This study reports that between 1993 and 2008, there was a 7.5% decrease in the proportion of African Americans enrolled in U.S. law schools. The study also reports a 11.7% decrease in the proportion of Mexican Americans during the same period. (Hat tip: Brian Leiter)
I would guess the increasing importance of the U.S. News rankings explains much of the difference. A law school’s U.S. News ranking is heavily influenced by incoming GPA and LSAT scores of incoming classes. Given the well-known disparities of those numbers, schools may be choosing to emphasize the racial diversity of its incoming class less to get more of an advantage in the U.S. News rankings. Of course, different people will have a different sense of whether that is good or bad. But I think that’s the dynamic.
Arkady says:
For those of us not in the law biz, could you explain the importance of the rankings, the “cash value,” so to speak. I’m not sure I understand the value of the rankings to the school itself, beyond bragging rights. Does the ranking somehow translate to more money for the school? And if so, how? Increased tuition?
January 7, 2010, 6:29 pmOrin Kerr says:
Arkday,
Over a span of several years, a law school’s U.S. News ranking plays a role in how strong its students are (because some applicants decide where to apply and where to go based on them) as well as the employment prospects of its graduates (because some employers decide who to hire based in part on them).
January 7, 2010, 6:35 pmMikey NTH says:
Enrollments could be declining due to the expense of attending law school.
January 7, 2010, 6:42 pmCrunchy Frog says:
As AA dies a slow, deserved death, it will be interesting to see if graduation rates climb with declining enrollment.
January 7, 2010, 6:46 pmMark N. says:
@Arkady: Looking at it from the perspective of individuals, rather than schools as abstract entities, institutional prestige is a sort of currency in many fields, in that being Professor at, or Dean of, a particularly well regarded school is a higher profile and more influential position than the same job, at the same pay, at a school that isn’t as well regarded. It can also translate into the normal kind of currency, e.g. if someone looks for a new job, having a position at a #5 versus #55 school on the CV will probably result in different opportunities and salaries.
January 7, 2010, 6:55 pmruuffles says:
Cost of undergrad is also increasing, but the financial aid goes up proportionally. Probably not the case for law school.
January 7, 2010, 6:57 pmjimM47 says:
Query: This is a trend across all ABA law schools, yes? How affected by the rankings are law schools that are firmly established as regional, non-national schools?
January 7, 2010, 7:05 pmJohn says:
I think Orin understated the importance of rankings to the “cash value” of the degree. Employment prospects coming out of law school are almost exclusively a function of the school’s prestige and 1st year GPA. How highly ranked your law school is is very frequently the difference between and upper/upper-middle class life and crippling, life-long poverty.
This is the incontrovertable truth. Law professors, law school deans, and rich lawyers always understate the full effect because the truth sounds crass, and everyone would like to believe it is not really the case. That, and the fact that it is no skin off their backs to say so. I don’t see anything wrong with the system, but lets call a spade a spade guys.
As for the original point of the post, I think the logic is sound and that Orin probably hit the nail on the head. The only hitch I see is that the bottom 25% of LSAT scores and undergrad GPAs do not factor into USnews rankings, so it should, in theory, be easy for schools to take 10% minorities with lower credentials (by these measures) and not have it affect the rankings. Maybe, at the lower schools, the bottom 25% is now filled with rich kids who can pay full ride? (Paying full ride will never get you an advantage at a top 30 school).
If Orin’s hypothesis is true, it really exposes how utterly feckless academic institutions have become. They tout a concept like diversity, and demand that other institutions adopt similar philosophies, but as soon as it is a detriment to them, they just as easily discard it (but don’t stop demanding that others keep it up).
January 7, 2010, 7:12 pmAndrew says:
The good news in the cited study is that, “African-American and Mexican-American applicants are doing better than ever on the leading indicators used by law schools to determine admissibility: undergraduate grade point average and LSAT scores.” Let’s hope that trend continues.
Of course, it’s a separate question whether the best and brightest kids should even want to go to law school, rather some other profession. Maybe the smartest African-American and Mexican-American are increasingly choosing to go into other careers.
January 7, 2010, 7:26 pmAndrew says:
To get the bigger picture, consider the percentage distribution of white students enrolled in degree-granting institutions, according to the Department of Education:
1976: 82.6%
1980: 81.4%
1990: 77.6%
2000: 68.3%
2002: 67.1%
2003: 66.7%
2004: 66.1%
2005: 65.7%
2006: 65.2%
2007: 64.4%
This shows a steady trend of minorities catching up.
January 7, 2010, 7:53 pmBenP says:
That’s so dramatically overstating the case it’s almost funny. (or not funny depending on your point of view)
The super inflated salaries at large law firms are an artifact of the last 10-20 years. Most lawyers across the country make at least a middle class living. I wouldn’t say state prosecutors and public defenders live in “crushing poverty” by any stretch of the imagination, and in most areas they’re toward the bottom of the pay scale in legal jobs. Pretty much every state other than New York or California has lots of well off lawyers who went to schools outside of the top few.
The primary difference is that there’s a handful of law schools, (the top 14 arguably) that have a national reputation, and can place you in a well paying job solely on the strength of the school’s name.
The vast majority of other schools have decent regional reputations. They’ll place lots of lawyers in the firms within their state and the surrounding states. Being able to get a better job is solely on the strength of the individual candidate.
The only thing really foolish is not doing any investigation and going to a school that’s both low ranked and outrageously expensive.
January 7, 2010, 7:55 pmCheckEnclosed says:
Going to the site for the study, the graphs produced do not show year-by-year numbers for admissions. One cannot tell whether the 1993 figures were abnormally high, or the 2008 figures were abnormally low, or what the standard deviation in year to year figures is.
Also, why are students classified as “Mexican American” or “Chicano”?
Would figures for students identified as “Hispanic” tell a different story?
