Another Day (Part 2) The second article in today’s paper that caused me to pause struck even closer to home when it suggested that the cost of law school no longer is worth the potential rewards. Those costs have escalated to the point that increases in tuition have risen at about ten (10) times the rate of inflation over the past 50 years. In the 1960s (when I attended law school), tuition at a private law school was in the neighborhood of $10,000 per year in today’s dollars (much less in actual dollars). That cost now exceeds $50,000 per year. My cost at the University of Colorado, a public school, was more like $2,000 per year in current dollars. As a result, nearly half of all law school graduates move into the job market owing $200,000 or more from the costs of their education. The median salary for those who were fortunate enough to get jobs was $45,000 per year. The interest alone on their loans took nearly one-third of their salaries. Not only have costs risen egregiously, the opportunities that resulted from a law degree have diminished just as rapidly. Federal clerkships and associate positions in large law firms are the safest paths to long-term success in the practice of law; yet, out of 200 ABA-accredited law schools, fewer than 10% saw half of their graduates find jobs in those two categories. That ratio jumps above 10%, but barely, when one considers those law schools succeeding in placing one-quarter of their graduates. Most graduates never truly enter the legal profession. Of those who graduated from law schools in the past 35 years, fewer than half today are practicing law in any form. In 1975, approximately 2% of this nation’s GDP went to legal services. By 2009, that percentage was down to 1.37% of GDP. Today it probably is lower. The conclusion of the article is that law school today is a bad investment. While the article overlooks the intrinsic value of education – and law schools do a decent job of teaching students to think critically – there certainly is ample justification for that conclusion. I’m not sure what I would do today were I facing that decision.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 18:35:17 +0000
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