"Don't take on debt more than your first year's salary" Forum

[unc0mm0n1]

While your salary may be impossible to predict, you can still make a very educated guess.

Just discount $160k by the likelihood that you'll get biglaw coming out of your school. So, if your school places 50% of the class in biglaw predict you'll earn $80k coming out of school.

Apply Campos's theory and limit your student loans to $80k at this hypothetical school. Seems like a reasonable amount to me.

Might seem reasonable until you realize that no one without family or personal savings could attend HYS, and those people could really only attend anywhere else on a full ride.

Well you could if you joined the military first. Just saying

[ajax]

Well Harvard is starting to pay its own graduates:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html

33 Harvard JDs employed by... Harvard. This must only mean the economy is booming, so feel free to take out more debt then your first year pay. Especially at Harvard, because like so many people here have said, Harvard is clearly immune from hiring its own graduates. They, above all others, will never stoop to paying their own graduates to make their numbers look better.

O, and before someone comes back with some sort of bs argument of how these jobs actually provide some value, don't. If they provided value, Harvard wouldn't have started the program in 2011. Harvard would've started the program soon after its inception, because the school is so elite and would never miss an opportunity to provide even more value to its students.

Welcome to the party Harvard. Even you are no better than the rest.

[ajax]

The problem with this rule is special snowflake syndrome, and everyone everywhere believing that they're going to get 160k biglaw jobs. I'd say that outside of the T14 you should avoid 6 figure debt, though you could make arguments for T20s such as Texas. It really all boils down to how much risk you are comfortable with taking. With the legal economy in the state that it's in you really shouldn't be comfortable with much risk at all outside of the top schools in the country.

LOL. Top-14 is far from a sure bet.

"Penn tracks salaries more closely than many schools, which allows us to see how those numbers are falling. According to Penn's website, its 25th percentile starting salary was $142,500 in 2008, with 95% of the graduating class reporting salaries. In 2009, the 25th percentile salary fell to $125,000; in 2010, it was $73,408; and in 2011, just $62,688. That's a drop of more than 60% in three years. The percentage of graduates reporting salaries also fell, so the decline probably is even worse than these numbers suggest. "

https://www.law.upenn.edu/careers/emplo ... istics.php

[CanadianWolf]

Now we know why Stanford is #2.

[Doorkeeper]

Well Harvard is starting to pay its own graduates:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html

33 Harvard JDs employed by... Harvard. This must only mean the economy is booming, so feel free to take out more debt then your first year pay. Especially at Harvard, because like so many people here have said, Harvard is clearly immune from hiring its own graduates. They, above all others, will never stoop to paying their own graduates to make their numbers look better.

O, and before someone comes back with some sort of bs argument of how these jobs actually provide some value, don't. If they provided value, Harvard wouldn't have started the program in 2011. Harvard would've started the program soon after its inception, because the school is so elite and would never miss an opportunity to provide even more value to its students.

Welcome to the party Harvard. Even you are no better than the rest.

I am well aware that both Harvard and Yale fund their own graduates, and they have done so for some time now.

This being said, the funding is not always for the normal types of jobs that you would expect to see in school-funded activities. For example, I know 2 recent Yale JDs with Yale-funded fellowships working in high-level fed gov positions (NOT internships). I also know of Harvard JDs working at the centers and institutes at Harvard after graduation. Without knowing where these people are working, and what they are doing, the mere fact that there are 33 people being funded by Harvard doesn't amount to much.

[dingbat]

This being said, the funding is not always for the normal types of jobs that you would expect to see in school-funded activities. For example, I know 2 recent Yale JDs with Yale-funded fellowships working in high-level fed gov positions (NOT internships). I also know of Harvard JDs working at the centers and institutes at Harvard after graduation. Without knowing where these people are working, and what they are doing, the mere fact that there are 33 people being funded by Harvard doesn't amount to much.

Does Yale's policy of paying off the student loans of any graduate earning less than $60k (I think) count?

LOL. Top-14 is far from a sure bet.

"Penn tracks salaries more closely than many schools, which allows us to see how those numbers are falling. According to Penn's website, its 25th percentile starting salary was $142,500 in 2008, with 95% of the graduating class reporting salaries. In 2009, the 25th percentile salary fell to $125,000; in 2010, it was $73,408; and in 2011, just $62,688. That's a drop of more than 60% in three years. The percentage of graduates reporting salaries also fell, so the decline probably is even worse than these numbers suggest. "

https://www.law.upenn.edu/careers/emplo ... istics.php

The problem here is the distinction between mean and median. I'd like to see how the mean has changed over the years

[unc0mm0n1]

Well Harvard is starting to pay its own graduates:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html

33 Harvard JDs employed by... Harvard. This must only mean the economy is booming, so feel free to take out more debt then your first year pay. Especially at Harvard, because like so many people here have said, Harvard is clearly immune from hiring its own graduates. They, above all others, will never stoop to paying their own graduates to make their numbers look better.

