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We all know that a legal education can land the average law school graduate in up to six figures of debt (to be specific, 2018 graduates of private law schools racked up $123,511 in student loans while 2018 graduates of public law schools racked up $86,747 in student loans), and we all know that egregiously high tuition costs are to blame. According to the latest data from U.S. News, the average cost of tuition and fees at private schools for the 2018-2019 academic year was $48,869, while the average in-state and out-of-state cost of tuition and fees at public schools was $27,591 and $40,725, respectively.
But which law schools had the most costly tuition for the 2018-2019 academic year?
The Short List blog of U.S. News has compiled a ranking for that, and it’s not at all shocking that all 10 schools that made the list are private. At these law schools, the average tuition and fees for the 2018-2019 academic year was at least $64,000.
Here are the top 10 law schools with the highest tuition and fees:
|
SCHOOL |
TUITION AND FEES (2018-2019) |
U.S. NEWS RANK |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Columbia University | $69,916 | 5 | ||
| New York University | $66,422 | 6 | ||
| University of Pennsylvania | $65,804 | 7 | ||
| Cornell University | $65,541 | 13 | ||
| Harvard University | $64,978 | 3 | ||
| University of Southern California (Gould) | $64,908 | 17 | ||
| Duke University | $64,722 | 10 (tie) | ||
| Northwestern University (Pritzker) | $64,402 | 10 (tie) | ||
| Yale University | $64,267 | 1 | ||
| University of Chicago | $64,089 | 4 |
It’s certainly worth noting that the private law schools that made this list are among the best in the country. At highly ranked schools like these, you get what you pay for, and in the law school world, that usually means a high-paying paid job as an attorney that will allow you to service your enormous debt obligations in a timely fashion — and to be quite frank, with up to six figures of debt to pay off, that’s priceless.
No matter where you decide to go to law school, make sure that you evaluate what your payoff will be when graduation time rolls around. Given the information that’s readily available online, will you be able to find a job? Will you be able to make ends meet while making payments on your law school loans? If you don’t think the answer to these questions are “yes,” then you may want to consider another school.
10 Most Expensive Law Schools [The Short List / U.S. News]
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.