A Calculator to Help You Determine Whether Law School Is a Good Investment Forum

[twiix]

3. Failure to account for potential exit from legal profession (and lower earnings resulting from said exit).

This doesn't seem that hard to account for? unless I'm thinking over-simply, which is a possibility.

You could add 2 more fields, a "years spent in biglaw", for example, and a "new income" for your estimate after transferring out. Keep the % increase in salary the same (3% for example), then after year 5 start using the new salary instead of the original salary.

note : Obviously then you'd get into cost of living details, which would be impossible to account for unless this turned into a full blown budgeting tool, which seems like a large scope change to your original product (not saying this is good or bad). If you didn't account for a COL adjustment, then a 120k salary in the midwest wouldn't seem nearly as attractive as 200k in NYC, despite the likely halving of daily expenses.

[cavalier1138]

Other caveats worth mentioning?

I'd still add a caveat about not accounting for loan repayment on a regular 10-year schedule. Earning 10k more per year is meaningless if I would literally be incapable of paying off $300k in debt on that salary.

[BlendedUnicorn]

3. Failure to account for potential exit from legal profession (and lower earnings resulting from said exit).

This doesn't seem that hard to account for? unless I'm thinking over-simply, which is a possibility.

You could add 2 more fields, a "years spent in biglaw", for example, and a "new income" for your estimate after transferring out. Keep the % increase in salary the same (3% for example), then after year 5 start using the new salary instead of the original salary.

note : Obviously then you'd get into cost of living details, which would be impossible to account for unless this turned into a full blown budgeting tool, which seems like a large scope change to your original product (not saying this is good or bad). If you didn't account for a COL adjustment, then a 120k salary in the midwest wouldn't seem nearly as attractive as 200k in NYC, despite the likely halving of daily expenses.

Confused about this. Who would be providing the data about years spent in big law and new salary? That shit's tough as hell (read:impossible) to come by. Or are you saying people should enter in how many years they'd like to spend/what they think they'll make after they leave?

[iamgeorgebush]

3. Failure to account for potential exit from legal profession (and lower earnings resulting from said exit).

This doesn't seem that hard to account for? unless I'm thinking over-simply, which is a possibility.

You could add 2 more fields, a "years spent in biglaw", for example, and a "new income" for your estimate after transferring out. Keep the % increase in salary the same (3% for example), then after year 5 start using the new salary instead of the original salary.

note : Obviously then you'd get into cost of living details, which would be impossible to account for unless this turned into a full blown budgeting tool, which seems like a large scope change to your original product (not saying this is good or bad). If you didn't account for a COL adjustment, then a 120k salary in the midwest wouldn't seem nearly as attractive as 200k in NYC, despite the likely halving of daily expenses.

Well, this assumes that the user will spend time in BigLaw. But that's not going to be the case for many users.

I think the better call would be to let users define future income themselves by manually changing the income in the Calculations tab. I'll write notes in the OP and the spreadsheet recommending this.

As far as COL is concerned, it would be pretty complicated to factor this into the spreadsheet. Not saying it's impossible, but it's not something I'm willing to spend time on. Others can feel free to modify the spreadsheet if they want.

Confused about this. Who would be providing the data about years spent in big law and new salary? That shit's tough as hell (read:impossible) to come by. Or are you saying people should enter in how many years they'd like to spend/what they think they'll make after they leave?

I think he's recommending the addition of a field in which users could enter the number of years spent in BigLaw and the new salary.

I'd still add a caveat about not accounting for loan repayment on a regular 10-year schedule. Earning 10k more per year is meaningless if I would literally be incapable of paying off $300k in debt on that salary.

Well, I include a PAYE tab, which does account for the scenario in which you'd be "literally . . . incapable of paying of $300k in debt on that salary." (Presumably you'd use PAYE if you were unable to pay off your loans on a 10-year plan. Right?)

