#MakeTheCase with Your Member of Congress Using AccessLex Institute’s State-Based Data Sheets

Each year, the policy team at AccessLex Institute creates state data sheets to support your legal education advocacy across the country. Our new academic year 2021-22 data sheets are available and ready to help you #MakeTheCase!

The data sheets provide information about graduate and professional students by state. They capture graduate and law student fall enrollment and degrees awarded using data from the National Center for Education Statistics and the American Bar Association. They also offer information on federal student aid by graduate loan program (i.e., Unsubsidized Stafford, Grad PLUS) using data from the Office of Federal Student Aid, including the total federal Direct Loan dollars disbursed, the number of recipients, and the average federal Direct Loan amount for loan recipients.

Our data sheets are a helpful resource for students, school administrators, and policymakers to learn more about graduate and professional enrollment and borrowing in their state. For students and school administrators, the data sheets offer information they can share with elected policymakers or Members of Congress to advocate for protecting programs that encourage higher education access and affordability.

To further assist you in your advocacy, we offer additional #MakeTheCase resources and tools in our Action Center:

Whether you want to impact policies locally, build them as a catalyst for national change – or both – engagement with policymakers is critical to improving access, affordability, and value in graduate and professional education. Let your voice be heard and #MakeTheCase today!

• Advocacy toolkit – access tools you can use to successfully engage your Members of Congress. This resource includes fact sheets on our main priorities for increasing access and affordability, tips for effective advocacy, and phone and email scripts for when you contact your Members of Congress.
• Newsroom – explore news on what is happening at AccessLex and in legal education. The newsroom also includes our Higher Education Roundup posted every Friday, which updates advocates on what is happening in Washington, legislation introduced in the House and Senate, and news stories that can support your advocacy.
• Policy positions – find information on federal policy issues you can use in your advocacy. Our policy positions and papers include topics such as the Higher Education Act, bankruptcy, and Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
• Statements of support – read AccessLex Institute’s positions on various timely legislation and regulation topics.

Whether you want to impact policies locally, build them as a catalyst for national change – or both – engagement with policymakers is critical to improving access, affordability, and value in graduate and professional education. Let your voice be heard and #MakeTheCase today!