Can the government help cut law school tuition? Blogger offers a solution
The government could put a stop to high law school tuition if it quit offering loans to law students or even imposed loan caps, a legal blogger says in a newspaper op-ed.
In an article for the Washington Post, Above the Law founder David Lat says government loans are subsidizing the production of lawyers even though only 57 percent of 2013 law grads had full-time legal jobs nine months after graduation.
The loans are also making it possible for law schools to keep tuition high, Lat asserts. In inflation-adjusted terms, tuition at private law schools in the United States has doubled over the past 20 years.
“If the government were to stop lending for law school,” Lat writes, “or even just impose per-student or per-school caps on loan amounts (perhaps combined with making it easier to discharge student loans in bankruptcy), law schools would have to dramatically lower tuition, in order to attract students.”
Though private lenders could still offer loans, they would be likely to focus on law schools with strong placement records, according to Lat.
Lat suggests the government could encourage law grads to practice in rural or poor communities by lending or giving scholarships to law students who commit to such work.