How have admissions changed for other ethnic groups, e.g., Asians?
January 7, 2010, 7:59 pmEric Rasmusen says:
As “John” says, the US News rankings don’t use the bottom 25% of LSATs at a law school, so affirmative action doesn’t really factor in. I imagine that the people who make up the stats omit listing the average LSAT score for that very reason. Does anybody know if that statistic is available anywhere? Merely publicizing it would put pressure on schools to reduce the number of affirmative action and corruption special admits.
January 7, 2010, 9:10 pmFantasiaWHT says:
“The primary difference is that there’s a handful of law schools, (the top 14 arguably) that have a national reputation, and can place you in a well paying job solely on the strength of the school’s name.”
Just to add to that a little, those schools can place you in a well-paying job ANYWHERE in the U.S., pretty much. The top 10% or so at just about any school can get the best-paying local jobs. Example – the 6-figure jobs in Milwaukee do go to some top school students, but a sizable portion of them go to UW (ranked in the 30′s) and Marquette (ranked in the 80′s) graduates.
January 7, 2010, 9:25 pmJohn says:
BenP, my previous comment was not out of touch at all. My guess is that you are older (late 30′s, mid 40′s?), or in any event, you are only looking at established lawyers to form your opinion about career prospects in law.
I agree that most lawyers make a decent middle class living. But most of those lawyers went to law school in an era where it was vastly cheaper, and had to take out little debt, if any at all. Times have changed. There is almost no way to attend law school without taking out 60-100K in debt. And that is very little price discrepancy among law schools. Almost all will be over 30K/year in tuition, except perhaps for some state schools, but not every state has a public law school (none in Mass, Vermont, NH, or RI).
In my rough estimate, at least 50% of people who went to law school in the last 5 years, or who are going to graduate anytime soon, will carry their student debt into their retirement. They will never be able to buy a home, and they will never be able to afford to give their children the educational opportunities that were available to them (yet, ironically, crippled them). The path of the middle class lawyer that you speak of, and which describes may of my parents’ friends, no longer exists under todays conditions.
January 7, 2010, 9:57 pmSAS says:
Orin,
From today’s WSJ Blog – an interesting crim law hypo for you to ponder:
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/01/07/a-legal-question-with-no-answer/
January 7, 2010, 10:25 pmtheobromophile says:
To add to John’s point: $30,000/year tuition? Where’s that at?
In all seriousness: my alma mater is relatively inexpensive by private school standards (and is on par with expensive state law schools). My tuition in 2007-2008 (3L year) was about $35,000/year. Most private schools cost about $40,000 – $45,000 per year, in tuition alone (not counting room, board, books, and fees).
There’s also the cost of applying to law school – about $250 for the LSAT and LSDAS, $50 – $75 per application, and other costs (such as traveling to a school, or, for many students, the cost of a prep course). For working people without student loans or for upper-class people, the few thousand dollars of application costs aren’t significant. The same is not true for lower-income groups.
Given that, on the average, African-American students come from less wealthy families than their white peers, it makes sense that they would be less likely to want to take on that type of debt load (or would have to, if their parents would not help them with some of the cost).
What might be harder to study, but also possible, is that talented students from lower-income families may be less likely to pursue law degrees. Personally, I don’t think that it would bode well for our profession if that were the case; it’s not like lawyering is in desperate need of an upper-class perspective.
January 7, 2010, 10:33 pmNot my usual name says:
That’s incorrect in the details. U.S. News asks schools only their median LSATs and UGPAs. Leiter discusses this in the article Professor Kerr linked. Basically, you game this by keeping your school somewhat small and recruiting one student over your goal median for every student below it. Since it’s a median, you can hide some very low scores by making sure that half your class is over-qualified.
You can spot this gambit by learning out how many 1Ls are on scholarship. Law-school scholarships are, with very few exceptions, recruiting tools to convince a student who could get into a higher-ranked law school to attend a lower-ranked school. At some schools (like mine), more than half the 1Ls are on scholarship. That basically means the school is buying its way up the rankings.
January 7, 2010, 10:40 pmBama 1L says:
Right, but unless Milwaukee is different from everywhere else, anyone who went to an elite school and has a plausible reason for wanting to live in Milwaukee can get any job in town, whereas if you go to UW or Marquette you have to do really well in law school to get an interview.
January 7, 2010, 10:42 pmBenP says:
You could guess that, but you’d be wrong. I’m a practicing lawyer two years out of law school and have already all but paid off my student loans.
I’ve posted this list on ATL before, but it’s worth remaking.
There are literally dozens of schools within the USNEWS tier 1 that have tuition under 30k a year, and quite a few that have tuition near or below $20k a year. If you’re relatively frugal you can avoid a lot of loans for living expenses, and if you don’t have a “highest ranking whatever the cost” type mentality, you can very easily attend a slightly lower ranked school where you’ll get a substantial scholarship.
Moreover, many of the below are in state, but in nearly every state I’m familiar with, you can get in state status by your second year, and your first if you’re willing to move out a couple months ahead of time or get a job there.
20 – University of Minnesota – Twin Cities – In State Tuition $24k per year
23 – Indiana University Bloomington – In State Tuition $19k per yar.
26 – University of Iowa – In State Tuition $17k per year.
28 – College of William and Mary (Marshall-Wythe) – In State tuition $20k per year
30 – University of Alabama – In State Tuition – $12k per year
30 – UNC CHapel Hill – In State Tuition – $15k per year
30 – University of Washington (Seattle) – In State Tuition $19k per year
35 – Ohio State University – In state tuition $21k per year.
