Average Law School Debt [2024]: Student Loan Statistics

Report Highlights. The average law school graduate owes $130,000 in student loan debt.

71% of law school students graduate in debt.
$119,292 is the average amount students borrow just to attend law school.
$92,267 is the average amount borrowed to attend one of the top 10 law schools in terms of salary-to-debt ratio.
47% of new law school graduates say their legal education was worth the financial cost.

Average Law School Debt 2024 2 on Education Data Initiative

Average Law School Debt Statistics

Accounting for inflation, the average amount of law school debt has declined by more than 12% since 2010.

Student loan debt has now overtaken credit card debt in the U.S., at over $1.7 trillion.
41.9% of indebted law school graduates say they owe as much or more than they did at graduation.
39% of indebted lawyers have postponed or decided not to have children due to their law school debt.
27% of new lawyers decided to postpone marriage or remain unwed as a result of their debts, and 52% have put off purchasing property.
26% of indebted law school graduates said a job that will give them a better chance of loan forgiveness factored more heavily in job selection than anticipated.
Vanderbilt law school graduates have the lowest salary-to-debt ratio out of law schools, with a ratio of 1.36 to 1.
Washington and Lee University students borrow the most at an average of $160,000 per student
$61,718 is the lowest average debt among new lawyers, who graduated from Wayne State University.

Snapshot: Law School Graduate Indebtedness
Institution	Salary-to-debt ratio	Average Amount Borrowed
Vanderbilt University (TN)	1.36 to 1	$151,118
Wayne State University (MI)	1.38 to 1	$61,718
University of Arizona	1.40 to 1	$71,055
University of Houston Law Center (TX)	1.41 to 1	$104,466
Ohio State University	1.42 to 1	$80,962
University of Georgia	1.43 to 1	$69,692
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill	1.43 to 1	$87,339
University of Minnesota	1.47 to 1	$101,825
Washington and Lee University (VA)	1.48 to 1	$160,000
Emory University (GA)	1.51 to 1	$126,239

Average law school debt graphic 2 on Education Data Initiative

Law School Debt Across Demographics

The burden of student loan debt is unevenly distributed among demographics such as age groups, race or ethnicity, sex or gender, and even from state to state.

Black or African American graduates’ loan debts are roughly 8% higher compared to white students.
8% of law school students and just 5% of practicing lawyers are Black or African American.
14% of law school students and 6% of lawyers are Hispanic or Latino.
61% of law school students and 79% of all practicing lawyers are non-Hispanic whites.
7% of law school students and 6% of lawyers are Asian.
In 2018, $96,442 is the average starting salary for female law school graduates while men start at $100,393.

According to the American Bar Association (ABA), women and minority law school graduates bear an inordinate percentage of student debt, much of it due to income disparities. The ABA considers this an urgent problem and recommends law school students and practicing lawyers take the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which was developed at Harvard University as a method of gauging racial bias in test takers.

Law School Borrowers Unable to Reduce Debt After Graduation
Demographic Group	Same Debt	More Debt
Asian	11.4%*	13.6%
Black/African American	20.7%	43.7%
Hispanic or Latino	14.0%	19.8%
Indigenous	7.1%	17.9%
Two or More Races	11.7%	18.3%
White/Caucasian	15.5%	28.9%
Unreported	14.6%	26.8%
All Law School Borrowers	15.0%	26.9%

*Percent of all law school borrowers who have earned a Juris Doctorate in this demographic group.

Student Borrowing and Repayment

The amount a student borrows to attend school is never the amount they ultimately pay. While student loans generally don’t require payments until graduation, interest on those loans begins to accrue immediately.

Roughly 90% of students borrowed student loans to fund their law degree and prior education, with an average of about $100,000 in loans for the J.D., and around $130,000 of loan debt following graduation.
78% of law students are working full-time within a year of graduation.
Just 47% of indebted law school graduates say their degree was worth the financial cost.
Degree satisfaction may or may not be linked to student debt, but indebted medical school graduates are more than twice as likely to consider their degree worth the debt.

Average law school debt 1030 2 on Education Data Initiative

Federal Loans and Repayment

Students pursuing post-graduate education may use federal Grad PLUS loans, which carry 9.08% interest rate for the 2024-2025 academic year.

