University challenged

What a relief for the profession. Judging by the number of applications for law courses, its future is safe. Graduate interest in law is still measured in thousands this year, with 13,139 applications, according to UCAS's latest figures. That's fewer than last year, for sure, which recorded 13,858 applications for law courses, but the drop is only 5.2 per cent '“ much better than the 7.9 per cent average across all subjects combined.

Still, should we not be concerned that the fall in law course applications is bigger than medicine (-3.1), engineering (-3.1), maths (-2.6), and even non-vocational degrees such as linguistics (-1.7)? Shouldn't law applications increase as other subjects experience huge drops: social studies plummeted by 22.1 per cent, business studies by 26.1 and communications by 40.6? That's even before we consider the ongoing concern that the system continues to pump out too many law graduates into the employment market at a time when training contract and job prospects are not as good as a decade ago.

With the gloom on the legal high street and the ongoing recession, it's certainly easy to read the worse in those figures. Equally, finding good reasons for being optimistic is no easy task.

The student population has risen dramatically in the past 20 years. Pressure on public funding has increased competition between universities and getting five stars in the research assessment is no longer a gentleman's sport but a vital key to unlocking access to public money. Accepting more students to boost income, particularly from overseas, is now a policy actively pursued by most universities, and permanent teaching posts are being turned into part-time fixed-term contracts. The outcome is a law graduate population seeking jobs in greater numbers, depreciating the value of legal expertise, with only exceptional candidates able to secure top jobs and salaries to match.

Until the recession hit in 2008, Britain had not experienced the unintended consequences of an over-educated population. In many European jurisdictions getting a university degree goes without saying. State-supported universities absorb vast numbers of undergraduates, and vast numbers end up either without a job or a job that bears little relation to their academic background.

Last year there were 72,245 full-time law students for the whole of the UK, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency. By way of quick comparison, Paris II alone '“ one of 83 universities in France and one of the main providers of law courses in the French capital '“ had 13,900. But in 2005 only 64 per cent of French law graduates had found a job within two years of their degree, compared with a national average of 72 per cent. And at ‚¬19,000 per annum, average pay for young law graduates was also below the French national average of ‚¬24,000.

Far from being a small dip, this 5.2 per cent drop could be the signal that the market is beginning to adjust. Whether that will lead to renewed interest in apprenticeships is a different story. Either way, that might not be a bad thing.