O, and before someone comes back with some sort of bs argument of how these jobs actually provide some value, don't. If they provided value, Harvard wouldn't have started the program in 2011. Harvard would've started the program soon after its inception, because the school is so elite and would never miss an opportunity to provide even more value to its students.

Welcome to the party Harvard. Even you are no better than the rest.

I am well aware that both Harvard and Yale fund their own graduates, and they have done so for some time now.

This being said, the funding is not always for the normal types of jobs that you would expect to see in school-funded activities. For example, I know 2 recent Yale JDs with Yale-funded fellowships working in high-level fed gov positions (NOT internships). I also know of Harvard JDs working at the centers and institutes at Harvard after graduation. Without knowing where these people are working, and what they are doing, the mere fact that there are 33 people being funded by Harvard doesn't amount to much.

I was just going to make the same point. Not all school funded jobs are created equal. The guy working the desk of the admissions office is not equal to a Harvard Climenko Fellow.

[AllTheLawz]

Well Harvard is starting to pay its own graduates:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html

33 Harvard JDs employed by... Harvard. This must only mean the economy is booming, so feel free to take out more debt then your first year pay. Especially at Harvard, because like so many people here have said, Harvard is clearly immune from hiring its own graduates. They, above all others, will never stoop to paying their own graduates to make their numbers look better.

O, and before someone comes back with some sort of bs argument of how these jobs actually provide some value, don't. If they provided value, Harvard wouldn't have started the program in 2011. Harvard would've started the program soon after its inception, because the school is so elite and would never miss an opportunity to provide even more value to its students.

Welcome to the party Harvard. Even you are no better than the rest.

Lol.. what are you talking about? This isn't new. For instance,class of '99 ( http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/199 ... ufman.html ) and class of 2010 ( http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/05 ... ships.html ). Believe it or not, some people actually shoot for these "school-funded jobs". It is shocking how much people on this forum enjoy talking about things they know nothing about.

[Elston Gunn]

Well Harvard is starting to pay its own graduates:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html

33 Harvard JDs employed by... Harvard. This must only mean the economy is booming, so feel free to take out more debt then your first year pay. Especially at Harvard, because like so many people here have said, Harvard is clearly immune from hiring its own graduates. They, above all others, will never stoop to paying their own graduates to make their numbers look better.

O, and before someone comes back with some sort of bs argument of how these jobs actually provide some value, don't. If they provided value, Harvard wouldn't have started the program in 2011. Harvard would've started the program soon after its inception, because the school is so elite and would never miss an opportunity to provide even more value to its students.

Welcome to the party Harvard. Even you are no better than the rest.

I am well aware that both Harvard and Yale fund their own graduates, and they have done so for some time now.

This being said, the funding is not always for the normal types of jobs that you would expect to see in school-funded activities. For example, I know 2 recent Yale JDs with Yale-funded fellowships working in high-level fed gov positions (NOT internships). I also know of Harvard JDs working at the centers and institutes at Harvard after graduation. Without knowing where these people are working, and what they are doing, the mere fact that there are 33 people being funded by Harvard doesn't amount to much.

Yeah, FWIW, Yale at least majorly talks up these fellowships as a selling point. The idea is it's basically impossible to get paid to be, for example, an international human rights lawyer if you don't have experience as an international human rights lawyer, so Yale will pay for you do it (and this isn't an exaggeration--several of the fellowships are for people doing the mythical international human rights law). They're also supposedly in the process of compiling the data on long term outcomes for these people, and at least the clinical department's quick assessment is that they're very good.

I don't know how many of Harvard's are like that, nor whether I should trust CDO on how well these turn out. That said, while things like that should give you pause, it shouldn't automatically be taken as a bad thing.

[ajax]

Well Harvard is starting to pay its own graduates:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html

33 Harvard JDs employed by... Harvard. This must only mean the economy is booming, so feel free to take out more debt then your first year pay. Especially at Harvard, because like so many people here have said, Harvard is clearly immune from hiring its own graduates. They, above all others, will never stoop to paying their own graduates to make their numbers look better.

O, and before someone comes back with some sort of bs argument of how these jobs actually provide some value, don't. If they provided value, Harvard wouldn't have started the program in 2011. Harvard would've started the program soon after its inception, because the school is so elite and would never miss an opportunity to provide even more value to its students.

