Class of 2011 Employment Statistics Forum

[prezidentv8]

Also, not double digit unemployment for all, but approaching double digit underemployment at many of them and into the double digits for some:

Yale University 6.3%
Stanford University 3.6%
Harvard University 5.5%
Columbia University 3.1%
University of Chicago 3.9%
New York University 3.9%
University of California (Berkeley) 12.3%
University of Pennsylvania 8.0%
University of Virginia 3.2%
University of Michigan 9.8%
Duke University 9.7%
Northwestern University 12.5%
Georgetown University 22.7%
Cornell University 19.9%

And as rayiner said, some of these schools have full-time, long-term school-funded jobs that could also credibly be considered underemployed, though we have not elected to count them this way.

We define underemployed as one of the following (1) short-term jobs, (2) part-time job, (3) non-professional job, (4) pursuing another degree, or (5) unemployed -- not seeking. This does not include those who stopped looking for work ("unemployed -- not seeking"), those who have been deferred ("unemployed -- deferred"), and those with an unknown employment status.

Wow GTown. They have a huge class too.

[rayiner]

Not only that, but imagine that 1 out of every 5 of your smartest and most capable friends were in this situation. The 20% is not full of bums.

This cannot be understated. The 20% of people who don't have a good job lined up aren't the bottom 20% of the class. A really depressing category of people are the folks who did DOJ SLIP or the like. DOJ hired almost no one this year, so you have a lot of top-third folks scrambling for small firms and state clerkships. There are also median-ish people who didn't have quite enough killer instinct to close at OCI, as well as a few no-offers here and there.

[RedBirds2011]

http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/cl ... chool=gulc looks good to you? or that 4 of 5 Penn/Boalt/Michigan grads could find a real legal job within 9 months of graduation?

For a 250k+ loan obligation and 3 years of opportunity cost, the odds are discomforting.

Using LST's Employment Scores:

Yale University 87.8%
Stanford University 91.1%
Harvard University 89.9%
Columbia University 94.1%
University of Chicago 88.2%
New York University 89.3%
University of California (Berkeley) 80.0%
University of Pennsylvania 83.9%
University of Virginia 94.7%
University of Michigan 75.5%
Duke University 82.1%
Northwestern University 76.3%
Georgetown University 62.4%
Cornell University 76.1%

I consider anything over 80% good. 70% is pushing it. But seriously what do you all want? 100% placement in a bad economy. Hell, even 100% placement in a good economy? Im genuinly curious where the line is for some of you guys. Tuition is way too much but i dont think anything can be completely without risk...like ever. I wish, but it just wont ever work that way. Never was and never will be. That said, georgetown is pretty freaking awful for a t14...


Edit: looking at georgetowns numbers, i would probably forego the t14 (if it were the only one I got into) for even a TT with money.

[RedBirds2011]

Also, not double digit unemployment for all, but approaching double digit underemployment at many of them and into the double digits for some:

Yale University 6.3%
Stanford University 3.6%
Harvard University 5.5%
Columbia University 3.1%
University of Chicago 3.9%
New York University 3.9%
University of California (Berkeley) 12.3%
University of Pennsylvania 8.0%
University of Virginia 3.2%
University of Michigan 9.8%
Duke University 9.7%
Northwestern University 12.5%
Georgetown University 22.7%
Cornell University 19.9%

And as rayiner said, some of these schools have full-time, long-term school-funded jobs that could also credibly be considered underemployed, though we have not elected to count them this way.

We define underemployed as one of the following (1) short-term jobs, (2) part-time job, (3) non-professional job, (4) pursuing another degree, or (5) unemployed -- not seeking. This does not include those who stopped looking for work ("unemployed -- not seeking"), those who have been deferred ("unemployed -- deferred"), and those with an unknown employment status.

Wow GTown. They have a huge class too.

Thats probably one of their biggest problems. They just admit way too many people.

[dingbat]

I consider anything over 80% good. 70% is pushing it. But seriously what do you all want? 100% placement in a bad economy. Hell, even 100% placement in a good economy? Im genuinly curious where the line is for some of you guys. Tuition is way too much but i dont think anything can be completely without risk...like ever. I wish, but it just wont ever work that way. Never was and never will be. That said, georgetown is pretty freaking awful for a t14...in name only

[Ruxin1]

I consider anything over 80% good. 70% is pushing it. But seriously what do you all want? 100% placement in a bad economy. Hell, even 100% placement in a good economy? Im genuinly curious where the line is for some of you guys. Tuition is way too much but i dont think anything can be completely without risk...like ever. I wish, but it just wont ever work that way. Never was and never will be. That said, georgetown is pretty freaking awful for a t14...in name only

Let's not complete trash Georgetown, remember a lot of their class is going to self-select out of law for political jobs that won't be J.D. required, including some damn good lobbying jobs. Just my .02

[rayiner]

Remember what we're looking at in the LST data. It's not good jobs. It's not jobs that make paying off your loans tenable. It's any real legal job (and it's not even that b/c it includes school-funded work).

