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Scholarships and Negotiation · Lesson 5 of 6

The debt math schools won't show you

After this lesson, you can calculate a school's debt to income ratio and use it to judge whether an offer, even a discounted one, is actually a good deal.

5 min video, plus notes and 1 practice question below

In this lesson

• Know where to find real outcome data: ABA 509 reports and Law School Transparency data, both free inside your LSAC LawHub account
• See that starting in July 2024, the Department of Education began publishing its own data on cost of attendance, average debt, and typical graduate earnings for every law school
• Learn to calculate debt to income ratio, dividing median debt by median graduate earnings, as the real measure of whether a school's price is worth it
• See the real gap in the data: Harvard's ratio of 0.54 against schools reporting ratios above 4, meaning debt several times higher than earnings
• Recognize that even an appealing or discounted option can carry a weak ratio, so treat a full ride as close to a requirement before considering a school with poor outcomes

Where to find the real numbers before you decide

Whenever you're weighing where to go to law school, check the American Bar Association's 509 reports and the Law School Transparency data, which was folded into LSAC's LawHub after LSAC acquired it. Both are available for free inside your LawHub account, and together they organize employment outcomes and bar passage rates neatly in one place.

On top of that, the Department of Education announced that starting in July 2024, it would begin collecting new information on law schools and publishing it on its own website. Schools now have to report figures including their total cost of attendance, the average amount students borrow, and typical graduate earnings. Programs with high debt levels and low graduate earnings over a 2 year period face a new disclosure requirement specifically meant to make sure prospective students understand the risk before they enroll.

Debt to income ratio is the number that actually matters

Not all law schools produce the same outcomes, and some have far better debt to income ratios than others. Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller organized currently available Department of Education data and found that the school with the best debt to income ratio was Harvard, at 0.54. Northwestern came in at 0.78, George Mason at 0.81, Cornell at 0.83, and Berkeley at 0.83.

At Harvard, median debt was about $93,000 and median income was roughly $173,000, so median income came out to roughly double the debt. That's about as strong a ratio as you'll find. The lower the debt to income ratio, the better the outcome tends to be for a typical graduate of that school.

The worst ratios show debt several times higher than earnings

On the other end, Cooley Law School reported a debt to income ratio of 4.95, meaning debt was roughly 5 times earnings. Median debt there was about $200,000, while median earnings were only about $41,000, a massive gap compared to Harvard's 0.54. Arizona Summit came in at 4.31 and John Marshall Law School in Atlanta at 3.96, though both have since closed. Schools with ratios that high, alongside Appalachian School of Law, showed some of the worst outcomes in the data, and they're worth steering clear of.

This is exactly why raw sticker price or even a percentage discount doesn't tell you enough. A school can look affordable on paper and still leave graduates with debt many times their income, which is the whole point of checking the ratio instead of the price alone.

Even an appealing option can carry a weak ratio

Southwestern Law School reported a debt to income ratio of 3.5, with debt around $200,000 and earnings around $58,000. Notably, Southwestern was set to become the first fully online law school with ABA accreditation, and it's the alma mater of Camille Vasquez, known for representing Johnny Depp in his trial against Amber Heard. Neither of those facts changes the math.

A distinctive program or a notable alum doesn't offset a weak debt to income ratio. Tread carefully with any school in that range, and treat it as worth considering only if you're getting a full ride, not a partial discount.

The lever that gets you to a full ride is still your LSAT score

The best way to get a full ride to law school is to apply with an LSAT score significantly above a school's median. That single number is what pulls schools with strong debt to income ratios into range, and it's what turns a school with a weaker ratio into a reasonable bet if the price drops to close to nothing.

Run the ratio for every school on your list before you compare offers side by side. A bigger discount at a school with a poor debt to income ratio can still leave you worse off than a smaller discount at a school with a strong one, so let the ratio, not the size of the scholarship, be the deciding number.

The short version

• Before you compare 2 offers, pull each school's median debt and median graduate earnings and calculate the debt to income ratio yourself. Don't rely on the discount percentage alone.
• Cross check any school you're considering against Department of Education disclosure data and ABA 509 reports before you commit.
• Line up your target school's ratio against this lesson's examples: close to Harvard's 0.54 is strong, close to Cooley's 4.95 or Southwestern's 3.5 is weak. Let that comparison, not the discount percentage, tell you whether you need a full ride.

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