Price of Law School Hits New High at Columbia ($110,450), Others Close Behind | Hacker News Reader

Price of Law School Hits New High at Columbia ($110,450), Others Close Behind

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12 pointsKaibeezy9 comments

It's $110k A YEAR

It may be helpful to contextualize some of these numbers. I'm a law student at a similarly-ranked law school in a lower-COLA area. Like most of my peers I have a job lined up at a BigLaw firm in NYC which pays $215 base and about $35 in bonuses for a total of $250. This steps up in a rigid scale yearly until partnership (or you burn out and die). The older numbers are pre-covid pay bump which has reset comp, and with consulting bumping I suspect comp may rise again.

It's a substantial capital outlay (even though I don't know anyone paying full sticker) but if you can stomach the work it pays for itself fairly quickly. Happy to give a more detailed breakdown of financials as I suspect there are not many lawyers on HN (I made an account to comment on this).

The problem isn't necessarily the money after. It's affording it as a student. Even if tuition is covered, somebody has to pay living expenses, books, etc.

Median salary for employed graduates is $190k. I presume it goes up over time.

Presumably it starts well below that, reaching $190K mid-career. And it’s still less than I make as a software engineer with an undergrad state school CS degree that left me only $30K in debt…

Nope. $190k is first-year associate pay at top law firms (Columbia law school graduates mostly go to large firms).

Some of those firms pay over $200k to first-year associates. 7 years later they are likely learning twice that:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/three-to...

Nah. Biglaw associates start @ 215k [0]. A crushing life though, according to most of my acquaintances in the field.

[0] https://www.biglawinvestor.com/biglaw-salary-scale/

With income based repayment it doesn’t matter if it’s 1M a year. Nobody is paying the full price

Especially since law schools raise tuition to fund LRAPs (programs where the schools cover graduates' student loan payments until forgiveness kicks in). Kind of a win/win for the school and student, assuming they're eligible

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