A quicker, cheaper law degree — which got a major vote of confidence when President Obama, a lawyer and former law professor, unexpectedly endorsed it in August 2013 — has been widely promoted as an ideal way to slash growing student debt and give beginning lawyers a leg up in a difficult job market.

But one of the most visible experiments, the two-year law degree, has foundered so far. The only elite school to adopt it, the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, this fall ended its accelerated two-year juris doctor program after it failed to attract enough applicants.

“We thought this program was the holy grail alternative to bring in students who might otherwise not have considered law school,” Daniel B. Rodriguez, the Northwestern law school dean. “It was like ‘Field of Dreams,’ ” he said, referring to the Kevin Costner baseball movie. “If you build it, they will come.”

The Northwestern program was a bellwether for innovation in legal education at a time when law school has lost some of its luster and applications have declined — except to top-tier schools — as prospective students see higher tuition costs, but fewer legal job opportunities.