By James Bowden

So a funny thing has happened since a couple of old folks in Florida stopped paying their mortgages and sent us all packing back to the stone age: law school classrooms (and admissions offices) are busting at the seams. To be fair, higher education is decidedly countercyclical – when jobs become scarce people make personal capital investments. That’s all fine and dandy, but the escalation in admissions to law schools becomes problematic because of the corresponding increase in tuition and student indebtedness that are too often part-and-parcel of an American legal education. First-year enrollment at ABA-accredited schools rose by about 1.7% from 48,239 in 2004-2005 to 49,082 in 2007-2008 – no big deal there. But during that time average tuition has escalated more precipitously, averaging a 10% increase every year from $11,860 in 2004 to $16,836 in 2008.

Why is this terrifying? Because over that period the average student debt load taken on to get through law school has gone from $51,056 at public schools and $78,763 at private schools to $71,436 at public schools and $91,506 at private schools (that’s an overall increase of 40% at public schools and 16% at private schools for the quants out there). More JDs with more debt are now competing for fewer jobs. 

Back in the mid-naughts, when times were good and law firm jobs with fat paychecks were plentiful, students happily took on increasingly gargantuan debt loads confident that they would easily find themselves sufficiently employed to pay the bill. That’s not the world we live in now. So why do schools keep jacking up tuition and increasing enrollment, further flooding an already glutted legal employment market with Dickensian debtors? Why aren’t law school career placement offices burning down law school admissions offices yet? Most importantly, if law students are so smart, why are they willing to pay so much? 

There may be some truth to the contention that schools are hurting as much as their students. Private university endowments are in the can and state university finding sources are in even worse shape, so the cash cows that are professional schools are being milked for all they are worth. But I think the escalation in tuition and debt might indicate something else: that law school applicants are looking for more than a job that just pays the bills. I’ll venture that the premium is being paid for prestige.  

Query: The Nashville School of Law is a private, for-profit school that is not ABA accredited. Students go through a four-year night program and work during the day, and annual tuition runs between $4848 and $5088 per year. The downside is that graduates are not eligible to practice outside of the state of Tennessee; the upside is that most graduates have no debt and have spent four years working in Nashville, gaining exposure and developing relationships in the legal profession. I’ve worked with their graduates, and they are smart, hard working, and driven. It’s a good school. If BigLaw (and big student loan payments) are your dream, the Nashville School of Law and its kin likely aren’t for you; but if you want to work in local or state government, do public interest work, start your own small practice, run for state office, or just get a little ahead of where you are now, you’ve got to wonder - why would you go anywhere else?