I suppose I could add another tab that just does the ten-year repayment plan (for those who don't pay upfront but also don't do PAYE). I didn't do it originally because I just wanted to keep things simple, but now that I've done the PAYE thing, maybe it would be a good idea. Not sure that I'll have the time, though. Maybe someone else wants to hop in. Also, if we're doing the ten-year repayment thing, then we should probably account for refinancing (b/c anyone who does BigLaw would be foolish not to refinance at a lower rate). That's another complication.

At any rate, I will note in the OP and spreadsheet that circumstances will be different under a ten-year repayment plan.

[Johann]

I'd still add a caveat about not accounting for loan repayment on a regular 10-year schedule. Earning 10k more per year is meaningless if I would literally be incapable of paying off $300k in debt on that salary.

Well, I include a PAYE tab, which does account for the scenario in which you'd be "literally . . . incapable of paying of $300k in debt on that salary." (Presumably you'd use PAYE if you were unable to pay off your loans on a 10-year plan. Right?)

I suppose I could add another tab that just does the ten-year repayment plan (for those who don't pay upfront but also don't do PAYE). I didn't do it originally because I just wanted to keep things simple, but now that I've done the PAYE thing, maybe it would be a good idea. Not sure that I'll have the time, though. Maybe someone else wants to hop in. Also, if we're doing the ten-year repayment thing, then we should probably account for refinancing (b/c anyone who does BigLaw would be foolish not to refinance at a lower rate). That's another complication.

At any rate, I will note in the OP and spreadsheet that circumstances will be different under a ten-year repayment plan.

you dont need a 10 year repayment schedule because youre offsetting the NPV by the cash outlay at the beginning of the non-PAYE.

i get that cavalier thinks 10k per year more is "meaningless" if you cant make your debt payments, but this is an NPV calc and the NPV would differ its meaningless. the whole point of this calc is to make numbers based decisions that arent biased by what people consider meaningless or significant.

[iamgeorgebush]

All this discussion has led me to the conclusion that the "answer" part of the calculator should probably not be binary ("YES" or "NO!"). I'm therefore adding a "close call" option for when the NPV is within $40k of $0.

[cavalier1138]

I'd still add a caveat about not accounting for loan repayment on a regular 10-year schedule. Earning 10k more per year is meaningless if I would literally be incapable of paying off $300k in debt on that salary.

Well, I include a PAYE tab, which does account for the scenario in which you'd be "literally . . . incapable of paying of $300k in debt on that salary." (Presumably you'd use PAYE if you were unable to pay off your loans on a 10-year plan. Right?)

I suppose I could add another tab that just does the ten-year repayment plan (for those who don't pay upfront but also don't do PAYE). I didn't do it originally because I just wanted to keep things simple, but now that I've done the PAYE thing, maybe it would be a good idea. Not sure that I'll have the time, though. Maybe someone else wants to hop in. Also, if we're doing the ten-year repayment thing, then we should probably account for refinancing (b/c anyone who does BigLaw would be foolish not to refinance at a lower rate). That's another complication.

At any rate, I will note in the OP and spreadsheet that circumstances will be different under a ten-year repayment plan.

you dont need a 10 year repayment schedule because youre offsetting the NPV by the cash outlay at the beginning of the non-PAYE.

i get that cavalier thinks 10k per year more is "meaningless" if you cant make your debt payments, but this is an NPV calc and the NPV would differ its meaningless. the whole point of this calc is to make numbers based decisions that arent biased by what people consider meaningless or significant.

This is kind of my point. An economic calculator is great if everything can be reduced to easy-to-plug-in numbers. But there are so many variables at play here. It seems extremely ironic to criticize the advice given here as "one size fits all" and then respond by creating a literal calculator for whether someone should go to school.

