Law Schools

NYU School Of Medicine Offers Free Tuition To All Students. Should Law Schools Follow?

Maybe the next big law school fundraiser will be for tuition-free law school?

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It is no secret that there is a massive student loan crisis happening in the United States. And the legal community is right there in the middle of it. According to the 2019 U.S. News & World Report, the average law school debt ranges from $56,173  to $182,411, and the overall average is probably somewhere slightly north of $100,000. (What? Lawyers don’t do math.) I personally owe $226,020.79 in federal student loan debt for my legal education (go big or go home, right?), and I am always on the hunt for new and creative ways to both pay down my own debt and to help future law students not end up in the same position.

That’s why I was super excited to learn that on August 16, 2018, the New York University School of Medicine announced that starting this year, it is granting free tuition to all of its students now and in the future. Upon learning this, I had the following three thoughts, in this order: 1. That is amazing, 2. How pissed off are the 2017 NYU med grads going to be about this? and 3. Can and should law schools do this?

The NYU School of Medicine isn’t the first school to implement this type of free tuition program. For example, New York State’s Excelsior program makes college tuition at SUNY or CUNY schools free for middle-class families and individuals making up to $125,000 per year.  However, NYU’s program differs in that the free tuition is not need- or merit-based. Rather, it is available to every accepted student. One thing this free tuition program does not cover is living expenses, which the school’s website estimates to be $27,000.

What is most exciting about NYU’s program for the law school community is that it is both a private school and a graduate school. Medical school and law school are frequently compared in many ways. For example, admissions standards, rigor, testing, etc. Therefore, it makes sense to draw tuition-based parallels as well.

NYU School of Medicine characterizes the reasons behind their tuition-free program as follows:

Saddled with staggering student loans, many medical school graduates choose higher-paying specialties, drawing talent away from less lucrative fields like primary care, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology. Moreover, the financial barriers discourage many promising high school and college students from considering a career in medicine altogether due to fears about the costs associated with medical school.

The reasons cited also apply in the law school context. For example, eliminating or reducing student loan debt will incentivize talented students to accept positions that are lower paying but are important public interest and government jobs. Additionally, it will open doors to students who would have otherwise not applied to law school due to cost. This could potentially lead to a much-needed increase in diversity in law schools.

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There are additional benefits not cited by NYU that would likely occur out of free tuition programs in both the legal and medical fields. When alumni are not strapped with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt after graduation, they are better able to give back to their alma mater. Another thing that law students/lawyers and medical students/doctors have in common are high rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, and addiction. There are many factors that go into these unfortunate statics, including the high demand of the programs and exams and the heavy time, energy, and emotional responsibilities each profession requires. I can’t imagine that overwhelming student loan debt helps any of these issues, and the absence, or significant reduction, of such debt will help make things more manageable.

So how did NYU make this happen and how can we make it happen in the legal community? Good old fashioned fundraising. According to NYU, the funds were raised by more than 2,500 supporters, including trustees, alumni, and friends. The New York Times reports that NYU has raised over $450 million of $600 million necessary to fully fund the tuition plan. Further, the Times reports that about $100 million of the money contributed was donated by the school’s namesake, Kenneth G. Langone, the founder of Home Depot.

Law schools fundraise all the time for scholarships, capital projects, programs, etc. Maybe the next big law school fundraiser will be for tuition-free law school? I hope it is. Although, maybe not starting with my law school, because that would sting a little bit, ya know?

Kerriann Stout is a millennial law school professor and founder of Vinco (a bar exam coaching company) who is generationally trapped between her students and colleagues. Kerriann has helped hundreds of students survive law school and the bar exam with less stress and more confidence. She lives, works, and writes in the northeast. You can reach her by email at info@vincoprep.com.

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