Welcome to the party Harvard. Even you are no better than the rest.

Lol.. what are you talking about? This isn't new. For instance,class of '99 ( http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/199 ... ufman.html ) and class of 2010 ( http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/05 ... ships.html ). Believe it or not, some people actually shoot for these "school-funded jobs". It is shocking how much people on this forum enjoy talking about things they know nothing about.

LOL.. what are you talking about? Why does it say N/A in this chart then for 2009 and 2010, where it also states 33 law school funded jobs for 2011. LOL

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html
LOL

LOL

Clearly the university knows how many students it employs each year. So it either listed N/A for 2009 and 2010 because it didn't employ any, or it listed N/A because it employed quite a few and is embarrassed to publish it. Either way it isn't good, bro/brah/broheim/brosif

[Tiago Splitter]

Clearly the university knows how many students it employs each year. So it either listed N/A for 2009 and 2010 because it didn't employ any, or it listed N/A because it employed quite a few and is embarrassed to publish it. Either way it isn't good, bro/brah/broheim/brosif

http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/05 ... ships.html

I mean, they give the names and jobs of each person. Certainly better info than most schools give for this kind of stuff, and not exactly a sign that they're embarrassed.

LST also confirms 29 people in school funded jobs for class of 2010, 27 of those full time. Not sure why they don't post that on their website. At least it explains the rather egregious error on the part of Campos' co-writer.

[AllTheLawz]

Well Harvard is starting to pay its own graduates:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html

33 Harvard JDs employed by... Harvard. This must only mean the economy is booming, so feel free to take out more debt then your first year pay. Especially at Harvard, because like so many people here have said, Harvard is clearly immune from hiring its own graduates. They, above all others, will never stoop to paying their own graduates to make their numbers look better.

O, and before someone comes back with some sort of bs argument of how these jobs actually provide some value, don't. If they provided value, Harvard wouldn't have started the program in 2011. Harvard would've started the program soon after its inception, because the school is so elite and would never miss an opportunity to provide even more value to its students.

Welcome to the party Harvard. Even you are no better than the rest.

Lol.. what are you talking about? This isn't new. For instance,class of '99 ( http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/199 ... ufman.html ) and class of 2010 ( http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/05 ... ships.html ). Believe it or not, some people actually shoot for these "school-funded jobs". It is shocking how much people on this forum enjoy talking about things they know nothing about.

LOL.. what are you talking about? Why does it say N/A in this chart then for 2009 and 2010, where it also states 33 law school funded jobs for 2011. LOL

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html
LOL

LOL

Clearly the university knows how many students it employs each year. So it either listed N/A for 2009 and 2010 because it didn't employ any, or it listed N/A because it employed quite a few and is embarrassed to publish it. Either way it isn't good, bro/brah/broheim/brosif

or even more likely b/c the ABA changed the employment data collection requirements for c/o 2011 to require that schools identify how many jobs are school-funded.

[Rahviveh]

Is it in fact possible for the schools to in fact release more granular data than the 25/50/75 percentiles?


In other words, do they have that data and they just don't release it? Could they theoretically give us anonymous salaries for every student that reports in the class of 2011?

[Blessedassurance]

etc, etc

You've come a long way for someone who thought going to Seton Hall Law School was a good thing last year. Fight the good fight, brother.

[rayiner]

Is it in fact possible for the schools to in fact release more granular data than the 25/50/75 percentiles?


In other words, do they have that data and they just don't release it? Could they theoretically give us anonymous salaries for every student that reports in the class of 2011?

They almost definitely can. E.g. NU gives a salary distribution in $20k/year increments: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/statistics/

[rayiner]

Well Harvard is starting to pay its own graduates:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html

33 Harvard JDs employed by... Harvard. This must only mean the economy is booming, so feel free to take out more debt then your first year pay. Especially at Harvard, because like so many people here have said, Harvard is clearly immune from hiring its own graduates. They, above all others, will never stoop to paying their own graduates to make their numbers look better.

I'd imagine most of the 33 are people who wanted government/public interest. Even Harvard isn't immune from the fact that states are bankrupt and the federal government is in hiring freeze.

[ajax]

Well Harvard is starting to pay its own graduates:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html

33 Harvard JDs employed by... Harvard. This must only mean the economy is booming, so feel free to take out more debt then your first year pay. Especially at Harvard, because like so many people here have said, Harvard is clearly immune from hiring its own graduates. They, above all others, will never stoop to paying their own graduates to make their numbers look better.

I'd imagine most of the 33 are people who wanted government/public interest. Even Harvard isn't immune from the fact that states are bankrupt and the federal government is in hiring freeze.

Ding Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner.