35 – University of California Davis – In State Tutiion – $28k per year
35 – University of Georgia – in State Tuition – $13k per year
35 – University of Wisconsin Madison – In State Tuition – $14k per year
41 – Brigham Young University – $19k per year
41 – George Mason University – in state tuition $18k per year
43 – University of Arizona – In State Tuition $19k per year
43 – University of Maryland -In State tuition $22k per year
45 – University of Colorado Boulder – In State Tuition $22k per year
45 – University of Utah – In State Tuition $13k per year
51 – University of Florida – In State Tuition 12k per year
51 – Florida State University – In State Tuition $12k per year
52 – University of Cincinatti – In State Tuition $19k per year
52 – University of COnneticut – In state tuition $22k per year
55 – Arizona State University – in state tutiion $16k per year
55 – University of Kentucky – in state tuition $15k per year
59 – University of Houston – In state tution $18k per year
59 – University of Tennessee Knoxville – In state tuition $12k per year
65 – Georgia State University – In state tuition $10k per year
65 – Temple University – In state tuition 16k per year
65 – University of Kansas – $15k per year
65 – University of Missouri – $15k per year.
71 – University of Oklahoma – $17k per year
75 – Louisiana State University – $15k per year
75 – University of Nevada Los Vegas – $11k per year
77 – Rutgers – $23k per year
77 – University of New Mexico – 11k per year
77 – University of Oregon – $20k per year
87 – Indiana University Indainapolis – $19k per year
87 – University of South Carolina – $17k per year
94 – University of Arkansas Fayetteville – ~$10k per year ($357 per credit hour)
95 – University of Luiville – $13k per year
If you’re willing to manage your living expenses while you’re there, and maybe work part time, you can graduate from ANY of these schools with < $75k in debt if you're paying full price, some of them you could graduate with as little as $30k of debt, still paying full price. $75k of debt isn't a small undertaking by any means, but it absolutely isn't the crushing debt load you're describing. It's also doable with a "middle class" salary if you extend it some. It's a hell of a lot less than $150k.
Law Review type graduates from any of these schools can go out and make opportunities opportunities for themselves that are as good as any a middle of the pack student from a T14 school might have, and they have great opportunities at local and regional firms.
January 7, 2010, 10:52 pmBABH says:
The GI Bill works pretty well.
January 7, 2010, 10:55 pmBenP says:
You could guess that, but you’d be wrong. I’m a practicing lawyer two years out of law school and have already all but paid off my student loans.
I’ve posted this list on ATL before, but it’s worth remaking.
There are literally dozens of schools within the USNEWS tier 1 that have tuition under 30k a year, and quite a few that have tuition near or below $20k a year. If you’re relatively frugal you can avoid a lot of loans for living expenses, and if you don’t have a “highest ranking whatever the cost” type mentality, you can very easily attend a slightly lower ranked school where you’ll get a substantial scholarship.
Moreover, many of the below are in state, but in nearly every state I’m familiar with, you can get in state status by your second year, and your first if you’re willing to move out a couple months ahead of time or get a job there.
20 – University of Minnesota – Twin Cities – In State Tuition $24k per year
23 – Indiana University Bloomington – In State Tuition $19k per yar.
26 – University of Iowa – In State Tuition $17k per year.
28 – College of William and Mary (Marshall-Wythe) – In State tuition $20k per year
30 – University of Alabama – In State Tuition – $12k per year
30 – UNC CHapel Hill – In State Tuition – $15k per year
30 – University of Washington (Seattle) – In State Tuition $19k per year
35 – Ohio State University – In state tuition $21k per year.
35 – University of California Davis – In State Tutiion – $28k per year
35 – University of Georgia – in State Tuition – $13k per year
35 – University of Wisconsin Madison – In State Tuition – $14k per year
41 – Brigham Young University – $19k per year
41 – George Mason University – in state tuition $18k per year
43 – University of Arizona – In State Tuition $19k per year
43 – University of Maryland -In State tuition $22k per year
45 – University of Colorado Boulder – In State Tuition $22k per year
45 – University of Utah – In State Tuition $13k per year
51 – University of Florida – In State Tuition 12k per year
51 – Florida State University – In State Tuition $12k per year
52 – University of Cincinatti – In State Tuition $19k per year
52 – University of COnneticut – In state tuition $22k per year
55 – Arizona State University – in state tutiion $16k per year
55 – University of Kentucky – in state tuition $15k per year
59 – University of Houston – In state tution $18k per year
59 – University of Tennessee Knoxville – In state tuition $12k per year
65 – Georgia State University – In state tuition $10k per year
65 – Temple University – In state tuition 16k per year
65 – University of Kansas – $15k per year
65 – University of Missouri – $15k per year.
71 – University of Oklahoma – $17k per year
75 – Louisiana State University – $15k per year
75 – University of Nevada Los Vegas – $11k per year
77 – Rutgers – $23k per year
77 – University of New Mexico – 11k per year
77 – University of Oregon – $20k per year
87 – Indiana University Indainapolis – $19k per year
87 – University of South Carolina – $17k per year
94 – University of Arkansas Fayetteville – ~$10k per year ($357 per credit hour)
95 – University of Luiville – $13k per year
If you’re willing to manage your living expenses while you’re there, and maybe work part time, you can graduate from ANY of these schools with < $75k in debt if you're paying full price, some of them you could graduate with as little as $30k of debt, still paying full price. $75k of debt isn't a small undertaking by any means, but it absolutely isn't the crushing debt load you're describing. It's also doable with a "middle class" salary if you extend it some. It's a hell of a lot less than $150k.
Law Review type graduates from any of these schools can go out and make opportunities opportunities for themselves that are as good as any a middle of the pack student from a T14 school might have, and they have great opportunities at local and regional firms.
January 7, 2010, 10:58 pmBenP says:
Milwaukee may be slightly bigger than average for that type of market (and given it’s proximity to Michigan, Northwestern, UChicago etc it’s more likely to be) but in a great many “medium sized cities” many firms will take a well ranked local graduate over a middle ranked top school graduate because they (probably quite rightfully) think that the top school graduate will bail on living in Milwaukee the second some better offer comes along. Whereas, a graduate from UW is much more likely to stay in Wisconsin.
