It’s easy to get caught up in all the rankings hype when you decide to apply to law school. What’s the best program I can get into? How does US News rank my top 3 choices? Granted, these are reasonable questions to ask. As a general rule, employers are more likely to snap up a Stanford or Harvard Law graduate than most state-school equivalents. However, today’s students often miss an even more important question: which law school offers the most bang for your buck?
If you take a step back and really look at the law school data, you’ll find a series of hidden gems—schools with both cheap(er) tuition and reasonably solid rankings. The problem is that most applicants don’t take the time to do the extra math: they’ll go to the “best school they can get into” regardless of how expensive it is. This is a problem. Law school tuition rates are climbing, and the market is over-saturated with lawyers. If you can’t land a top-paying legal job, you can’t pay off your debts.
The advice here comes with one caveat: if you can get into one of the top 14 law schools in the nation, that’s probably still your best bet. Why? The top 14 law schools have a long history of high salaries and strong employment rates at the best firms. No school outside the top 14 has ever cracked that exclusive club, after over 20 years of ranking updates from US News. According to Anna Ivey, former dean of admissions at Chicago Law School, “In my opinion, you are much better off attending a top-14 school…a degree from a top-14 school will be portable nationally, so that degree would have value whether you ended up in the region you think you’ll prefer down the road or whether you end up someplace else entirely.”
In other words, if you don’t have a 3.9 undergraduate GPA and a 170+ score on the LSAT (approximately what it takes to get into a top 14 school), you should seriously consider picking your school by the price tag first, and then by the rank.
Still, you shouldn’t simply attend the law school with the cheapest tuition of the lot. Quality and prestige still matter: the trick is finding the right balance. Take employment, for instance. The American Bar Association releases data every year on the percentage of students employed at graduation. This tuition vs. employment graph gives a good summary of the cost-effective gems versus money-sucking duds. (Note that the “top 14” are rather nicely clumped up in the top-right. They’re extremely expensive, but their employment rates are all above 95%.
A few standouts include:
| George Mason School of Law
Resident tuition: $23,720; Nonresident: $38,112 Employed at graduation: 96.5% National Rank Range: 30 – 40 |
Brigham Young University (J. Reuben Clark Law School)
Resident tuition: $10,600; Nonresident: $21,200 Employed at graduation: 93.3% National Rank Range: 40 – 50 |
| University of New Mexico School of Law
Resident tuition: $14,532; Nonresident: $32,661 Employed at graduation: 92.0% National Rank Range: 50 – 60 |
University of Kentucky College of Law
Resident tuition: $18,306; Nonresident: $31,716 Employed at graduation: 94.0% National Rank Range: 60 – 70 |
All of these schools are within the top 70 in the nation, have employment rates over 90%, and have reasonable tuition rates to boot. For state residents, attending any of these schools will cost you between three and five times less than the most expensive programs. Other high-value options include the University of Tennessee College of Law, University of Maryland School of Law, and William & Mary Law School.
Compare those figures to these:
| Emory University School of Law
Resident tuition: $45,098; Nonresident: $45,098 Employed at graduation: 83.8% National Rank Range: 20 – 30 |
Yeshiva University (Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law)
Resident tuition: $48,370; Nonresident: $48,370 Employed at graduation: 88.1% National Rank Range: 50 – 60 |
| Brooklyn Law School
Resident tuition: $48,441; Nonresident: $48,441 Employed at graduation: 84.2% National Rank Range: 70 – 80 |
American University
Resident tuition: $45,096; Nonresident: $45,096 Employed at graduation: 82.2% National Rank Range: 50 – 60 |
Not only do these schools cost twice as much (for in-state students): they’re employment rates are a full five to ten percentage points lower.
Surely, you ask, this is simply a matter of the better schools costing more money? Not so. Take a look at this Smart Rating vs. Tuition graph of every law school in the nation (each school’s national rank has been converted to a score out of 100 called the Smart Rating). If you take out the top 14 law schools, there really isn’t all that strong a correlation between a law school’s national prestige and its cost. The lesson: you can pay less for the same quality.
Finally, what about Bar Exam pass rates? You can’t practice law without passing the Bar, after all. Here’s a scatterplot comparing tuition costs to students passing the Bar on their first try. By now, the pattern should be obvious. With the exception of the top 14 law schools, the distribution is just about even. Students from inexpensive law schools pass the bar just as frequently as their pricey law school peers.
So next time you’re about to browse the newest release of law school rankings, review the latest tuition rates first. Over three years, you just might save a full year’s worth of fees.
You definitely have to get into a top school if you want a job especially in the law profession. Not all schools are created equal and your future may depend on getting into the good ones.