[Doorkeeper]

Well Harvard is starting to pay its own graduates:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html

33 Harvard JDs employed by... Harvard. This must only mean the economy is booming, so feel free to take out more debt then your first year pay. Especially at Harvard, because like so many people here have said, Harvard is clearly immune from hiring its own graduates. They, above all others, will never stoop to paying their own graduates to make their numbers look better.

I'd imagine most of the 33 are people who wanted government/public interest. Even Harvard isn't immune from the fact that states are bankrupt and the federal government is in hiring freeze.

Ding Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner.

I don't see what the problem is for HYS to give fellowships for 33 students so that they can work in fed gov or a public interest organization. If you get the job that you want to get, who the fuck cares which group is funding it?

[rayiner]

Well Harvard is starting to pay its own graduates:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/care ... -data.html

33 Harvard JDs employed by... Harvard. This must only mean the economy is booming, so feel free to take out more debt then your first year pay. Especially at Harvard, because like so many people here have said, Harvard is clearly immune from hiring its own graduates. They, above all others, will never stoop to paying their own graduates to make their numbers look better.

I'd imagine most of the 33 are people who wanted government/public interest. Even Harvard isn't immune from the fact that states are bankrupt and the federal government is in hiring freeze.

Ding Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner.

I don't see what the problem is for HYS to give fellowships for 33 students so that they can work in fed gov or a public interest organization. If you get the job that you want to get, who the fuck cares which group is funding it?

The problem is that these aren't permanent. In a year when the fellowship runs out, this person may not have a job.

[BruceWayne]

The problem is that these aren't permanent. In a year when the fellowship runs out, this person may not have a job.

i
Personally I'm a little more lenient than that when it comes to evaluating fellowships. If the students are taking them because that's the job they wanted but the employer just can't pay then it's not a bad sign in terms of the school's placement power. But if they are just going out to people because they couldn't find anything else then that's a problem (i.e the situation at most schools right now for fellowships). To me the latter is the same as being unemployed.

[NoodleyOne]

Is it in fact possible for the schools to in fact release more granular data than the 25/50/75 percentiles?


In other words, do they have that data and they just don't release it? Could they theoretically give us anonymous salaries for every student that reports in the class of 2011?

They almost definitely can. E.g. NU gives a salary distribution in $20k/year increments: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/statistics/

Damn, I wish all schools were that transparent.

[Elston Gunn]

The problem is that these aren't permanent. In a year when the fellowship runs out, this person may not have a job.

True, but like I said above, Yale CDO claims the longer term results are very good in terms of either keeping the job they were funded for or finding something else in the area. Obviously, the real data would be better than that subjective assessment, but they haven't finished compiling (or at least haven't released) it yet. I bet Harvard fellowship kids have pretty good long term results too.

[AllTheLawz]

The problem is that these aren't permanent. In a year when the fellowship runs out, this person may not have a job.

i
Personally I'm a little more lenient than that when it comes to evaluating fellowships. If the students are taking them because that's the job they wanted but the employer just can't pay then it's not a bad sign in terms of the school's placement power. But if they are just going out to people because they couldn't find anything else then that's a problem (i.e the situation at most schools right now for fellowships). To me the latter is the same as being unemployed.

Its hard to even use that as a metric. Most of the students using these fellowships are people gunning for Public Interest. Problem is, PI orgs pretty much factor these fellowships into their staff planning every year and very, very, very few do any entry-level, non-fellowship hiring at all. A lot of PI orgs actually have positions set aside for "fellows" as if its a staff position. At HYS the PI people who dont get the few entry-level jobs that there are apply for fellowships. It doesn't really have much to do with placement power (well it does to the extent there is still competition for even fellow positions), it is just what the PI model has been for a long time now. HYS actually advertises this as a big advantage that they have over other "PI focused" schools. At those schools, there is very limited fellowship funding so the process is competitive and students are forced to seek out extremely competitive external sources.

[Doorkeeper]

I don't see what the problem is for HYS to give fellowships for 33 students so that they can work in fed gov or a public interest organization. If you get the job that you want to get, who the fuck cares which group is funding it?

The problem is that these aren't permanent. In a year when the fellowship runs out, this person may not have a job.

If you work the federal government in a job that matters, your position is never permanent. That's a necessary risk of working PI/gov't unless you want to be one of the boring career folks.

Bottom line, if a Deputy Secretary of Labor is working on X policy that I really care about, he/she wants me on his/her team and the best funding I can get is a fellowship, I thank the gods that it's there and figure the rest out later.

[WhiskeynCoke]

I'm so awesome that there's no way I'll make any less than 500k my first year. I guess Im all good.