Dean Melanie Wilson recently spoke with the Nashville Ledger about the College of Law’s high quality education combined with very manageable tuition costs for students. “You are getting a lot of education for your dollars here,” she said. UT Law is ranked 65 overall (36th as a public university) and 10th for the least amount of student loan debt for graduates.
A recent article published in the Nashville Ledger lauded UT’s College of Law for keeping tuition costs down at no detriment to quality. “You are getting a lot of education for your dollars here,” Dean Melanie D. Wilson is quoted as saying.
Tuition for in-state students at UT College of Law is $20,000 a year, and $38,000 for out of state students.
“At a lot of schools, tuition is often in the $50,000 to $60,000 a year range. Our students leave us with an average of $70,000 to $80,000 in debt,” she said in the article.
UT is ranked 65th overall in U.S. News and World Report’s latest evaluation of public and private law schools in the country. Out of public law schools alone, it is ranked 36th.
In specific disciplines, UT is ranked 19th overall, 9th out of public schools, in legal clinical programs, 23rd, 10th out of public schools, in legal writing programs, and 10th, 7th out of public schools, for graduating students with low debt. Wilson, however, believes UT has room to improve.
“(These rankings) are perfectly adequate,” she says, “but we can improve…I think we’re better than those rankings suggest.”
Wilson stepped into the position of dean at UT in 2015 on July 1, previously working as a law professor, associate dean of academic affairs, and director of diversity and inclusion at the University of Kansas School of Law. Before entering academia, she served as both an assistant United States attorney for six years and assistant attorney general for Georgia for four.
Wilson got her Juris Doctor from University of Georgia, graduating magna cum laude and earning the Order of the Coif. She also holds a bachelor’s in journalism from that same school.
Many students from UT’s law school go on to have jobs soon after graduation. “Over the last 10 years,” Wilson said, “approximately 87% of our graduates have jobs.”