After years of planning to jump straight into law school postgraduation, I changed my mind.
First of all, I can’t enter into a situation that loads me with more than $100,000 in debt and at the end, leaves me with no guarantee of passing the BAR or finding a job. While I received scholarships, I refused to pay the rest. Law schools have little overhead cost, nowhere near tuition price, which they use to give other students full rides. When I do attend law school, I’ll be on a full-ride scholarship.
Lawyers have a bimodal salary, meaning they are divided into two groups: the ones working at big firms making $160,000 or at smaller firms making between $40-65,000 per year. Taking on six-figures of debt doesn’t make sense unless you’re in the first category, which requires you go to a highly-ranked school. Otherwise, you’re left with a massive debt and a tiny shovel with which to dig yourself out. And after graduation, your debt load restricts your career from what you want to do to what you have to do. A career in public interest may sound romantic, but it won’t be if you make $40,000 and can barely put food on the table because of loan payments. And I wouldn’t bet on waiting 10 years for the government to forgive your loans. You can make a $65,000 salary without graduate school.
The location of your law school strongly determines where you’ll be for the rest of your life (unless you go to a high enough ranked school, eg Notre Dame). Entering into another market with no connections is extremely difficult, especially if it means passing another state’s BAR.
Law school will always be there. But once you enter it, you’ve devoted the next three years of your life (and even more counting your debt payoff) to grinding harder than you ever have, the results which will determine your future salary. There’s no quitting, slowing down, or weekends off. And once you graduate, you have to pass the BAR and get a job to repay your loans before Sallie Mae moves into your house for good and the giant interest rate eats you alive.
Law schools prey on inexperienced students who believe that law school is an easy ticket to a massive salary. If you don’t believe me, sign up for the LSAT and see how many emails you get weeks before classes start, offering measly scholarships but descriptions of the grandeur life of a lawyer. Education is a business decision, and for schools, that means filling seats. Even if that student has a minuscule chance of passing the BAR or earning a salary high enough to pay federally-insured loans.
While I initially experienced FOMO with many of my friends working through their first year in law school, I remembered this J-Cole line: “You ain’t a man until you stop chasing your friends, Think for yourself, make your own plans.”
Whether it’s going to college, graduate school, or investing in cryptocurrency, you always benefit from thinking critically and questioning the status quo. Great leaders and thinkers forge their own path, they don’t follow others mindlessly.
Once I considered these things, I resisted the herd mentality and decided I should pursue a few of my other interests before entering into a game of Russian Roulette with debt.