Since the early 1970s there has been a steep and persistent rise in the costs of legal education and in the tuitions law schools charge. From 1990 to 2003 the average cost of public education rose 234 percent and the cost of private education rose 118 percent. The average tuition for a public law school is $10,820 for a state resident and $20,171 for a non-resident. The average tuition for a private law school has rose to an astounding $25,584. As a result of the soaring cost of legal education, total financial aid available to students from federal, state, and institutional has also increased dramatically, changing student aid system from a grant-based to a loan-based one. These factors have resulted in law students carrying an extraordinary amount of student debt. As of 2002, 87 percent of law students borrowed money to finance their legal educations. Most graduates of law school today have a cumulative debt form undergraduate and law school that exceeds $80,000. Assuming a standard ten-year repayment schedule, this means payments of more than $1,000 per month. Some students have even higher debt loads than this, as the average full time law student spends $125,000 to attend law school, and many of these students are forced to borrow the full amount.
There are several negative consequences that result from the increasing amount of debt that law students are burdened with. Chief among them is that educational debt bars new lawyers from public service careers. Graduates interested in pursuing government or public interest careers have to take a substantial pay cut. Entry level salaries for government and public interest positions have always been significantly lower than those ...