THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF LEGAL JOBS ON EARTH
Is Law School Worth the High Cost? Summary: Should you really put yourself in five to six figures of debt by going to law school?
No doubt about it, law school is expensive. In fact, law school can outprice many other post-graduate educations. The prevailing question is, however, is if law school is worth the costs and the sacrifices it poses. Law school can cost five to six figures along with three brutal years of your life. So the decision to attend is one that should not be taken lightly. Graduating from an elite law school such as Yale or Harvard is a triedand-true good choice, even if you don’t end up practicing, but is law school worth it for everyone else? For those who don’t attend an ivy league law school, the answer depends on several factors—the cost of the law school and whether or not you will obtain employment that will, in the end, justify that cost. The American Bar Association reported that in 2016, 37,124 people graduated from the almost 200 ABAaccredited law schools in the United States. This number was down by 7.15% from the year before. Of these graduates, only 64.5% obtained employment that required a law license and only 61.8% of graduates had long-term, full-time jobs. Of those who obtained lawyer jobs, what were their salaries? SoFi, an online student finance company, studied salary-to-debt ratios amongst approximately 60,000 law school graduates, and the company found that there were some schools with excellent ratios. For instance, graduates of Cornell University Law School had an average salary of $183,377 and average debt of $148,443, making the ratio 1.2x. Columbia University Law School also had a 1.2x salary-to-debt ratio, with graduates earning an average salary of $177,962 and holding an average debt of $156,052. In contrast, Florida Coastal School of Law graduates had an average salary of $84,664 but an average debt of $158,427, causing it to earn Sofi’s title of Worst Law Program. “You’ll want to steer clear of the law school programs on our list with a 0.6 or lower salary-to-debt ratio. That means graduates of these programs are burdened with approximately 1.5 times more debt than their annual salary,” SoFi wrote. “Florida Coastal School of Law, which ranks dead last on SoFi’s list, accepts 72% of its applicants, including those with some of the lowest LSAT scores—below 148. Despite very large class sizes and a high student-to-faculty ratio, the school charges $44,000 a year in tuition, which is comparable to costs at some of the top 20 law schools. Graduates of Florida Coastal School of Law carry an average of nearly $160,000 in student loan debt and typically earn under $85,000 annually.” Because there is such a gap in value between the hundreds of law schools to choose from, it is important for potential students to arm themselves with as much information as possible. Below we will explore the
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