[justonemoregame]

What's a reasonable guess as to the percentage of Virginia's class that self-selects into non-biglaw jobs?

[rayiner]

I consider anything over 80% good. 70% is pushing it. But seriously what do you all want? 100% placement in a bad economy. Hell, even 100% placement in a good economy? Im genuinly curious where the line is for some of you guys. Tuition is way too much but i dont think anything can be completely without risk...like ever. I wish, but it just wont ever work that way. Never was and never will be. That said, georgetown is pretty freaking awful for a t14...in name only

Let's not complete trash Georgetown, remember a lot of their class is going to self-select out of law for political jobs that won't be J.D. required, including some damn good lobbying jobs. Just my .02

Lobbying jobs wouldn't fall in that 22% at GULC. It's not bar-required jobs..

[rayiner]

What's a reasonable guess as to the percentage of Virginia's class that self-selects into non-biglaw jobs?

For C/O 2008-2010, total placement into firms+clerkships was 83% on average. Assuming 95% employment rate, that's 87% trying for such jobs.

[redbullvodka]

http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/cl ... chool=gulc looks good to you? or that 4 of 5 Penn/Boalt/Michigan grads could find a real legal job within 9 months of graduation?

For a 250k+ loan obligation and 3 years of opportunity cost, the odds are discomforting.

Using LST's Employment Scores:

Yale University 87.8%
Stanford University 91.1%
Harvard University 89.9%
Columbia University 94.1%
University of Chicago 88.2%
New York University 89.3%
University of California (Berkeley) 80.0%
University of Pennsylvania 83.9%
University of Virginia 94.7%
University of Michigan 75.5%
Duke University 82.1%
Northwestern University 76.3%
Georgetown University 62.4%
Cornell University 76.1%

I consider anything over 80% good. 70% is pushing it. But seriously what do you all want? 100% placement in a bad economy. Hell, even 100% placement in a good economy? Im genuinly curious where the line is for some of you guys. Tuition is way too much but i dont think anything can be completely without risk...like ever. I wish, but it just wont ever work that way. Never was and never will be. That said, georgetown is pretty freaking awful for a t14...


Edit: looking at georgetowns numbers, i would probably forego the t14 (if it were the only one I got into) for even a TT with money.

+1

4/5 employed during LITERALLY the worst economy since the great depression is fucking fantastic. The t14 should be lauded for what they did to weather the first recession that directly targets what corporate law firms make their money from.

[Robespierre]

http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/cl ... chool=gulc looks good to you? or that 4 of 5 Penn/Boalt/Michigan grads could find a real legal job within 9 months of graduation?

For a 250k+ loan obligation and 3 years of opportunity cost, the odds are discomforting.

Using LST's Employment Scores:

rYale University 87.8%
Stanford University 91.1%
Harvard University 89.9%
Columbia University 94.1%
University of Chicago 88.2%
New York University 89.3%
University of California (Berkeley) 80.0%
University of Pennsylvania 83.9%
University of Virginia 94.7%
University of Michigan 75.5%
Duke University 82.1%
Northwestern University 76.3%
Georgetown University 62.4%
Cornell University 76.1%

I consider anything over 80% good. 70% is pushing it. But seriously what do you all want? 100% placement in a bad economy. Hell, even 100% placement in a good economy? Im genuinly curious where the line is for some of you guys. Tuition is way too much but i dont think anything can be completely without risk...like ever. I wish, but it just wont ever work that way. Never was and never will be. That said, georgetown is pretty freaking awful for a t14...


Edit: looking at georgetowns numbers, i would probably forego the t14 (if it were the only one I got into) for even a TT with money.

+1

4/5 employed during LITERALLY the worst economy since the great depression is fucking fantastic. The t14 should be lauded for what they did to weather the first recession that directly targets what corporate law firms make their money from.

+2.
Finally some voices of reason. A program that leads 80% of its grads to employment in the chosen field, a nice chunk of them at 160K per year, in the middle of a deep recession? Awesome. Worth every dollar of the tuition.

[jenesaislaw]

I consider anything over 80% good. 70% is pushing it. But seriously what do you all want? 100% placement in a bad economy. Hell, even 100% placement in a good economy? Im genuinly curious where the line is for some of you guys. Tuition is way too much but i dont think anything can be completely without risk...like ever. I wish, but it just wont ever work that way. Never was and never will be. That said, georgetown is pretty freaking awful for a t14...

