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They could increase demand and that wouldn’t impact the number of people who apply or qualify [to attend]. These schools, they’re perceived as a premium item, a luxury good. You almost have a reverse psychology that if it’s not that expensive, it’s not that good. No one wants to be seen as the cheap version of these schools.
— Chris Chapman, president and CEO of AccessLex, a nonprofit that works to improve legal education, commenting on the fact that six-figure total cost of attendance figures for elite law schools are unlikely to affect their application rates.
Three law schools have surpassed the $100,000 mark for total cost of attendance for the 2019-2020 academic year: Columbia Law ($101,345), Stanford Law ($101,016), and Chicago Law ($100,080 for first-year students; $98,505 for second- and third-year students). Other T14 law schools are quickly approaching the $100,000 total cost of attendance mark, like Harvard Law ($99,200), Penn Law ($94,338), and Northwestern Law ($94,410).
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.