Law Schools Where Starting Salaries For Graduates Exceed Their Student Loan Debt

In today’s world, the vast majority of students attending law school have been saddled with seemingly insurmountable six-figure debt loads. Many law students are under the mistaken impression that they’ll be able to pay off that debt quickly; after all, they believe their starting salaries after graduation will be in line with the now-standard starting salary of up to $190,000 at Biglaw firms across the country (depending on office location). Unfortunately, these high-salary positions account for only a small percentage of entry-level jobs for recent law school graduates. The vast majority of law school graduates will be left wondering how they’ll ever be able to pay down their debt in a timely fashion, if at all. What’s a prospective law student to do?

Choose the most cost-efficient law school to which you’ve been accepted, preferably one with a high salary-to-debt ratio, and your starting salary may well meet or exceed your student debt burden. There are several law schools that are not only highly ranked, but whose graduates are very well-compensated after graduation — in fact, they’re so well-compensated that it makes up for the high costs of their education.

U.S. News has put together a ranking of the 10 schools with the highest debt-salary ratios among 2017 graduates. Did your law school or alma mater make the cut?

Howard University: 2.35-to-1

• Starting median private salary (2017): $180,000
• Average debt (2017): $76,703

Boston College: 2.25-to-1

• Starting median private salary (2017): $180,000
• Average debt (2017): $80,113

University of Texas—Austin: 1.96-to-1

• Starting median private salary (2017): $180,000
• Average debt (2017): $91,978

Brigham Young University (Clark): 1.83-to-1

• Starting median private salary (2017): $104,000
• Average debt (2017): $56,903

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey: 1.82-to-1

• Starting median private salary (2017): $100,000
• Average debt (2017): $55,023

Washington University in St. Louis: 1.66-to-1

• Starting median private salary (2017): $162,500
• Average debt (2017): $98,058

Boston University: 1.61-to-1

• Starting median private salary (2017): $180,000
• Average debt (2017): $111,946

Georgia State University: 1.57-to-1

• Starting median private salary (2017): $80,000
• Average debt (2017): $50,902

University of California—Irvine: 1.51-to-1

• Starting median private salary (2017): $170,000
• Average debt (2017): $112,766

University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill: 1.51-to-1

• Starting median private salary (2017): $130,000
• Average debt (2017): $86,019

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again, but before you decide to shell out tens of thousands of loan dollars to attend a law school in the hope of having a high salary after graduating, it’s worth it to do all of your research beforehand.

10 Law Schools Where You Can Pay Off Your Debt [U.S. News]

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.