The relativistic thinking is what's so dangerous. Whether it's better than others, or better than you expected, it's the wrong frame of mind. The right frame of mind is, "are these odds worth this much money and time and energy?" RedBirds, you totally discount this risk by saying "well nothing is riskless!"

4/5 employed during LITERALLY the worst economy since the great depression is fucking fantastic. The t14 should be lauded for what they did to weather the first recession that directly targets what corporate law firms make their money from.

You want to laud schools that continue to raise prices at historical rates to historical heights, despite the depressed job prospects and structural changes that warrant the opposite behavior?

Let's not complete trash Georgetown, remember a lot of their class is going to self-select out of law for political jobs that won't be J.D. required, including some damn good lobbying jobs. Just my .02

This is one of my favorite myths about Georgetown. Pre-crash, the school was not placing people into JD preferred jobs. Unless you think the composition of the class has substantially changed, it's because people prefer the jobs they're not getting and are forced into the JD preferred jobs.

[RedBirds2011]

I didnt discount risk at all. All I said was its impossible to have perfect placement and at some point you have to be realistic and not expect guarantees. To me, 80% is pretty good. Every single person has a different risk profile. I never said, "Well nothing is riskless, therefore paying $250,000 for law school is a job secure awesome bet". But law studets also tend to be so freaking risk averse that some paralyze themselves into doing nothing unless they are guaranteed results. You cant be guaranteed anything. All you can do is try to limit the risk as best as possible. And different people have different ways of doing this. Some go to a very elite school to maximize their odds of obtaining a high paying position while others attempt to attend while limiting debt as much as possible so that they may have more flexibility. Debt is also a huge issue. I never have nor will I ever try to argue that COA is not a problem. But to me, that is a separate issue than job placement because you cant just make some policy that magicly creates six figure jobs for highly indebted students. The only way to fix that is through the broken student loan system.

[Pate]

Two years ago when I initially saw the rundown of Law Schools on TLS, nearly all the schools showed their employment rate in the nineties. However, given this new data, it is stunningly bad beyond the first 25% of schools listed. Who would have ever signed up to a school where a third of the class could not seek meaningful employment?

Honestly, I thoroughly researched the schools that sent me acceptances and if not for what I had considered a T-14 Ivy long shot ED I would have wound up at a highly ranked Tier 1 school where their unemployment rate is 33%. I am Speechless.

When I first saw this new data I focused on T-14 and thought the data was encouraging (given all the gloom n’ doom talk). But now, looking at a number of schools I once thought were [probably] a safe bet. . . this new data turns all of that upside down. Pity the fool who goes blindly into this high stakes game.

[RedBirds2011]

Two years ago when I initially saw the rundown of Law Schools on TLS, nearly all the schools showed their employment rate in the nineties. However, given this new data, it is stunningly bad beyond the first 25% of schools listed. Who would have ever signed up to a school where a third of the class could not seek meaningful employment?

Honestly, I thoroughly researched the schools that sent me acceptances and if not for what I had considered a T-14 Ivy long shot ED I would have wound up at a highly ranked Tier 1 school where their unemployment rate is 33%. I am Speechless.

When I first saw this new data I focused on T-14 and thought the data was encouraging (given all the gloom n’ doom talk). But now, looking at a number of schools I once thought were [probably] a safe bet. . . this new data turns all of that upside down. Pity the fool who goes blindly into this high stakes game.

Yea, after the t14, the placement data becomes pretty random and far less correlative to rank it seems.

[ahnhub]

I didnt discount risk at all. All I said was its impossible to have perfect placement and at some point you have to be realistic and not expect guarantees. To me, 80% is pretty good.

I think a lot of our generally negative attitude has to do with things that are specific to the legal job market. It's very conceivable that undergrads with a degree TLS considers bulletproof, say engineering, graduating from a very good engineering school, say Purdue, had well less than 80% employment at nine months during these past few recession years. TLS would say those people are not completely fucked, but Penn law grads in a similar position very likely are. It may be up to us individually to figure out how fair we think that assessment is, but knowing what I know about law schools, debt, and legal hiring, it probably is at least somewhat fair. The truth is probably a mixture of bad, really bad, and not-so-bad.

[rayiner]

To me, 80% is pretty good.

Again, it's not 80% of people getting a job that validates their $250k of tuition. It's 80% of people getting a job. People making $60k and trying to pay a $2,500/month loan payment on that are included in that 80%.

[gardners2]

To me, 80% is pretty good.