Yes, 10k extra a year is meaningless if you're in so much debt that you're literally not earning enough to pay it off. And since most people are not going to be comfortable with 25 years of growing debt and a potential tax bomb at the end of that, it's a bit silly to shrug off the issue by pointing to PAYE options. If law school were paid off up-front, then very few people would have any problems with going to a shit school, because even if that school gives you shit opportunities, at least you're not stuck with hundreds of thousands in debt. So that's a huge difference, and by trying to simplify all this with an easy up-front numerical value (which in no way represents the financial hardship of paying off the debt after school), it actually makes a lot of bad options start to look decent.

But again, I get it. You know thousands upon thousands of solo practitioners who make seven figures and drive great cars. So let's focus on that instead of on the data-driven reality of what people can expect from their JD when they go to a bad school at sticker.

[iamgeorgebush]

This is kind of my point. An economic calculator is great if everything can be reduced to easy-to-plug-in numbers. But there are so many variables at play here. It seems extremely ironic to criticize the advice given here as "one size fits all" and then respond by creating a literal calculator for whether someone should go to school.

Yes, 10k extra a year is meaningless if you're in so much debt that you're literally not earning enough to pay it off. And since most people are not going to be comfortable with 25 years of growing debt and a potential tax bomb at the end of that, it's a bit silly to shrug off the issue by pointing to PAYE options. If law school were paid off up-front, then very few people would have any problems with going to a shit school, because even if that school gives you shit opportunities, at least you're not stuck with hundreds of thousands in debt. So that's a huge difference, and by trying to simplify all this with an easy up-front numerical value (which in no way represents the financial hardship of paying off the debt after school), it actually makes a lot of bad options start to look decent.

But again, I get it. You know thousands upon thousands of solo practitioners who make seven figures and drive great cars. So let's focus on that instead of on the data-driven reality of what people can expect from their JD when they go to a bad school at sticker.

Okay. Thank you for the immensely helpful and constructive feedback! You have made wonderful contributions to all the prospective law students coming to TLS for advice, and behalf of all TLS, I thank you for your service.

I'm just providing another tool for people to use to help them determine whether to attend law school. Yes, the calculator—like any financial model—relies on simplifying assumptions that render it imperfect. I've recommended in the OP that people tailor the models to their individual circumstances. I've also recommended that people use other resources to determine whether to attend law school. But if you have improvements, you could download the spreadsheet, make them yourself, and send them to me. As I noted in the OP, I'll include others' improvements in the calculator.

Also, you seem to have problems with relying on PAYE. Could you elaborate? Like I said before, I'm not super familiar with PAYE. (I intend on refinancing my debt and paying it off relatively quickly.) Is there something about my model that inaccurately handles PAYE? If you have suggestions about how to improve my treatment of PAYE, I would value any feedback. (Also, like I said before, you could just make the improvements yourself and send me them.)

Also, if there is specific language in the OP or the spreadsheet that you think will make people rely too strongly on the calculator, please point it out and suggest an appropriate revision.

[cavalier1138]

Okay. Thank you for the immensely helpful and constructive feedback! You have made wonderful contributions to all the prospective law students coming to TLS for advice, and behalf of all TLS, I thank you for your service.

I'm just providing another tool for people to use to help them determine whether to attend law school. Yes, the calculator—like any financial model—relies on simplifying assumptions that render it imperfect. I've recommended in the OP that people tailor the models to their individual circumstances. I've also recommended that people use other resources to determine whether to attend law school. But if you have improvements, you could download the spreadsheet, make them yourself, and send them to me. As I noted in the OP, I'll include others' improvements in the calculator.

Also, you seem to have problems with relying on PAYE. Could you elaborate? Like I said before, I'm not super familiar with PAYE. (I intend on refinancing my debt and paying it off relatively quickly.) Is there something about my model that inaccurately handles PAYE? If you have suggestions about how to improve my treatment of PAYE, I would value any feedback. (Also, like I said before, you could just make the improvements yourself and send me them.)

Also, if there is specific language in the OP or the spreadsheet that you think will make people rely too strongly on the calculator, please point it out and suggest an appropriate revision.