January 7, 2010, 11:04 pmSandy MacHoots says:
Maybe I just didn’t read the study correctly, but its comparing raw numbers against percentages. If the number of African American/Mexican American/Chicano students have held steady but those for Caucasian/White and Asian/American students have risen, the relative percentage of AfAm/MAC students would drop even if more of those students were actually being admitted. Did I miss something?
The ABA and AALS pressure all law schools to admit more minority students for diversity purposes. Such admissions don’t hurt your rankings even if the LSAT/GPA scores are lower, since the key numbers are the 25th percentile, the median and the 75th percentile. The percentiles are used, rather than averages, specifically to avoid the problem Prof. Kerr identifies — it’s set up so that schools (except perhaps George Mason, where Prof. Kerr may have some inside knowledge) can admit up to 25% of their class with very low numbers without having to suffer in the rankings.
The problem with admitting lower-scoring minorities isn’t the rankings, it’s the fact that if those lower-scoring students flunk out you get hammered by the ABA because you’re not supposed to admit students who are going to fail, and a high failure rate is considered bad. If you let them slide through to graduation, these lower-scoring students are very likely to flunk the bar, in which case you get hammered again for a low bar passage rate. At top-tier schools this isn’t much of a problem, since virtually no one flunks out, and the minority students (whose credentials mirror those at second-tier schools) generally have little trouble passing the bar. But at the lowest-tier schools, to get a significant amount of diversity (except for Asians) you have to dip down much lower into the LSAT/GPA pool, so you’re faced with Hobson’s Choice: admit students who are very likely to flunk or fail to the bar, or get docked for lack of diversity. Many schools react to this by providing very substantial additional help and mentoring for minority students, often even including special summer sessions before the first year to get them better prepared.
One additional point may be affecting the numbers. I believe (though I haven’t looked this up and may be misremembering) that there are many more Asians going to law school than there were 10 years ago. Since (1) their scores are comparable to C/W scores, and (2) you get to count them as part of your “diversity” numbers, I suspect that higher-scoring Asians may be taking some of the “diversity” spots formerly taken by other groups. This is may be due to Gruder, which opted for “diversity” as rather than “redress of historical inequities” as the “compelling state interest” justifying discrimination.
January 7, 2010, 11:07 pmMike McDougal says:
At T1, tuition is $10,000 and financial aid is $5,000. At T2, tuition is $20,000 and financial aid is $10,000.
All else being the same, which would you pick?
January 7, 2010, 11:21 pmOrin Kerr says:
John writes:
I’d be interested in seeing your math, John. In the DC area, for example, a 1 bedroom apartment might cost $300,000, and a house for a family might run you $600,000 to $800,000. Most of that is financed when you buy it, so you take on debt in the range of $250k to $700k. In that world, $150k of law school debt isn’t actually that significant: It’s like the difference between buying a 1 bedroom apartment and a 2 bedroom apartment. Does that kind of debt really cripple half of law school graduates for life, such that they will retire with debt and they won’t be able to buy a home, their children will lack opportunities, etc.?
January 7, 2010, 11:47 pmJohn says:
BenP
I said that it is near impossible to graduate from law school with under 60K in debt, and you respond by saying that, if you do everything right, you can graduate with under 75K in debt. It seems we agree on everything except how burdensome it is to have 60-75K in debt. A starting DA in Mass makes about 40K, and it goes up to about 65K for anyone who is not the head of a division. Is your math much different than mine? My sister, who is a kindergarten teacher, and my cousin, a welder, both have VASTLY better long-term financial prospects than someone in that situation.
You state that people on law review at lesser schools can get the same jobs as T14 grads (more like top 2-5% really). I assume you did very well and were on law review. Congratulations! Now, do you also realize that 90% of students are not on law review, and that this is not just a result of lack of effort, but reflects the fact that people have different abilities when it comes to the study of the law, just like any other human endeavor. Furthermore, your blithe statement that one can just attend a lesser school and easily get a scholaship lacks awareness that most students who enroll in law school could not get an academic scholarship anywhere. Really, if everyone could get scholarships, how would law schools get $?
There isn’t any bitterness on my end about law school. I’m a recent grad from a good school and have a job at one of the best firms in the country. It just disturbs me that so many of my successful peers view part of the privilige of “making it” as covering up, or glossing over, how dire the situation will be for those who have white collar debt (60-130K) and working class salaries.
January 7, 2010, 11:58 pmMLS says:
It worked for me.
Undergrad at USNA – Free, and I even got paid
Grad at USNPGS – Free, and I even got paid
Flight training with the USN – Free, and I even got paid
Law at the USD – Free, courtesy of the GI Bill
There are paths one can take without going up to their eyeballs in debt.
As for “name schools”, I have not as yet met one of their graduates who were any better that those who actually took the time to study law at “lesser name” schools. The only significance I have ever noted re GPAs and LSATs, as well as GPAs in law schools is that diplomas with “summa”, “magna”, “with honors”, etc. make nice additions to ego walls for a few years, after which their relevance disappears.
Give me a a hard working, out of the box thinker, studious, inquisitive individual from virtually any law school who takes the law seriously and the interests of their clients seriously, not to mention they actually take the time needed to really understand the applicable to a clients needs, and I will readily take a pass on the Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc. grads who somehow seem to think that their alma mater is more important that their actual ability to practice law in a manner that effectively promotes the interests of their clients.
