Law Schools

Law Students Today Have Fewer Excuses For Being Blindsided By Student Loans

Much progress has been made in making the value proposition of attending law school more transparent.

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‘HOW DO I OWE SO MUCH?!?’

I can’t believe it’s been almost 10 years since I took the LSAT!  Although I don’t consider myself a veteran lawyer by any stretch, it is unbelievable how much the legal profession has changed since I first decided to go to law school.  During the boom years of the late “aughts,” law school was seen as a safe bet to secure a high-income job and a quality lifestyle.  However, that dream has become far more illusory due to the economic downturn and the realignment of the legal profession.

People’s expectations about student loans were also very different when I first started thinking about attending law school around a decade ago.  It is true that before the recession, everyone knew that it cost an insane amount of money to attend law school.  Regardless, people genuinely believed that job prospects for recent grads were solid and that student debt could be repaid in a reasonable amount of time.  However, law students today should know full well how difficult finding a job can be, and how massive student debt can negatively impact one’s life.  All told, law students today have fewer excuses for being blindsided by student debt.

Around 10 years ago, during the law school boom years, no one seemed concerned with student debt.  Legal institutions advertised law degrees as being valuable credentials that would lead to riches and security.  Indeed, many law schools, as we have now come to realize, inflated their salary statistics, such that even low-tier institutions conveyed that the average starting salary of recent graduates was $160,000.

At the time, there was also no press coverage whatsoever about recent law school grads struggling to pay off student debt.  The cliché stories about attorneys working as baristas, Uber drivers, or in other capacities were not in any publications.  In addition, there was no counter-narrative to challenge the general belief that more education led to more success in life.

Furthermore, even as the economic downturn progressed, it took a while for institutions to catch up with the new realities of the legal profession.  Law schools still advertised insanely high starting salaries for years without great transparency, and there wasn’t much discussion about the value proposition of attending law school.  Furthermore, in the early years of the recession, the economic climate compelled many people (myself included) to attend law school.  Since the job market had dried up for recent college graduates, attending law school was seen as a good idea for waiting out the economic downturn.  All of these factors led to a large number of people attending law school and being unable to pay off their student loans.

About a decade later, the situation has finally reversed.  Most people are extremely well-informed about the value proposition of attending law school and are well-educated about the risks of borrowing student debt.  Law schools have finally become more transparent about their job statistics, and a number of watchdog groups exist to ensure that institutions do not mislead prospective law students about salary statistics and job prospects.  In addition, a plethora of stories have been published about struggling recent law school graduates, and this has almost become a trope of the higher education press.  Although I still have to explain to many prospective law students and their parents about how difficult it is to earn a coveted Biglaw job, most people understand that it is hard to make insane amounts of money as a young attorney.

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If you attended law school at the beginning of the economic downturn, being blindsided by student loans is likely not your fault.  For these individuals, all of the institutions people trusted when making informed decisions had not acted properly.  Law schools sold a bill of goods that did not exist, and prospective law students cannot be faulted for relying on inflated employment statistics.  In addition, the press hadn’t covered the struggles of recent law school graduates, and respected individuals from professors, mentors, family members, and others all had misconstrued notions about the legal profession.  Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that so many people borrowed unbelievable amounts of student debt they had little chance of paying back.

Law students today have a completely different situation. Every knowledgeable individual understands the struggles of recent law school graduates and how much money it takes to attend law school.  In addition, entire institutions have been established to keep law schools in check and ensure that there is less misleading information about the value proposition of attending law school.  As a result, law students today have no excuse for being blindsided by student loans.  A prospective law student conducting even the most basic research understands full well what they are signing up for when attending law school.

Although it might mean little to those who were fleeced into attending law school during the economic downturn, much progress has been made in making the value proposition of attending law school more transparent.  As a result, law students today have few excuses for being blindsided by student debt.

Jordan Rothman is the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a personal finance website discussing how he paid off all $197,890.20 of his college and law school student loans over 46 months of his late 20s. You can reach him at Jordan@studentdebtdiaries.com.

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