I got a bill for law school this week. Tuition: $15,260. If you think that’s expensive, you’re right. If you think it sounds reasonable, consider this… that’s for one (1) semester! Does this mean the whole year will cost more than $30k?
For a minute I thought so, but looking back at my old bills, I noticed that Spring semester costs less than Fall. That makes sense because… oh no wait – it makes no sense at all. Maybe they like to invest that extra couple grand for an extra couple months.
More annoying than the fact that the charges are inconsistent is the fact that tuition is increasing much faster than law salaries, rents in Boston (probably everywhere), and the cost of living in general – and it’s always unannounced. The bill comes and the “expected student budget” is a couple thousand more than the previous year. That means more loans, which means more to pay back and faster growth of debt.
Lately I’ve been preaching the benefits of delaying law school for a year on Law School Discussion, but the increasing tuition is something to consider. If a school costs 2k more each year, you’ll save 2k by starting this year, and another 4k by not being there in four years time. For example, let’s say school costs x + 0, 2, 4, and 6. If you start this year you pay an extra 6k (0+2+4). If you start next year you pay an extra 12k (2+4+6). That’s 6k difference. Assuming that’s the last bit of loans you’ll pay off, that debt will more than double. You might end up paying something like $15k more for waiting one year!
I don’t claim to have accurate numbers here, just hypothetical numbers to show my point. Interest rates and tuition are unpredictable too, and I didn’t even look at my loan statements to figure out what my interest rate is or how my debt accrues over time. Even if this “tuition effect” isn’t as bad as I’ve made it out to be, you still have to consider the “cost” of working for less money before law school (when compared to the allegedly higher salary you’ll supposedly get after law school).
I had a hard time (took more than a minutes so I gave up) finding information on past tuition rates. I was going to make a chart, but there are some holes in my data. I’ll point you to one resource though: archive.org. Just pop in the address of a school’s “student budget” page and check out what it looked like last year, or two years ago. Chances are it’s climbing like a monkey on a coconut tree.