Hal Schenck kindly provided a counter-example to the claim in question. Consider the twisted cubic: (the code is in Macaulay) 2 2 o3 I = ideal (- y + x*z, - y*z + x*w, - z + y*w) i4 : J = ideal leadTerm I 2 2 o4 = ideal (z , y*z, y ) i5 : hilbertPolynomial coker gens ideal leadTerm I^2 o5 = - 16*P + 9*P 0 1 i6 : hilbertPolynomial coker gens ideal leadTerm J^2 o6 = - 20*P + 10*P 0 1 So, the quotient is actually positive dimensional.