Sorry, but experience informs me that USN&WR adds nothing meaningful, and in many instances is downright hurtful, to the law profession in general. Heck, one of the currently most successful trial lawyers (who rails at those who call themselves litigators) never even enrolled in the law school he attended. He sat in classes, took the time to learn the law, took the bar on a dare (and passed) while still in law school, and was only discovered to be unenrolled when it came time to hand out diplomas. Maybe he would be looked down upon by the “chosen few”, but he runs rings around them and wins bigtime verdicts for his clients consistently. Why? Because he knows how to practice law and not wax poetic of legal principles having no relevance to the interests of his clients. The practice of law does require knowledge of what the law is, but cases are won or lost on being an effective and forceful advocate.
January 8, 2010, 12:04 amBenP says:
$75k a year at the federal 6.8% interest is ~$500-$600 a month if you take the extended repayment options. Like I said that’s nothing to take lightly, but that’s doable on a $40k or $50k a year salary without “Crushing poverty” and that’s still a young lawyer’s salary. Many private practices even in the smaller cities pay considerably more than $40k a year once people are several years in. There’s a handful of people that stay lifetime prosecutors or PD’s but many do the same thing Big Firm associates tend to do, they leave after a while for a different kind of practice.
January 8, 2010, 12:06 amJohn says:
Orin, I think there are multiple answers to your question. The easiest answer is that 50% of law grads (probably way higher in reality) will never be able to buy a house/apt that costs over 250K. How could they?
Don’t you recognize the destructive nature of your argument. Instead of working forward from the money one can reasonably expect to make (debt included), you assume a wealthy lifestyle and then say, “well, if that is what it costs to live, then it must be feasible.” This mentality is why we had a housing market crash.
To answer your question, I don’t have any numbers. I’m no economist, and this is all just by way of obvervation. I do know that I have about 80K in student debt, and my monthly payment is about $900 (10 year plan). I have a BIGLAW salary, so it’s all cool, but how could someone making even 50k/year pay for living expenses, a lower debt payment (30 year plan), AND buy a house? Simply stating that property costs 300K in DC doesn’t answer that question.
January 8, 2010, 12:16 amOrin Kerr says:
John,
I don’t think my argument is “destructive.” It is just recognizing that large quantities of debt — much larger than that of law school loans — are quite common. People finance houses, finance cars, and finance educations: They then have a monthly payment for all of these things. It’s a cost, but it’s not the end of the world. I should add that I am NOT saying that everyone should go to law school. People should think twice — and then a third time and a fourth time — before taking on that kind of debt. That’s just as true for buying a law school education as it is a house. But I just think it’s important to put this cost in perspective.
In terms of the economics of law school, the rough economic question is whether the job you get pays you more than your added debt. Let’s make some rough assumptions here. Assume you work for 40 years after law school, and you take on $150,000 in loans to go to law school and you’re paying an interest rate of 6%. By my calculations, that’s an $825 payment every month.
We don’t know what your tax rates or the deductability of the payment might be in the future, but let’s assume you need to make around $1,200 in salary per month to make that payment. Under that assumption, the economic question over the course of your career is whether you are making $14k a year more with a law degree than you were making before. If you are making more than that, you’re coming out ahead economically; if you’re making less, you’re coming out behind, right?
January 8, 2010, 12:35 amObserver says:
This seems highly unlikely. U.S. News rankings only account for the 25/75 percentiles. As such, whether the bottom 20% of any law school class has stats averaging at 2.0/140 or 3.5/165 makes no difference for U.S. News rankings’ purposes. This seems to suggest that U.S. News doesn’t explain any decrease in minority enrollment that goes too far below 25% (and I don’t think most law schools had 25% of underrepresented minorities, even in 1993).
January 8, 2010, 12:36 amJohn says:
MLS, you sound like a great guy and you’ve obviously done a great job planning your career. And, of course, thanks for your service!
That said, I disagree on a couple of points. Lofty academic credentials may not matter for most basic law practice, but they are relevant to the very intellectually geared legal jobs. I’m pretty sure Orin likes to see the “magna”s and the “summa”s when he gives his input on hiring at GW. Pure intellect has its time and place, including in BIGLAW practice. As for PD, DA, and AG type jobs, I agree that other characteristics are more important than academic aptitude.
I’m not crazy about flouting military service as an easy way to get law school paid for. My original point (which is tangential to the original conversation, my apologies) is that law school creates dire economic circumstances for many, if not most, students, and that students should be forewarned more than they are. If the revised advice is: “go to a highly ranked school or brace for economic hardship, OR go into the military” than I’m fine with that.
January 8, 2010, 12:38 amJohn says:
Orin, that all makes sense to me. Except, I would guess, and it is only a guess, that 50% of law students do not make ANY more than the would having not gone to law school. The percentage is probably higher in reality. Not to mention the opportunity cost of going to law school.
A senior DA at Middlesex in Boston makes $65K. That’s someone with 20+ years of experience. A public schoolteacher or a skilled tradesman would actually make MORE than that.
I’ll stick by my original statement that law school is a terrible financial decison for those who go to lower ranked schools, and that this adds up to 50% at least of the total student population. But, I am open to counterarguments.
So yes, I think it does matter if you attend highly ranked schools.
January 8, 2010, 12:54 amJohn says:
By the way, if you don’t make any more money with a law degree, then 14,000 X 40 years = $560,000, which, by my humble standards, is the cost of a house and higher ed for 2 kids.
January 8, 2010, 1:03 amSteve says:
The easiest answer is that 50% of law grads (probably way higher in reality) will never be able to buy a house/apt that costs over 250K.
This is a funny definition of “crushing, life-long poverty.”
January 8, 2010, 1:16 amOrin Kerr says:
John,
I agree that there are real choices to be made by folks thinking of going to law school: People need to consider how long they want to practice, what jobs they can get, what they actually want to do, what kind of lifestyle they want, etc.
At the same time, it’s worth noting that the average college graduate makes $46,000 a year, the average accountant makes $47,000 a year, the average engineer makes $58,000 a year, and the average lawyer makes $75,000 a year (at least if I recall that last statistic correctly). That doesn’t make law a get-rich-quick scheme, but it’s still a pretty decent bump up relative to some other choices for a lot of people.
