LPC providers freeze course fees
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Students gearing up to fork out deposits for the Legal Practice Course (LPC) will be relieved to discover that most of London’s leading law schools have frozen prices on last year’s rates.
Students enrolling on the LPC at BPP’s Waterloo and Holborn branches from September 2010 will face a bill of £12,500, which remains static on last year. But this still makes BPP £250 more expensive than London’s second most costly LPC provider the City Law School, which is also keeping its fees the same as last year.
Kaplan Law School and the College of Law (CoL) are the only providers to inflate their LPC prices for the next academic year. Kaplan has increased its LPC fees from £11,500 to £11,950 while CoL has hiked its prices by just over 5 per cent from £11,250 to £11,870.
Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) fees have also remained fairly static on last year. Both BPP and Kaplan have kept their fees the same, charging £8,730 and £8,100 respectively.
But again CoL has pushed its GDL fees up by 5.5 per cent from £7,950 to £8,390. City Law School has also increased its fees up to £8,450 from the £7,885 it charged last year.
Elsewhere, the new Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) has also seen marginal price increases. City Law School has kept its fee at the massive £15,750 it charged last year for those wanting to start in September 2010.
But both BPP and CoL have hiked their BPTC prices by 2 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively. BPP is charging would-be barristers £14,995 and CoL is demanding £14,670.
Kaplan, which is running the BPTC for the first time in September 2010, has set its fee at £15,000. This makes it the second highest BPTC provider in the market behind City Law School.
Readers' comments (9)
IHateBPP | 4-Aug-2010 11:38 am
Anyone that would pay that amount of money themselves without a training contract, or at least a job, at the end of the course is incredibly foolish.
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Sharon QC | 4-Aug-2010 8:41 pm
Relief indeed for all those lovely lawyers to be ...
Not surprised that BPP is the most expensive - it is a UNIVERSITY after all .....and, no surprises on the College of Law 's 5% increase...after all, its fat cat Nigel Savage will need to maintain his quarter of a £million annual salary....how about a freeze on that Nige??
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Confused? | 5-Aug-2010 7:39 am
This may not be strictly related, but I'm about to start my last year of my law degree and am wondering, if I don't get accepted for any of the training contract's I've applied for this summer (beginning 2012/13) is it worth doing the LPC?
I really really want to become a qualified solicitor but I'm not sure I can do it at the expense of £10,000 or so, with a possibility of two years of my life being put on hold waiting for a training contract (if I'm not successful this year, but am next year), or, worse, still, with no sign of a training contract at all at the end of it?
I know times are hard for those wanting to get into law, but they're hard everywhere right? Is going forward with law really as foolish as everyone says or is it just on a par with going with any other career option right now?
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Anonymous | 5-Aug-2010 12:16 pm
Sharon QC needs to do her sums! The Chief of the College of Law, Nigel Savage actually received more like HALF a million (£440,000 was quoted in The Sunday Times, I recall). I do agree with her suggestion that this gets frozen. Pretty lucrative for anyone wanting to pursue a career in the Charity sector!
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Anonymous | 5-Aug-2010 6:31 pm
I did the LPC in 2001 when it was £6,500.
At that time I thought it was a complete waste of money as I could have chosen a career that pays more money, has better job security and is more enjoyable.
Now there is even less opportunity and the course fee is ridiculous.
Seriously Self funders are more likely to be unemployed.
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Solon | 9-Aug-2010 12:14 pm
@Confused: I'm in a very similar boat to you, and I think that the short answer to your question is that it depends on what one’s own circumstances are, given the context of the dire general job market, which you rightly point to.
Relevant individual circumstances might include (i) affordability, e.g. are you studying p/time & working f/time, or studying f/time with savings/generous relatives behind you?); if funds are tight, it might be better to postpone, and to improve your legal work experience (ii) the need or not to take the trad solicitor route (I'm certainly considering other areas of legal work, and the paralegal route followed by a later LPC), (iii) your existing legal work experience and/or chances of improving that before your next application, e.g. by doing pro bono, (iv) other factors like your age and how genuinely committed you are to following law (although we all realise that even with absolute singleminded cussedness in our sails, there are no guarantees).
Good Luck, and I hope that this kickstarts some ideas for you (and me!).
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Deborah Walker | 10-Aug-2010 4:34 pm
There are fantastic, equally rated and more than capable providers of the LPC across all regions that in response to market need have also frozen our already reasonably fees. If you study law at MMU in Manchester (the UK's second largest legal market) then expect to pay £8,250 for the LPC and £10,000 for the BPTC. With Pro Bono, work experience, student support and great professional contacts thrown in. The majority of Law firms are interested in the quality of the graduate and their academic and commercial achievements not the provider.
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Anonymous | 11-Aug-2010 11:29 am
In the interests of transparency (if it wasn't obvious enough already), I don't suppose Deborah Walker would be the Deborah Walker who is the business development manager at the MMU School of Law?
http://www.law.mmu.ac.uk/academic-staff/?profileID=708
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Bruvs | 15-Aug-2010 5:18 pm
OMYGOODNES.
THIS IS A JOKE.
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