Most law schools are operating at a deficit this year as they grapple with lower enrollment and try to lure more students with tuition discounts, concludes a law professor who studied the numbers.

Just how many law schools are losing money? Eighty percent to eighty-five percent, according to the estimate by University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos, writing at the blog Lawyers, Guns & Money.Above the Law notes the article.

Campos drew his conclusion after studying the budgets of 31 ABA-approved law schools, 23 of them private and eight of them public, he says in the comments section to his article. He obtained the budgets various ways, including requests to the schools or through open records laws, tax filings and conversations with private individuals.

Since 2010, first-year law-school enrollment is down nearly 25 percent and tuition revenue is down by about 15 percent in real terms, Campos says. But costs aren’t declining to compensate for the lower revenues.

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