January 8, 2010, 1:20 amHappy Not To Be In California says:
Minor point, but it would probably be more fair to compare JD compensation to people in other fields with professional certifications and/or advanced education, say CPAs and MS/PhD engineers, rather than just college graduates, accountants, or engineers. Here’s one set of data for MS engineers folks …
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Master_of_Science_%28MS%2fMSc%29%2c_Engineering/Salary
Its been a while since I’ve looked at the numbers, but IIRC advanced degrees also broadly correlate with about a 10-15 IQ point advantage vs. the general BA degree population
Of course, YMMV
January 8, 2010, 2:19 amJC says:
Why has no one brought up IBR in the discussion of law school debt yet? (Especially seeing as PD, DA, etc. keep coming up.)
January 8, 2010, 2:43 amOrin Kerr says:
Happy Not to be in California,
The comparisons are a little tricky, I think; I’m not exactly sure what the right group is. For example, the crowd that gets Master’s Degrees in engineering is a pretty specific group that goes back to school for more specialized training; that’s relatively uncommon among engineers. It’s pretty different from law school grads, who are just getting the first degree in the field needed to go practice.
January 8, 2010, 3:10 amAlexMcc says:
Hi Orrin,
I think the study you quoted failed to highlight that it is the applicant pool that is not keeping pace and that this would explain much of the difference. Despite an increase in the number of places (and in absolute population numbers)the two racial groups are not applying in greater numbers. Total applicants (http://members.lsac.org/Public/MainPage.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fPrivate%2fMainPage2.aspx) seem to have increased from 74,600 to 83,400 (by 11.8%) since just 2000. Yet during this time the black/chicano applicant pool went from 9860 to 10660 (by 8.1%). Presumably if law schools were being consistent in their admission policies this 3.7 point lag in applications would account for a signficant portion of the lower overall enrollment rates.
At the same time the LSAC tables show that Asian applicants went from 7.0 to 8.3% of total enrolled and Hispanic/Latino from 3.6% to 5.4%.
January 8, 2010, 7:46 amBenP says:
There’s comparisons in the professional fields.
Most accountants get a masters in accounting before they can sit for the CPA exam. But many schools will do a BA+MAcc in a four or five year program. Starting accountants earn $30-60,000. Debt varies dramatically.
Then we have doctors, not only is medical school quite a bit harder to get into law school (120 some medical schools vs 300 some law schools), but also tends to be quite a bit more expensive. average medical student debt is quite a bit higher the average law school debt. (nice graph)
Not only to doctors have four years of school as opposed to the three of law school. They must additionally go through 3-5 years of residency, where their average salary is $45,000 a year. If they’re lucky enough that their lender lets them defer during residency all that interest still gets capitalized. After all that, the average salary of a doctor is a little higher, but for non-specialists, not dramatically so, $120-$140,0000 in many cases.
MBA’s are more difficult to compare because the average doctor or law student is traditional, while a great many MBA’s have more work experience. In any case, MBA tuition is basically equal to law school tuition, with many schools in the $30,000+ range. starting salaries for MBA’s are in many cases equal to or lower than law salaries. With the exception being from the top handful of MBA schools that routinely get $100,000+ starting salary jobs. (But then the top 14 law schools brag of placing in the $140-$160k big law salaries)
Even if yo look at traditional academic upper level degrees. Some students do take on debt, and then end up working in graduate assistant jobs for years earning $50k or less. But it’s complicated by the fact that many underpopulated graduate programs have generous stipend systems for graduate assistant work.
So law students are hardly unique in that regard, debt is a fact of higher education.
January 8, 2010, 7:57 amAnonymous Patent Attorney says:
Orin and Happy in California-
Maybe the right way to figure out the proper salary bump would be to look at the distribution of undergraduate majors among attorneys and law students and then compare the average salary for that undergraduate major with the average salary for the type of attorney they become. It might not be possible to do this in all cases, but it would probably give a good idea for most. For instance, in the case of engineering majors, you probably don’t want to compare them to the overall average attorney salary since i’m guessing that many engineers who return to law school end up as patent attorneys. If it were possible to establish similar correlations with other attorney jobs, you could get a much better picture of whether law school leaves you better off financially.
January 8, 2010, 9:20 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
John, it’s a mathematical truism that if one makes no more money, then anything is a bad financial investment. That’s hardly something unique to law.
But your assumption that most law grads don’t make anything extra with a law degree is puzzling. Sure, plenty of law jobs don’t pay particularly well (especially by Biglaw standards); plenty of non-law jobs don’t, either.
You also seem to be treating everyone as a single income family, incidentally.
January 8, 2010, 10:04 amPhillip says:
I graduated college 2 years ago right before the economy really started to go downhill. Never did I see a job that offered that much money starting right out of the gate, and the job I have now pays half that.
January 8, 2010, 10:10 amJohn says:
Orin, the employment stats you cite certainly do support your argument, and it’s more than I’ve got at this point. I will add a couple of obvious caveats. First, not all law school graduates become lawyers. I get the sense that this trend is increasing rapidly too. Many get jobs doing doc review, and then enter another field when it becomes clear they will not be hired as a lawyer anywhere. So the group averaging 75K is some unknown percentage of those who acquired the debt. My sense is that it is a significant percentage (though definitely not near 50%).
Also, my guess is that the gap between the other professions and lawyering recedes significantly at the 25 percentile of the income distribution. That’s where you get the attorneys in career public service, as well as the less successful solo practitioners. Again, that is pure speculation, but speculation I would be comfortable betting on. When you add the 25% to those who never got a law job with their degree, you are looking at at least a third of law school grads who are a terrible financial spot. Probably a bit higher in reality.