Again, it's not 80% of people getting a job that validates their $250k of tuition. It's 80% of people getting a job. People making $60k and trying to pay a $2,500/month loan payment on that are included in that 80%.

This is what I have been preaching since I went to law school. People will look at the numbers and see what they want to see - validation that they are making a great decision by going to law school.

[dingbat]

But law studets also tend to be so freaking risk averse that some paralyze themselves into doing nothing unless they are guaranteed results. You cant be guaranteed anything. All you can do is try to limit the risk as best as possible.

It's because people on this board think they're a special snowflake and anything with less than 100% guaranteed success means the program is broken and they fear that despite their awesome ability they won't be able to find a job and that shouldn't happen to these supersmart superentitled people.

Honestly, I thoroughly researched the schools that sent me acceptances and if not for what I had considered a T-14 Ivy long shot ED I would have wound up at a highly ranked Tier 1 school where their unemployment rate is 33%. I am Speechless.

There are law schools that are attracting large numbers of students where their employment rate is 33%

[rickgrimes69]

To me, 80% is pretty good.

Again, it's not 80% of people getting a job that validates their $250k of tuition. It's 80% of people getting a job. People making $60k and trying to pay a $2,500/month loan payment on that are included in that 80%.

+1. When a school only places ~50% of its class into jobs that will service the debt incurred from tuition, those are the odds you need to be looking at, not your total chance of employment.

(Also, even despite the recession, 20% unemployment from a school supposedly ranked among the best in the country is fucking inexcusable.)

[dingbat]

To me, 80% is pretty good.

Again, it's not 80% of people getting a job that validates their $250k of tuition. It's 80% of people getting a job. People making $60k and trying to pay a $2,500/month loan payment on that are included in that 80%.

+1. When a school only places ~50% of its class into jobs that will service the debt incurred from tuition, those are the odds you need to be looking at, not your total chance of employment.

This isn't exactly fair - many students get full or partial scholarships at every school.

When evaluating schools, you should evaluate the chance of getting a job that services the debt, based on your total costs.
For example, you could be looking at a lower ranked school with a 70% chance of paying off $75k debt, vs a higher ranked school with a 50% chance of paying off $250k debt.

Despite the way everyone goes on about it, this is neither rocket science, nor vegas.
Just make sure you know the odds of each likely outcome before making a rational decision

[RedBirds2011]

To me, 80% is pretty good.

Again, it's not 80% of people getting a job that validates their $250k of tuition. It's 80% of people getting a job. People making $60k and trying to pay a $2,500/month loan payment on that are included in that 80%.

+1. When a school only places ~50% of its class into jobs that will service the debt incurred from tuition, those are the odds you need to be looking at, not your total chance of employment.

(Also, even despite the recession, 20% unemployment from a school supposedly ranked among the best in the country is fucking inexcusable.)

Again, as I said in my above post, I do not argue against the ridiculous COA issues schools have. But to me, this is a separate issue to placement. Again, no policy can just magicly create six figure jobs for highly indebted students. Students arent entitled to six figure jobs just because school has gotten ridiculously expensive. Placement isnt perfect, but still isnt really the problem. COST is. And the only way to fix that is through the broken sudent loan system.

[rickgrimes69]

To me, 80% is pretty good.

Again, it's not 80% of people getting a job that validates their $250k of tuition. It's 80% of people getting a job. People making $60k and trying to pay a $2,500/month loan payment on that are included in that 80%.

+1. When a school only places ~50% of its class into jobs that will service the debt incurred from tuition, those are the odds you need to be looking at, not your total chance of employment.

This isn't exactly fair - many students get full or partial scholarships at every school.

When evaluating schools, you should evaluate the chance of getting a job that services the debt, based on your total costs.
For example, you could be looking at a lower ranked school with a 70% chance of paying off $75k debt, vs a higher ranked school with a 50% chance of paying off $250k debt.

Despite the way everyone goes on about it, this is neither rocket science, nor vegas.
Just make sure you know the odds of each likely outcome before making a rational decision

Well, yeah. But just because you get a partial scholly doesn't mean your COA is necessarily any more affordable given your expected outcome. For a majority of schools, even a decent sounding 20-30k per year scholly will still leave you well over $100k in debt. That's pretty awful when you're almost guaranteed to make Max $60k upon graduation.

[shock259]

I think the "80% is pretty good" comment mostly stems from the fact that we at TLS are incredibly jaded about our employment prospects. We've seen tons of data that tells us we are fucked. We've known going into the situation that we are probably fucked, but we are going to law school anyway.

So when I saw 80%, I thought the same thing. "Not so bad" relative to the doom and gloom.

From a structural standpoint, it's obviously really bad.