Sorry, I was directing my comment more at Johann than at you. You're trying to provide an interesting alternate perspective (albeit one I disagree with), while Johann is usually just screaming into the wind about how everyone will be fine with $300k of debt from DePaul.

I don't know that there's anything you can do to account for all the crap that can happen with PAYE, but a lot of my criticism hinges on non-economic factors. Most people simply aren't going to be comfortable having an immense amount of growing debt hanging over their heads for 25 years, even when you don't account for the tax bomb that they face if solvent (and if you aren't financially solvent after 25 years, is that actually a good thing?). I simply wouldn't include PAYE as an option on this table, because it's too long-term, too variable, and simply not a good option for the vast majority of students.

[iamgeorgebush]

Okay. Thank you for the immensely helpful and constructive feedback! You have made wonderful contributions to all the prospective law students coming to TLS for advice, and behalf of all TLS, I thank you for your service.

I'm just providing another tool for people to use to help them determine whether to attend law school. Yes, the calculator—like any financial model—relies on simplifying assumptions that render it imperfect. I've recommended in the OP that people tailor the models to their individual circumstances. I've also recommended that people use other resources to determine whether to attend law school. But if you have improvements, you could download the spreadsheet, make them yourself, and send them to me. As I noted in the OP, I'll include others' improvements in the calculator.

Also, you seem to have problems with relying on PAYE. Could you elaborate? Like I said before, I'm not super familiar with PAYE. (I intend on refinancing my debt and paying it off relatively quickly.) Is there something about my model that inaccurately handles PAYE? If you have suggestions about how to improve my treatment of PAYE, I would value any feedback. (Also, like I said before, you could just make the improvements yourself and send me them.)

Also, if there is specific language in the OP or the spreadsheet that you think will make people rely too strongly on the calculator, please point it out and suggest an appropriate revision.

Sorry, I was directing my comment more at Johann than at you. You're trying to provide an interesting alternate perspective (albeit one I disagree with), while Johann is usually just screaming into the wind about how everyone will be fine with $300k of debt from DePaul.

I don't know that there's anything you can do to account for all the crap that can happen with PAYE, but a lot of my criticism hinges on non-economic factors. Most people simply aren't going to be comfortable having an immense amount of growing debt hanging over their heads for 25 years, even when you don't account for the tax bomb that they face if solvent (and if you aren't financially solvent after 25 years, is that actually a good thing?). I simply wouldn't include PAYE as an option on this table, because it's too long-term, too variable, and simply not a good option for the vast majority of students.

Okay, fair enough. Maybe I'll add a caveat about PAYE, both in the OP on the PAYE tab of the spreadsheet, so people recognize its dangers. Any links to the dangers of PAYE that would be worth including?

I'm also going to think about making another version for non-PAYE debt repayment. It could instruct people to use another online calculator to figure out their expected annual debt payments and then have them input that number as an assumption in the cover sheet. There could also be an option to add an upfront payment (kind of like a down payment on a house). It wouldn't take taxes (e.g., interest deductability) into account, but should be better, right?

[Johann]

