The January 2004 issue of The National Jurist has some eye-popping data on law school tuition for 2003-04, and increases since last year. Berkeley, for example, raised its tuition for state residents 48%, while UCLA raised it 39%. The University of Arizona led the pack, with a 81.5% increase in tuition: Arizonans paid $5,844 last year, and will pay $10,604 this year. De facto private “state” law schools like Michigan and Virginia also had big increases: 15% at UVA, 11.5% at Michigan. My school, where tuition is also on the way up, recorded a “mere” 5% increase.

Even scarier are the total tuition bills for students for 2003-04. And what are students getting for their money? For fun, I’ve listed below the 18 top law schools, from the cheapest (for a state resident–that only affects the state schools obviously) to the most expensive, followed by the school’s rank along three dimensions: faculty quality as measured by reputation; faculty quality as measured by citations; and national placement of graduates in elite law firms. (All the data is from this site.)

1. University of Texas, Austin ($12,216/year; 8th, 11th, 12th).
2. University of California, Berkeley ($16,924/year; 7th, 6th, 16th).
3. University of California, Los Angeles ($17,012/year; 14th, 18th, circa 20th).
4. University of Virginia ($23,798/year; 10th, 11th, 4th).
5. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor ($27,863/year; 8th, 10th, 5th).
6. Vanderbilt University ($29,750/year; 18th, 23rd, 14th).
7. Georgetown University ($31,408/year; 12th, 8th, 8th).
8. Cornell University ($32,070/year; 14th, 9th, 15th).
9. Duke University ($32,384/year; 17th, 15th, 9th).
10. Stanford University ($32,424/year; 4th, 4th, 6th).
11. University of Chicago ($32/750/year; 2nd, 1st, 2nd).
12. University of Pennsylvania ($33,002/year; 11th, 13th, 10th).
13. University of Southern California ($33,280; 12th, 21st, n/a).
14. Yale University ($33,850/year; 1st, 2nd, 3rd).
15. Harvard University ($33,866/year; 2nd, 3rd, 1st).
16. Northwestern University ($33,966/year; 14th, 13th, 13th).
17. New York Univeristy ($34,083/year; 5th, 7th, 11th).
18. Columbia University ($34,907/year; 5th, 5th, 7th).