In news that should come as a shock only to those who haven’t been following along with the disastrous state of bar-exam statistics, as of the latest administration of the test, the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) average has sunk to a 33-year low. As much as we’d like to say this is an April Fool’s joke, it is not.

According to Erica Moeser of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the mean score on the February 2016 administration of the MBE fell to 135, the lowest average score on a February exam since 1983. This score is down 1.2 points since last year’s February test. Comparatively, the mean score on the July 2015 exam saw its lowest mean score in almost 30 years, down by 1.6 points from the prior year’s exam, to 139.9.

Per Moeser, the number of February test-takers was up by 4 percent from last year, from 22,396 in 2015 to 23,324 this year. Given the miserable passage data on the July 2015 bar exam, this isn’t surprising in the least; in fact, the only surprising thing about this is that the number of February 2016 test-takers wasn’t even higher considering how many people failed the exam this past summer.

This is what Moeser had to say in a brief interview with the ABA Journal:

February scores are typically lower than July scores, Moeser said, because July test-takers tend to be first-time test takers, who generally score higher on the exam than repeat takers. She said the results, while “a bit disappointing,” are not a surprise. “We believe we’re in the middle of a downward trend that is likely to continue for at least a couple more years,” she said.

How can this “downward trend” be stopped? One need only look to America’s law schools to find both the source and the solution to this problem.

When enrollment began to decline, numerous law schools lowered their admissions standards to fill their otherwise empty seats in an effort to avoid future financial troubles, with little regard as to whether their newly admitted students would be able to pass the bar exam after graduation. Admission standards must be raised to end this misery. If for some reason law schools find themselves unwilling to do so, they must institute and enforce the taking of remedial bar-exam preparation courses for all students, free of cost, for it was the law schools that set these students up for their incredibly expensive, but perhaps fruitless journeys in the first place.

We’ve said it multiple times in the past, and we’ll say it again because it continues to bear repeating: “Until law schools realize they’re doing a disservice to everyone — their students, their graduates, and their graduates’ future clients — things will only continue to get worse.” Don’t let the dumbing down of the legal profession happen on your watch.

Multistate Bar Exam average score falls to 33-year low [ABA Journal]