Top Law Schools

Self explanatory^^^^^

Yes/No and why



And yes this is blatant Duke trolling but please don't ban me.

No.

The modal outcome still requires years of work in a job you might hate or get fired from just to get back to zero. And the work itself sucks more often than not.

I think it also depends on what your other outcomes are (other law schools with $$, undergrad degree and employability, etc.). It's certainly a lot of debt though, and not something to be taken on without seriously considering what you're signing up for.

The answer is of course no, but amazingly, there are plenty of folks out there still doing it:

Here's the % of sticker payers at "T-10" schools per the schools' 509 reports:

Yale-40%
Harvard-52%
Stanford-52%
Chicago-22%
Columbia-52%
NYU-62%
Penn-52%
UVA-57%
Berkeley-40%
Michigan-22%

No.

unless your only other outcome is making a living as a male prostitute sucking aids ridden hobo dick for the rest of your life, NO IT'S NOT WORTH IT.

fliptrip wrote:The answer is of course no, but amazingly, there are plenty of folks out there still doing it:

Here's the % of sticker payers at "T-10" schools per the schools' 509 reports:

Yale-40%
Harvard-52%
Stanford-52%
Chicago-22%
Columbia-52%
NYU-62%
Penn-52%
UVA-57%
Berkeley-40%
Michigan-22%

once you get to T14 type schools you will realize just how wealthy most of your classmates will be. dont look at those numbers and think "well if 50%+ are paying sticker, so can i!"

the vast, vast majority of sticker paying people at T14s are kids with wealthy parents.

and i just saw your other thread. if this "T10" is Michigan, then everything i said above x 10000000. Michigan has been the bottom of the T14 in biglaw+fed clerkship placement for more than half a decade now. you would have to be fucking insane to take Michigan at sticker. Sticker at Michigan is more like 240k. even the most egregious Michigan homer would have to advise you against it, unless he was a complete piece of shit shill

Leonardo DiCaprio wrote: once you get to T14 type schools you will realize just how wealthy most of your classmates will be. dont look at those numbers and think "well if 50%+ are paying sticker, so can i!"

the vast, vast majority of sticker paying people at T14s are kids with wealthy parents.

I made this point in another thread, and I think it's worth repeating.

Leonardo DiCaprio wrote: the vast, vast majority of sticker paying people at T14s are kids with wealthy parents.

lol no.

*pulls stat out of ass*

CJ. wrote:

Leonardo DiCaprio wrote: the vast, vast majority of sticker paying people at T14s are kids with wealthy parents.

lol no.

*pulls stat out of ass*

I tend to think there are still a lot of folks who are debt financing that sticker cost. My sharing those stats wasn't to affirm that paying sticker is a good idea (I thought this would have been clear by me writing "The answer is of course no") it was merely to point out the shock that people are still doing it even though it is such an objectively bad idea. Good for greedy law school administrators, bad for the little guy. So goes the world.

fliptrip wrote:

CJ. wrote:

Leonardo DiCaprio wrote: the vast, vast majority of sticker paying people at T14s are kids with wealthy parents.

lol no.

*pulls stat out of ass*

I tend to think there are still a lot of folks who are debt financing that sticker cost. My sharing those stats wasn't to affirm that paying sticker is a good idea (I thought this would have been clear by me writing "The answer is of course no") it was merely to point out the shock that people are still doing it even though it is such an objectively bad idea. Good for greedy law school administrators, bad for the little guy. So goes the world.

Yea i know what you were doing, my comments were directed at LDC's claim that all those kids have parents paying for it.

If you include the kids with $5-$10 "scholarships" per year that number gets much bigger too - they are basically at the same place as the sticker bros.

**spoiler alert**

Won't be worth it in 2017 either

Leonardo DiCaprio wrote:and i just saw your other thread. if this "T10" is Michigan, then everything i said above x 10000000. Michigan has been the bottom of the T14 in biglaw+fed clerkship placement for more than half a decade now. you would have to be fucking insane to take Michigan at sticker. Sticker at Michigan is more like 240k. even the most egregious Michigan homer would have to advise you against it, unless he was a complete piece of shit shill

Prof Campos posted:
Michigan at sticker is going to be about $287,100 in federal loans at repayment, six months after graduation. This is based on the GULC calculator, which assumes a 3.5% annual increase in COA. This total DOES NOT take into account 12 months worth of living expenses, since Michigan's estimated COA is based on an eight-month budget, so you've got four months per year that aren't covered.

I graduated from Michigan law in 1989 and paid a total of $15,000 in tuition, for all three years combined. Taking into account inflation, that's the equivalent of $30,000 today. That was sticker btw (in-state).

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 4#p9226124

Question- what about loan repayment if you're going into pubic sector? If you're not going to end up having to repay the full debt, is it worth it then?

Hell no

Paying roughly 300K for the OPPORTUNITY to go into indentured servitude and destroying your health, relationships, and sanity for the purpose of paying lenders thousands of dollars per month for decades?

I'm at a "decent" law "school" on full scholarship and if I could do it all over again I would be a ski bum

Sounds like such a better life

The question is: worth it for who?

If you're asking if it can be worth it for anyone, the answer is an easy yes. If you're asking if it is worth it for at least one actual student attending a T-10 each year, the answer is almost certainly yes. If you're answering if it's worth it for the average student or for most students, that's when things get more complicated (and the answer's probably no).

There's no real reason for you to care about those scenarios, though. The only question that's really relevant here is whether it's worth it for you. And it's impossible to answer that question without knowing more about you--what are your goals, other options, value preferences, etc.

abl wrote:The question is: worth it for who?