This is kind of my point. An economic calculator is great if everything can be reduced to easy-to-plug-in numbers. But there are so many variables at play here. It seems extremely ironic to criticize the advice given here as "one size fits all" and then respond by creating a literal calculator for whether someone should go to school.
This is a tool to be used among many other tools, including the advice threads here.
However, I don't see how having more data like NPV is a bad thing. It's customizable by the individual based on risk tolerance and whether or not they are comfortable repaying loans on PAYE,
etc.
Yes, 10k extra a year is meaningless if you're in so much debt that you're literally not earning enough to pay it off. According to you. But not according to the NPV calculator. And since most people are not going to be comfortable with 25 years of growing debt and a potential tax bomb at the end of that, it's a bit silly to shrug off the issue by pointing to PAYE options. The NPV calculators lets the individual law school participant decide whether they are comfrotable with PAYE or not by using the different tabs. I think that's fair. Some people are fine being PAYE -- youre talking to one right now. If law school were paid off up-front, then very few people would have any problems with going to a shit school, because even if that school gives you shit opportunities, at least you're not stuck with hundreds of thousands in debt. So that's a huge difference, and by trying to simplify all this with an easy up-front numerical value (which in no way represents the financial hardship of paying off the debt after school), it actually makes a lot of bad options start to look decent.It makes the options you consider "bad" look decent because yes it considers the actual reality that (1) PAYE exists and was created for this purpose of allowing people to take a risk on investing in themselves and getting a higher degree because America has deemed education a valuable investment as a policy matter, and (2) the people going to shitty law schools usually don't have a lot of other options other than dead end 30-45k jobs. If this particular tool is showing these schools as providing a value to certain people (those who dont have great career prospects and those who are fine riding PAYE), then perhaps you should use the data instead of trying to shut it down because it doesnt conform to your preconceptions about whats a valuable investment or not. "Bad options" are relative to the law school attendee. THis just gives them more information to make an informed choice.

But again, I get it. You know thousands upon thousands of solo practitioners who make seven figures and drive great cars. I know roughly 20 solos who make 6 figures -- some better than others. I think the top earners are a 2 person partner firm grossing roughly $2mm per year now in their 5th year or so (10 attorneys total); partners make about $400k each I'd guess. I also know of a few people who went the solo route and failed and shut their shop down after a couple years. So let's focus on that instead of on the data-driven reality of what people can expect from their JD when they go to a bad school at sticker.Agreed - let's look at the data. Let's look at the NPV data as one of the many tools.

[Johann]

Okay, fair enough. Maybe I'll add a caveat about PAYE, both in the OP on the PAYE tab of the spreadsheet, so people recognize its dangers. Any links to the dangers of PAYE that would be worth including?

I'm also going to think about making another version for non-PAYE debt repayment. It could instruct people to use another online calculator to figure out their expected annual debt payments and then have them input that number as an assumption in the cover sheet. There could also be an option to add an upfront payment (kind of like a down payment on a house). It wouldn't take taxes (e.g., interest deductability) into account, but should be better, right?

this is the headline of income based repayment programs from the government's own website:
"If your federal student loan payments are high compared to your income, you may want to repay your loans under an income-driven repayment plan.

Most federal student loans are eligible for at least one income-driven repayment plan. If your income is low enough, your payment could be as low as $0 per month."
Maybe we can add a caveat that you have to be able to stomach a growing debt balance.
I really do not understand why TLS -- in a time where lawyers are sorely need for civil rights and protecting low income people -- insists on covering up a federal program that was made solely for this purpose. We should be making sure everyone is aware that it at least exists.

eta - alright i admit that one was just to mess with cavalier a little. just say its conditioned on a federal law/program, there is a tax bomb at the end on the debt forgiven, and interest still accrues i.e. your debt may grow.

[iamgeorgebush]

Okay, I've added this caveat for PAYE:

PAYE isn't quite as simple as a simple "YES" on the cover sheet makes it look. First, your eligibility is conditioned on the existence of a federal program. Second, there may be a "tax bomb" at the end (when your debt is forgiven), such that all the cancelled debt is treated as taxable income. You may be taxed on that income at a very high tax rate. Although the spreadsheet attempts to account for this tax bomb (and your tax liability may be reduced by extent to which you are insolvent, if at all), getting hit with this tax bomb may feel very different when it actually comes along. Third, interest will continue to accrue (and your debt to grow) until it is forgiven. I have no clue how this affects your credit or anything like that. Do more research into PAYE if you plan to use it to pay back your debt.

I'll try to work on a version that allows the user to customize the terms of his/her debt repayment. I can probably allow the user to specify the annual debt payment and the number of payments. Cavalier, do you think that would be enough? Anything else I should add?

