The two graduate schools the county is fighting to keep

The law school in numbers

How it got here. The school was founded in 1994 with county property and $2.5 million in county startup money, and supervisors still appoint up to 9 of its 19 trustees. A January 2026 addendum says the property goes to the county IDA if the school closes or merges outside the county[120]. By January 2026 the school had 184 students and about 47 employees and needed $2.4 million just to stay open until August 2026[119]. Its 2025-26 enrollment was the lowest of any U.S. law school[121].

Two suitors, one condition. Merger talks with Roanoke College surfaced in January, but that path would have meant leaving Grundy[119]. By summer, a committee chaired by Jeff Mitchell was negotiating with the University of Pikeville (UPike), a private university of about 2,500 students roughly 42 miles away in Kentucky. UPike's president, Burton Webb, says it has no desire to move the school and that the Grundy location is one reason it's interested[120][121]. If a merger happens, the law school's own board would dissolve. ASL officials hope to finish before fall 2027, and UPike has hired a third-party reviewer[120].

The money fight. In February the county IDA (its industrial development authority) voted 7-0 to table a $3.4 million appropriation so it could review the school's finances. So supervisors routed the money through the Town of Grundy's IDA, which approved it March 11 under an agreement that requires the school to keep its Grundy campus until Jan. 1, 2076[120][121]. By July, IDA director Matt Fields had resigned his county posts, board member Harry Presley had quit, two law-school trustees had been replaced, and supervisors had voted 7-0 at a July 10 special meeting to remove IDA chairman Tim O'Quinn. O'Quinn says Supervisor Trey Adkins told him to "quit digging"; Adkins denies it[120]. On Oct. 5 the board tabled a motion to seek repayment of the $3.4 million. The county attorney said the March agreement has a repayment provision that could be folded into a UPike deal; Adkins and Supervisor Craig Stiltner want the money back, while Supervisor Roger Rife objected to asking for it after voting to give it[124].

The turnaround, with a caveat. The school says 115 first-years enrolled in August, its largest class in 15 years and 121% bigger than in 2023[122], and Dean David Western expects about 238 students in total this year[123]. The school calls that a 39% jump over 2025, though the ABA disclosure lists 92 first-years for 2025, which would make it closer to 25%; the two counts were likely taken at different dates[121][122]. Housing is the next limit: Western told supervisors it's one of the biggest complaints from new students[121], which ties straight back to the seventh edition. On the bar exam, only 23 of 42 first-time takers passed in 2025, 54.8% against an 80.7% weighted average for the same exams, and the lowest first-time rate of Virginia's eight law schools. But within two years 94.6% of the class of 2024 had passed, well above the ABA's 75% floor[125][126].

Why the county cares: a legal desert

The Virginia State Bar's 2025 study counts 44% of Virginia localities as legal deserts, with fewer than one active lawyer per 1,000 residents, and 73% as private-practice deserts. Rural areas have more lawyers over 60 than under 40, and graduates with ties to a region are likelier to return to it[128]. That's the case the school made to supervisors in February: more than 2,100 graduates, and about 62% of all new attorneys in the seven surrounding counties are its alumni, with the next law school at 6%[127]. Those are the school's own figures, but they line up with the bar study's point that local pipelines are what keep rural law offices staffed.

The pharmacy school's quieter slide

The Appalachian College of Pharmacy runs Virginia's only three-year Doctor of Pharmacy program, with 75 seats a year and $37,500 tuition[130]. Its fall headcount fell by half, from 221 in 2018 to 110 in 2024, according to the state higher-education council (SCHEV). In 2023-24 it accepted 100 of 128 applicants and 36 enrolled, about half its seats[129]. It's adapting: the class of 2029 arrived Sept. 2 with satellite sites in Abingdon and Roanoke[131]. At the February meeting, Michael McGlothlin, identified in the minutes as the pharmacy college's president, said 1,127 people who attended it are now practicing pharmacists, and warned, "If you don't have lawyers, you don't have businesses that'll come here"[127]. This briefing found no reporting that the pharmacy school is in financial trouble the way the law school is, but the enrollment trend is the same shape.