$57,500 is the median starting salary for a law school graduate working in the public sector.
$200,000 is the median starting salary for those in the private sector.
It is very difficult for the average lawyer working in the public sector to pay off federal student loans if they follow CFPB recommendations and guidelines.
19.1 years is how long it will take the average lawyer working in the public sector to pay off their loans if they use 25% of their income.
9.9 years is how long it will take a lawyer working in the private sector to pay off their loans following CFPB guidelines.
A maximum of 36% of all income should go toward paying off debt, as federal guidelines recommend.
Graduates of the Whittier Law School borrowed an average of $204,664; their median starting salary is $40,747, giving them the worst debt-to-income ratio among all law school graduates.
It will take about 16 years for the average Whittier graduate to pay off the amount borrowed, assuming ~60% of their income goes toward repayments.
In that time, they will pay $181,258 in interest; which is 47% of a grand total of $385,922.
Vanderbilt University law school graduates get the best deal in terms of debt-to-income ratios; their mean starting salaries are $205,000 while the average amount borrowed is $151,118.

$130K Law School Loan Repayment Timeline Assuming 9.08% APR
Median Salary	% Income	Monthly Payment	Years to Zero Debt	Total Cost
$57,500	10%	$479	NA†	NA†
$57,500	25%	$1,198	19.1	$273,490
$57,500	36%	$1,707	9.4	$193,256
$200,000	10%	$1,667	9.9	$197,214
$200,000	25%	$4,167	3.0	$148,850
$200,000	36%	$6,000	2.0	$142,527

†NA = This payment does not cover the loan’s accrued interest, making repayment an impossibility.

Private Loans and Repayment

Private loan interest rates are generally much higher than those of federal loans. Some of them carry an APR of over 17%. There are very few statistics available regarding private loans because there is no centralized regulatory entity collecting data.

If their total educational debt all came from private loans, no law school graduate could afford to repay that debt and follow CFOB recommendations and guidelines.
An average graduate would owe a minimum payment of $1,700, assuming a $120,000 loan was taken out. This would require over 44 years of monthly payments.
For an average law school graduate working in the public sector, that’s roughly 35% of their monthly income.
Their grand total payment would be over $779,515; 86.7% of it would be in interest.
A Top 10 graduate would owe minimum monthly payments of $1,308 in order to be out of debt within 44 years.
The debt among graduates of Top 10 schools is equivalent to 86% of their income if they work in the public sector; these borrowers would ultimately pay of $500,000 in interest alone.
It would not be practical for a Whittier graduate to ever pay off an educational debt in private loans.

$130,000 Law School Loan Repayment Timeline Assuming a 17% APR
Median Salary	% Income	Monthly Payment	Years to Zero Debt	Total Cost
$57,500	10%	$479	NA†	NA†
$57,500	20%	$958	NA†	NA†
$57,500	36%	$1,725	NA†	NA†
$200,000	10%	$1,667	NA†	NA†
$200,000	20%	$3,333	4.8	$190,545
$200,000	36%	$6,000	3.3	$156,385

†NA = This payment does not cover the loan’s accrued interest, making repayment an impossibility.

Law School Tuition and Fees

In 2015, the ABA launched a task force to deal with the national student debt burden, resulting in discount programs that have helped supplement student tuition level off the average financial burden in recent years.

$60,293 is the average annual cost to attend a Top 10 law school.
$43,020 is the average annual cost of attending a private law school.
Public law schools charge an annual rate of $26,264 for in-state students; out-of-state students pay $39,612.
$81,292 is the annual tuition at Columbia University, making it the most expensive law school in the country.
Students at the University of Puerto Rico pay $9,750, the lowest tuition of any law school nationwide.
The average law school tuition has increased by $27,946 over the past 35 years; that’s an increase of 1,172%.

Average law school tuition price on Education Data Initiative

Sources of Financing Among Law School Students Who Didn’t Use Student Loans for Law School‡
Source	Usage
Support from family or friends	68.1%
Savings	58.9%
Scholarships and/or grants	58.4%
Employment while in school	34.1%
Employer	9.2%
Other	8.6%
Credit cards	7.6%

‡14% of law school students do not use student loans when earning their Juris Doctorate.