[twiix]

Confused about this. Who would be providing the data about years spent in big law and new salary? That shit's tough as hell (read:impossible) to come by. Or are you saying people should enter in how many years they'd like to spend/what they think they'll make after they leave?

I think he's recommending the addition of a field in which users could enter the number of years spent in BigLaw and the new salary.

It wouldn't have to be biglaw, but I feel like if we are discussing lateral transfers then the people in big/mid law are the ones this discussion would apply to. Where would PI lateral into if they specifically went into PI?

And @blended, I agree that it's impossible to conclude due to a variety of things (if you suck at your job and get fired, downsizing, law jobs get decreased, etc) but I was merely implying someone could enter what they would ideally do. Example - work biglaw for 3 years, survive off eating rice and beans, pay off 300k of debt and then lateral to in-house somewhere, where the work life balance is actually existent. I do see both sides of this argument though. And I think it largely boils back down to how expansive does OP want this spreadsheet to be. Collaborative development is a bitch in the tech sector, largely for the same reasons that are going down in here (it's hard impossible to please everybody)

[iamgeorgebush]

Confused about this. Who would be providing the data about years spent in big law and new salary? That shit's tough as hell (read:impossible) to come by. Or are you saying people should enter in how many years they'd like to spend/what they think they'll make after they leave?

I think he's recommending the addition of a field in which users could enter the number of years spent in BigLaw and the new salary.

It wouldn't have to be biglaw, but I feel like if we are discussing lateral transfers then the people in big/mid law are the ones this discussion would apply to. Where would PI lateral into if they specifically went into PI?

And @blended, I agree that it's impossible to conclude due to a variety of things (if you suck at your job and get fired, downsizing, law jobs get decreased, etc) but I was merely implying someone could enter what they would ideally do. Example - work biglaw for 3 years, survive off eating rice and beans, pay off 300k of debt and then lateral to in-house somewhere, where the work life balance is actually existent. I do see both sides of this argument though. And I think it largely boils back down to how expansive does OP want this spreadsheet to be. Collaborative development is a bitch in the tech sector, largely for the same reasons that are going down in here (it's hard impossible to please everybody)

Yeah, I feel like this kind of stuff is going to be so individualized that people should just manually change their projected future income in the "Calculations" sheet. Doing this doesn't require any knowledge of finance or advanced use of Excel; you literally just have to change the income columns.

I've edited caveat #3 to describe how users can do this:

The calculator does not account for a potential exit from your first job (or the legal profession altogether) and lower earnings resulting from said exit. (Instead, it assumes that your compensation salary grows at a constant rate that you specify in the cover sheet.) But if you have a decent idea of your expected employment outcomes (e.g., three years in BigLaw with BigLaw-level compensation, then in-house at the mean in-house compensation for someone at that level), you could build a rough approximation of this into the "Calculations" tab yourself. To do this, you can just edit the "inc_emp" column to be equal to whatever you project your future income to be. If you have a couple ideas of what your career might look like, you could even build each scenario into alternative versions of the calculator. Then you might take the average (or a weighted average) of the NPVs from the different scenarios.

[iamgeorgebush]

Update: I've now added another version that accounts for non-PAYE debt repayment. This version (on the "Debt - No PAYE" tab) allows the user to input (1) the amount paid upfront (like a down payment), if any; (2) the annual debt payment; and (3) the number of annual payments. The Calculations tab then subtracts these payments from your income for the term of the loan.

This does not account for the deductability of interest payments.

Comments welcome.

ETA: I've also added some conditional warnings. First, on the custom debt tab, there is a warning that is triggered when circumstances indicate it will be especially hard to pay off one's debt. (Specifically, it kicks in when either first-year employed income or first-year non-employed income is less than $50k.) Second, on the PAYE tab, I've added a warning that is triggered when there's a tax bomb (just to alert users to this fact, in case they didn't read the caveats in much detail).