If you're asking if it can be worth it for anyone, the answer is an easy yes. If you're asking if it is worth it for at least one actual student attending a T-10 each year, the answer is almost certainly yes. If you're answering if it's worth it for the average student or for most students, that's when things get more complicated (and the answer's probably no).

There's no real reason for you to care about those scenarios, though. The only question that's really relevant here is whether it's worth it for you. And it's impossible to answer that question without knowing more about you--what are your goals, other options, value preferences, etc.

Yes there are reasons to care. Opening people's eyes to the ridiculousness of law school tuition and repaying debt is one.
I can't think of any reason to debt finance law school at sticker. But it seems that many people do it.

darc wrote:Question- what about loan repayment if you're going into pubic sector? If you're not going to end up having to repay the full debt, is it worth it then?

My concern with that option is that you have to get and keep a job or series of qualifying jobs at least 10 years or 120 on time payments.

i'm still nervous about debt financing a Cornell degree and i have a scholarship that's over 100K. i wouldn't be doing it if i hadn't spent years researching schools, figuring out what i wanna do, retaking the LSAT for higher score, bla bla bla. all the stuff you always hear. in other words, echoing what others have said about individual experience. i'm confident that i'm making the right decision for me, but the numbers are still staggering.

sticker is just a whole other level.

FWIW i have a friend who's a doctor and has more than 300K in med school debt. she's on IBR (or PAYE, can't remember) and is pretty chill about her situation: resigned to just paying for 20-25 years and saving for the tax bomb. of course, her earning potential is probably really high. but i think that your own personal debt aversion (or lack thereof) plays a big part in this too. i personally would be unable to take on that amount of debt. some people are willing.

Tls2016 wrote:

darc wrote:Question- what about loan repayment if you're going into pubic sector? If you're not going to end up having to repay the full debt, is it worth it then?

My concern with that option is that you have to get and keep a job or series of qualifying jobs at least 10 years or 120 on time payments.

The other concern is Congress eliminating PSLF altogether, or at least making it partial instead of full forgiveness.

Tls2016 wrote:

abl wrote:The question is: worth it for who?

If you're asking if it can be worth it for anyone, the answer is an easy yes. If you're asking if it is worth it for at least one actual student attending a T-10 each year, the answer is almost certainly yes. If you're answering if it's worth it for the average student or for most students, that's when things get more complicated (and the answer's probably no).

There's no real reason for you to care about those scenarios, though. The only question that's really relevant here is whether it's worth it for you. And it's impossible to answer that question without knowing more about you--what are your goals, other options, value preferences, etc.

Yes there are reasons to care. Opening people's eyes to the ridiculousness of law school tuition and repaying debt is one.
I can't think of any reason to debt finance law school at sticker. But it seems that many people do it.

It's not hard to think of reasons. You're super wealthy; you're 100% committed to some sort of hard-to-land PI; you don't have other non-sticker law school options; etc. There are an infinite number of reasons to debt finance law school sticker. In fact, just looking at it from a strictly financial perspective, it's not going to be a terrible ROI for a lot of admitted students.

I'm not arguing that it's always or even usually a good call. I'm just saying it's ridiculous to say that it never can be.

abl wrote:

Tls2016 wrote:

abl wrote:The question is: worth it for who?

If you're asking if it can be worth it for anyone, the answer is an easy yes. If you're asking if it is worth it for at least one actual student attending a T-10 each year, the answer is almost certainly yes. If you're answering if it's worth it for the average student or for most students, that's when things get more complicated (and the answer's probably no).

There's no real reason for you to care about those scenarios, though. The only question that's really relevant here is whether it's worth it for you. And it's impossible to answer that question without knowing more about you--what are your goals, other options, value preferences, etc.

Yes there are reasons to care. Opening people's eyes to the ridiculousness of law school tuition and repaying debt is one.
I can't think of any reason to debt finance law school at sticker. But it seems that many people do it.

It's not hard to think of reasons. You're super wealthy; you're 100% committed to some sort of hard-to-land PI; you don't have other non-sticker law school options; etc. There are an infinite number of reasons to debt finance law school sticker. In fact, just looking at it from a strictly financial perspective, it's not going to be a terrible ROI for a lot of admitted students.

I'm not arguing that it's always or even usually a good call. I'm just saying it's ridiculous to say that it never can be.

Super wealthy people don't debt finance outside of something strange happening.

Paying sticker for a slim shot at a unicorn job seems insane to me. If you are special enough or talented enough for a rare job, you can probably create a different way to your goals.

If you don't have other non sticker options, then maybe just don't go? I think Don't Go should replace Retake for a good number of people.

I don't know about the ROI for most T14 grads paying sticker. I don't know how to calculate it. The big problem is that so many lawyers leave law, but there aren't any recent statistics that I could find. You can't just assume a 20 or 30 year career.

What's the general consensus on the cutoff for what school is worth sticker? I've seen CCN bandied around before, but there have been more posts recently about the futility of even good employment outcomes, so maybe there's a new consensus?

js7981 wrote:i'm still nervous about debt financing a Cornell degree and i have a scholarship that's over 100K. i wouldn't be doing it if i hadn't spent years researching schools, figuring out what i wanna do, retaking the LSAT for higher score, bla bla bla. all the stuff you always hear. in other words, echoing what others have said about individual experience. i'm confident that i'm making the right decision for me, but the numbers are still staggering.

sticker is just a whole other level.

FWIW i have a friend who's a doctor and has more than 300K in med school debt. she's on IBR (or PAYE, can't remember) and is pretty chill about her situation: resigned to just paying for 20-25 years and saving for the tax bomb. of course, her earning potential is probably really high. but i think that your own personal debt aversion (or lack thereof) plays a big part in this too. i personally would be unable to take on that amount of debt. some people are willing.

Her job security is high not just her earning potential. Lawyers don't have that level of job security.