salaries, a number of challenges face America’s law students at the moment. But how many law schools are doing something about it? Not many.

If you’re looking for an exception to that rule – and an exceptional legal education, to boot – take a closer look at Roger Williams. Building on a 20-year legacy as Rhode Island’s only law school and as a leading institution in Southern New England, RWU Law disrupted the market by boldly instituting its new Affordable Excellence initiative for 2014-2015. Now extended for 2015-2016, the initiative makes us the best-priced ABA-accredited private law school in the Northeast and one of the best values on the East Coast.

On the affordability side:

• We reduced tuition by nearly 18 percent for the 2014-15 year (to $33,792), and extended the reduction for 2015-16. No RWU Law student will pay more, guaranteed.
• And we implemented a tuition guarantee, which means that for each incoming class, tuition will be frozen at the incoming rate ($33,792 for the 2015-16 incoming class) for up to three years, for all students who remain continuously enrolled full time.
• Compared with the previous tuition model (and assuming a 3 percent tuition increase each year, which is typical for many law schools), the tuition reduction and guarantee translate to some $30,426 in savings over the course of three years — before any potential financial aid is applied.

Plus, you’ll benefit from the rigorous, personalized and, above all, marketable legal education you’ll get at RWU Law – one in which graduates emerge job-ready and prepared to thrive in early careers, even in today’s tough legal employment market.

In expanding our commitment to hands-on, personalized learning, consider what we’ve done in the past academic year alone:

• We instituted an explicit guarantee that every qualified student will be afforded a substantial clinic experience through one of our in-house clinics or a clinical externship.
• Created a Semester in Practice (and a new D.C. Semester in Practice) program that offers total immersion – and a full semester of credit – for legal training, in Rhode Island and beyond.
• We launched our innovative new Community Economic Development clinic, in which students provide business-related legal services to nonprofits and community-based businesses.
• And we introduced an expanded Feinstein Center for Pro Bono and Experiential Learning as a one-stop shop for all of our experiential education programs .

All of this in addition to the values that are already hallmarks of an RWU Law education – high bar pass rates; excellent professional placements; top-notch, accessible faculty; a fast-growing alumni base; and unparalleled access to Rhode Island’s bench and bar.

Ultimately, what does Affordable Excellence mean to students at RWU Law? Lower tuition. Higher value. And an outstanding legal education that prepares graduates for long-term career success in the law.

If you’re a current law student at Roger Williams, you’ll have the option of keeping your existing financial aid award with the current price of tuition, or waiving your existing award and moving to the new tuition model. Students with aid above $7,608 will probably choose to keep their current level of aid, and students with aid below $7,608 will likely opt for the new model.

And no student at the law school taking the typical 30-credit load will pay more than $33,792 – guaranteed .