January 8, 2010, 10:33 amJohn says:
I guess my larger point is that the consequences of a swing and a miss at law school are far worse than almost any other profession. The USnews rankings of where you attend are probably the best way to evaluate what side of the line you will be on, and therefore should be taken very seriously by prospective students.
January 8, 2010, 10:37 amJohn says:
“So the group averaging 75K is some unknown percentage of those who acquired the debt. My sense is that it is a significant percentage (though definitely not near 50%).”
Mistake on my part. The number not employed in the legal profession is significant, but not near 50%.
January 8, 2010, 10:41 amlgm says:
Orin Kerr presents some interesting hypotheses. The people with the data should be able to answer the most important one: how do the GPA and LSAT distributions of minorities compare with those of the population at large? There is data of the minority LSAT mean going up, but what has the overall mean done? What is the difference between the means? Without data these must remain very cautious speculations — which is how Kerr has presented them.
He also discussed the law school ranking system. Maybe this system should be based more on outcomes than inputs. That means doing rankings based on placement statistics. My experience (in a professional graduate program, not law) is that employers choose where to recruit not based on US News rankings.
January 8, 2010, 11:03 amLaura Victoria says:
Having practiced in a southwestern state where a very high proportion of DAs and judges are “Mexican American” AA recipients, many of whom should never have been admitted to any law school — I only view this as a positive development. The shame is that the K-12 educational system is failing faster than we can throw more money at it. This would provide the true path for advancement, instead of the phony one supplied by AA.
January 8, 2010, 11:13 amKenvee says:
I guess I should point out to John that I graduated a private but not top-tier law school within the last decade, I financed it almost entirely on student loans (one small scholarship), and I’ve worked as a prosecutor for my entire legal career. So I should be under “crushing poverty” by his definition. Except I bought a house a little over a year ago, I own a car, I take vacations from time to time, and I have money in my savings account. All while paying around $600 a month in student loan payments. I don’t live the high life, but it’s hardly crushing poverty. It’s a matter of being smart with your money and knowing how to budget, like anyone else in pretty much any career out there. No, law school is far from a quick path to easy riches, but how many people actually go into it thinking that anymore? I don’t know any of my classmates who did. We go into it because we want to become lawyers.
January 8, 2010, 11:22 amJohn says:
Kenvee, sounds like you’ve been out of school for a while. That means you managed to avoid the 35K tuition that students are now subject to, and your personal story is not comprable to new grads.
Ok, the “crushing poverty” is an exaggeration, but it does apply to some students. If you have a minute, re-envision your career with 130K in debt. My guess is that the added debt burden wipes away that house and those vacations. And, by the way, 130K in debt is par for the course for today’s law school grads. The scholarships don’t come easy (except, apparantly, the the bight VC readers).
It’s amazing how older generations continue to act as if their career path is still available to them without accounting for the fact that the price of school vastly outpaces inflation every year.
January 8, 2010, 11:35 amGramarye says:
There is another element that should be raised here: the USNWR rankings don’t only affect prospects after law school; that effect actually begins at the start of the 2L year, during the summer associate hiring season.
Obviously, many of these positions have dried up in the past year, so this point is weaker now than it was just two years ago. However, for much the aughts, a midrange student at a T14 school could reasonably expect a summer associate position at a BigLaw shop that could pay for a significant portion of one’s 3L tuition. Many firms on the AmLaw 100 recruit at the highest ranked schools, whereas students–even law review students–at lower-tier schools must do much more legwork to get an interview.
This obviously closely parallels the points made earlier about one’s post-law school career prospects, since one’s summer associate job often turns into a permanent offer. However, it shouldn’t be overlooked in its own right, either–and the number of students at highly-ranked schools who obtain such positions far exceeds the number at lower-ranked schools, and I would hypothesize that this would hold true even when controlling for intrinsic academic factors (LSAT score, undergrad GPA, etc.).
January 8, 2010, 12:02 pmJRL says:
kenvee is absolutely right on this. I am in the same boat with him, and I am pretty new in the practice of law.
January 8, 2010, 12:03 pmIt seems that most of the personal examples people have given here contradict John’s theory. Can people that agree with him chime in?
Orin Kerr says:
Philip writes: “I graduated college 2 years ago right before the economy really started to go downhill. Never did I see a job that offered that much money starting right out of the gate, and the job I have now pays half that.”
To be clear, that statistic is for the average worker who happens to be a college graduate, not for the average person who just graduated from college.
January 8, 2010, 12:13 pmPhillip says:
Okay, that makes more sense to me and I would agree then that’s likely an accurate figure.
Also, I concur with some others regarding the “crushing debt” I go to law school part time with work and I’m able to afford it and am doing about as well as anyone else is in this economy. Tight budgeting makes a world of a difference.
January 8, 2010, 12:29 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Why do you keep saying this, when others have pointed out that nobody is “subject to” $35K prices, that they may pick a cheaper law school?
January 8, 2010, 12:30 pmMAM says:
I tend to think Prof Kerr might be overstating the effect of competition among law schools in the percentage decline of black and hispanic enrollment. I would guess that minorities, like others groups, can just as easily move to lower ranked institutions, like many HBCU law schools, and obtain a degree.
Prof Kerr seems to assume that black applicants would choose not to attend law school if they couldn’t go to a highly ranked law school. That might be true but I would think that, except for Top 20 law schools, the impact of affirmative action is less.
I would also argue that the hiring of lawyers is less dependent than before on prestige. While I could be wrong, my anecdotal evidence is that employers are more likely to higher from lower ranked schools than in the past. If this is so, prospective law students would not be as inclined to shoot for the top schools, which would in turn lessen the desire for black students to reach for more competitive schools in order to have the best employment opportunities.
