BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The Indiana University Maurer School of Law and the Indiana University Wells Scholars Program have announced a program that enables IU students who are Wells Scholars to earn both a bachelor’s degree and a juris doctor degree in just six years instead of seven years. The program includes full scholarship and living stipends of more than $175,000 for Indiana residents and $300,000 for nonresidents.
Students accepted to the Maurer-Wells 3+3 Program will be able to complete their first year of law school during their fourth and final year of undergraduate education. Eligible students will receive scholarship funding and living stipends from the Wells Scholars and IU Pathways programs, along with a tuition scholarship from the Maurer School of Law. As a result, Maurer-Wells students are expected to incur no college or law school tuition expense, and they will receive other substantial assistance to offset the cost of their education.
“The Maurer-Wells 3+3 Program is another way for the law school to attract the best and brightest students, while enabling them to meet their educational goals at little or no expense,” said Austen L. Parrish, dean and the James H. Rudy Professor of Law. “IU’s Wells Scholars have honored the university with distinguished careers in nearly every profession, and we look forward to welcoming them into the law school community.”
Parrish plans to teach a course, International Law in a Changing World, as part of the Wells Scholars freshman seminar in the spring of 2018. At the conclusion of the course, the entire class will visit Berlin, including the university’s Global Gateway there. The most recent class of 20 Wells Scholars, 16 of them from Indiana, was inducted Sunday.
“This program builds upon the goals of our former longtime president and chancellor, Herman B Wells, in creating one of the most prestigious and competitive awards offered by any university to attract the most talented students to Indiana University,” said Christoph Irmscher, director of IU’s Wells Scholars Program and Provost Professor of English.
Additional support for the program is being provided in the form of a $50,000 scholarship gift from Bonnie Gibson, BA’75, JD’78, a 1975 recipient of the Herman B Wells Senior Award. Gibson is a retired partner of Fragomen, a Phoenix, Arizona, law firm.
Founded in 1842, the Indiana University Maurer School of Law is the oldest public law school in the Midwest. Ranked 30th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, it is the highest-ranked public law school in Indiana and among the top 15 public law schools nationally. The school also has highly ranked programs in international law, intellectual property law, tax law and environmental law.
The Wells Scholarship, created in honor of the late IU Chancellor Herman B Wells, ranks among the most competitive and prestigious awards offered by any American university. Wells Scholars have gone on to win more than 75 national and international scholarships, fellowships and grants, such as the Rhodes, Truman, Marshall, Soros, Mitchell, Churchill, Gates Cambridge, Fulbright and Goldwater awards. The Wells Scholars Program, part of the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, facilitates interdisciplinary and extracurricular opportunities for scholars pursuing majors across the IU Bloomington campus.
