{"id":266,"date":"2010-01-18T17:02:26","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T23:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/?p=266"},"modified":"2010-01-18T17:16:42","modified_gmt":"2010-01-18T23:16:42","slug":"law-school-debt-loads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/2010\/01\/18\/law-school-debt-loads\/","title":{"rendered":"Law-School Debt Loads"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her article, “Linking Debt and Income<\/a>,” Inside Higher Ed, January 18, 2010, Jennifer Epstein reports that the U.S. Department of Education recently proposed that vocational and for-profit colleges<\/em> meet minimum standards for debt-to-income ratios for recent graduates.\u00a0 The average debt repayment could be no more than eight percent (8%) of expected earnings in the field.<\/em>\u00a0 The presumptive<\/em> expected earnings would be the 25th percentile of incomes in the field for which they had been trained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How would that work for law schools?\u00a0 Going to law school is expensive, and often financed with debt.\u00a0 The 2009 Survey Results<\/a> of the Law School Survey of Student Engagement tells us that 29% of the students surveyed expected to graduate with law-school related debt of at least $120,000.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0 The following chart from page 14 of the 2009 Annual Survey<\/em> of law students shows the law-school debt levels expected by current law students.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

According to the May 2008 Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates<\/a> of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (National Cross-Industry Estimates [.zip file<\/a>]) the 25th percentile of annual income for lawyers\u00a0was just under\u00a0$75,000.\u00a0 That would make the maximum annual payment just under $6,000.\u00a0 Assuming a modest ten percent (10%) interest rate,* the maximum average school debt would be just over $45,000.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

But over two-thirds of students surveyed in 2009 by LSSSE expect to graduate with law school debt of $60,000 or higher.\u00a0 According to Epstein, schools that don’t meet the eight percent (8%) of presumptive earnings could show<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. actual-median earnings to average-debt ratios of 8% or below,<\/li>\n
  2. a 75% loan repayment rate\u00a0, or<\/li>\n
  3. program completion and in-field placement rates of at least 70%.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The following chart from the National Association of Law Placement shows the distribution of salaries of the Class of 2008:<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>

    Class of 2008, Distribution of Salaries (NALP)<\/p><\/div>\n

    The overall median of $72,000 is just under the May 2008 25th percentile of lawyer salaries ($75,000), so\u00a0there is no wiggle room there.<\/p>\n

    Should law schools start reporting salary and debt-load information for its recent graduates?<\/p>\n

    posted by Gary Rosin<\/em><\/p>\n

    *Interest rates on guaranteed<\/em> student loans in repayment are now about 2.5%.\u00a0 I’ll have to check on the current average for non-guarnateed loans.\u00a0 In event, current interest rates are abnormally low.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In her article, “Linking Debt and Income,” Inside Higher Ed, January 18, 2010, Jennifer Epstein reports that the U.S. Department of Education recently proposed that vocational and for-profit colleges meet minimum standards for debt-to-income ratios for recent graduates.\u00a0 The average debt repayment could be no more than eight percent (8%) of expected earnings in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-law-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uberlaw.net\/LawNumbers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}