The complaint that some law schools may be engaging in a "bait-and-switch" by offering a generous number of grade-conditional scholarships that are difficult to retain went national with a 2011 NYT's story, "Law Students Lose the Grant Game as Schools Win. " ABA Journal reports on a recent publication, Better Understanding the Scope of Conditional Scholarship Program Among American Law Schools, that analyzes data from 140 law schools. It shows retention rates ranging from 21% to 100%. In response to the ABA Journal story one reader asks:
What is surprising about losing a “merit” scholarship if your grades “fall below a minimum standard”? The “merit” being rewarded is the ability to do law school work, not college work. If a school wanted to hand out money with no strings attached they would call it a grant.
For the record, the report shows the following retention rates for Michigan's law schools: