UC Irvine law school attracts students with scholarships

The next class at UC Irvine’s law school won’t get a free ride, but they’ll at least get some of their tuition covered.

Two years ago, the first class at UCI’s law school — the first new public law school in California in more than 40 years — got full scholarships.

School officials say that helped to attract higher-quality law students. They say the entry test scores and median grades of the classes are the same as those getting into top 20 law schools.

So the university is carrying on the scholarship tradition. Each member of this year’s class will get a scholarship to cover one-third of their annual tuition.

The scholarship will cover all three years of law school, which usually costs about $40,000 a year for in-state students and about $50,000 for out-of-state students.

Private donations will pay for the scholarships. About 100 students will make up this year’s class.

The UCI law school eventually hopes to grow its class size to about 200 students.