By Karen Sloan
Law School Transparency executive director Kyle McEntee
U.S. News & World Report caused a minor stir in March when it reported that graduates of American Bar Association-accredited law schools leave with $100,433 in educational loan debt.
But that figure doesn’t reflect the true cost of financing a law degree — a statistic that prospective law students ought to understand, according to Law School Transparency Executive Director Kyle McEntee.
As part of the comprehensive database of law school employment statistics it launched this week, the organization has projected the total cost of law school loans for students who will graduate in 2015 and 2016 — that is, the ones who will start law school this year or next. The former will owe an average of $195,265 and the latter will owe an average $200,595.
“My jaw dropped when I ran the numbers,” McEntee said.
He added a few caveats. The calculations are based on the assumption that students will borrow the full tuition amount in the form of federal loans, even though many students receive some scholarship money. They also assume that students at public law schools pay out-of state-tuition levels, which generally are higher than in-state rates.
Out-of-state tuition is “the starting point for all tuition rates, before discounts are applied,” McEntee said. “It is a new student’s debt exposure if he or she isn’t entitled to any discounts. And it’s not as if a significant portion of every state school’s class isn’t from out of state.”
The calculations also take into account factors that prospective students may not consider, including interest and inflation. Starting with each school’s actual tuition this year, the calculations assume 3 percent tuition increases. That amounts to a conservative estimate, given that Northwestern University School of Law‘s 3 percent tuition increase next year is the lowest there in 40 years, while the University of California Hastings College of the law plans to hike tuition next year by 15 percent for in-state students.
“This is trying to get people away from thinking, ‘I’m borrowing $50,000 a year, so I’ll owe $150,000 when I graduate,’ ” McEntee said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
Debt projections for individual schools can be found at Law School Transparency’s Web site.
The City University of New York School of Law features the lowest projected debt for the class of 2015, at $96,242. The University of California, Berkeley School of Law had the highest, at $273,667, although that figure assumes graduates paid out-of-state tuition rates; most students from outside California qualify for in-state tuition after one year.
New York University School of Law had the next-highest projected debt at $266,462.
Law School Transparency based its database on statistics compiled by the American Bar Association: The National Association of Law Placement, or NALP: U.S. News; and the schools themselves. The organization was founded in 2009 to press for better consumer information for prospective law students.
Contact Karen Sloan at ksloan@alm.com.
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Think Harvard and Yale are expensive? You didn’t know that public University of California Berkeley is more expensive to Californians tha Harvard and Yale: outrageous!
University of California Berkeley (UCB) Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau is outspoken on why elite public universities like Cal. should charge more. With Birgeneau’s leadership flagship UCB is more expensive (on an all-in-cost) than private Harvard and Yale. Cal. is the most expensive public higher education in our country!
Birgeneau ($450,000 salary) likes to blame the politicians, since they stopped giving him every dollar expected. The Chancellor’s ‘charge more’ instate tuition skyrocketed fees by an average 14% per year from 2006 to 2011-12 academic year. If Birgeneau had allowed fees to rise at the same rate of inflation over the past 10 years they would still be in reach of most middle income students. Increasing funding is not Cal’s solution.
UCB is a public university created to maximize access to the widest number of instate students at a reasonable cost with a mission of diversity and equality of opportunity. Unfortunately Birgeneau’s ‘charge more’ instate tuition diminishes the equality and inclusion principles which underlie our state and country. Birgeneau’s and Provost George Breslauer’s ($306,000 salary) ‘charge more’ instate tuition denies middle income Californians the transformative value of university education.
Chancellor Birgeneau’s tenure is a sad unacceptable legacy. University of California Berkeley is now farther and farther out of reach for the sons and daughters of Californians.
Opinion to: UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu and your Calif. State Senator and Assembly member.
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