Many African Americans, like myself, believed that we had to go to a Top Ten law schools to get most law jobs, whereas majority students might have thought, correctly, that you didn’t have to go to to school to get certain jobs. We were correct. Due to affirmative action and the legacy of closed doors to law firms and other employers, black students needed to get the prestige to make it in the door. If you had two identical black students- one went to Stanford and graduated in the bottom half of his class and one who went to Case Western and graduated with honors-prestigous employers would not higher the black Case Western grad, but would scoop up the Stanford grad. However, the same employer would higher a white Case Western grad with similar credentials.
I think those disparities are falling, at least in the eyes of qualified black students.
January 8, 2010, 12:31 pmJohn says:
JRL, I’m not sure this is the type of debate that is won by the number of “personal examples” that crop up in a thread. It is really just about basic economics. There will always be people with different personal circumstances that lead to different outcomes (scholarships, family help, etc). And, furthermore, I have no skin in the game, and I hope everyone else is right.
If someone leaves law school at the age of 26 with $75,000 in debt and has a lifetime earning expectancy that starts at 40K and ends at 85K, and this person has no significant savings, and can not count on family help, I think a modest but stable life is possible. The standard of living will be below a high school teacher or a good paralegal, but still above many people in the working class. This is not “crushing poverty.” But, JRL, does this REALLY describe you?
The more dire circumstance is when the debt is 150K (Orin’s number), or even up to 200K (undergrad included). If you fail to land a job in the legal field, or get one of the bottom paying legal jobs, and you have this debt, “crushing poverty” is not an exaggeration at all.
January 8, 2010, 12:39 pmJohn says:
David M.
Because that particular poster made a note to say that he went to private school, so I was pointing out how HIS path would be different today.
January 8, 2010, 12:42 pmegd says:
Big Debt, Small Law blog has a lot of linked stories.
There are a lot of people who go to law school expecting it to be the easy life, lots of debt, but a huge salary ($170k+ for new Biglaw associates, iirc). But then they realize that only the top 5% of T14 grads make this kind of money (and a few of the bottom 5% who feed on nepotism), and they’re already steeped in debt.
The problem is, these people are trying to live in NYC or LA, making $30,000/year, when they could move to flyover country and make the same money at half of the living expenses.
Admittedly, it’s not nearly as much fun in Dayton, Ohio, Memphis, Tennessee, or Boise, Idaho, but at least you can live on your income.
January 8, 2010, 12:48 pmJohn says:
David M, I should add that if law students were either A) thrifty, resourceful students going to public schools with scholarships where they can get them, and B) students at top 20-30 schools risking poverty to go for the riches, then I think the system would make a lot of sense.
But what are these other 150 or so private, non-prestigious law schools doing, and what becomes of the students who are there (and not top 2% of the class)? Do they not deserve a more sincere warning?
January 8, 2010, 12:51 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
I have nothing against “warnings.” I just think “If you go to a non T14 law school you’re doomed to ‘crippling, life-long poverty’” is not the right one.
January 8, 2010, 2:09 pmDotar Sojat says:
MLS – pretty much my story (but civilian undergrad). My law school is on BenP’s list. I live in a house in flyover land that would cost $2MM in Connecticut. I deal with Tier 1 grads all the time in national transactions. Half the time I have to tell them which pant leg to put on first in order to finish the deal. Want to pay $1MM for a three bedroom ranch on a slab with a one car garage in Connecticut or Palo Alto? By all means, be my guest.
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January 8, 2010, 2:37 pmKenvee says:
John, I graduated just over six years ago with just under $100k in debt, so no, your assumptions are incorrect. And I agree with egd that a lot of the problems you’re talking about are of people’s own making. Don’t GO to the most expensive schools, and don’t live in the most expensive areas of the country. I live in Texas, where it doesn’t matter if I can afford a $225k house, I can still live just fine. It baffles me that people choose to live in the most expensive places and then complain about the cost of living.
January 8, 2010, 3:41 pmJohn says:
Alright, here’s my final comment in case anyone’s still checking here.
A few people have defended of going to lesser-known regional schools, and carving out a career as lawyers in a smaller community that may not be the path to riches, but one which affords a nice living and a lot of non-monetary rewards. Many have also discussed how their intelligent strategy and academic success have allowed them to avoid debt burdens in the pursuit of their career.
I contend that this path is becoming increasingly difficult, and that this is unfortunate. Being an attorney should lead to at least a middle class living, and, really, for three years of additional school, it would be nice if it were just a bit more than that. How much longer can tuition continue to outpace inflation and have this remain the case? I’m sorry, but scholarships and academic achievements like law review are not the answer because they are open by necessity to only a small percentage of the student population.
There is also a darker side. Nearly 1/3 of law school graduates now leave school with over $120,000 in debt. Any member of this group that does not land a legal job, and does not have a safety net is in vary precarious financial situation. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-greenbaum8-2010jan08,0,4457698.story?track=rss
These individuals are probably in a worse spot than a career waiter at Outback, or a manager of a fast food restaurant. And for 7 years in school?
One can take the attitude that that is their problem, and they should have done a better job planning. However, there needs to be a better system of diagnosing, prior to law school, whether this whole endeavor has a reasonable chance of panning out. My philosophy is that if you can get into one of the top 50 or so schools, you will probably be ok. Take note, that does not mean you have to GO to that school, it just means that you have the basic background that projects success. If you go to a lower ranked school, you will likely place high in the class.
So, for the barrels of students who go to T2 and T3 schools because that is the only place they can get in, I would definitely say DO NOT GO! That, to me at least, is how USnews rankings should be used by prospective students.
January 8, 2010, 7:37 pmBrian G. says:
Enrollments could be declining due to the expense of attending law school.
Ha! Hardly any of the minorities at my law school paid dime one to attend. And NONE of them paid full freight. So go sell that line elsewhere.
January 9, 2010, 12:07 amAnonymous says:
It’s called student loans, either way it wasn’t free.
February 15, 2010, 10:27 pm