Ranking Over Money

juillet
Sat, 30 Jan 2016 17:41:25 +0000

Going to BC Law and having,say, a 50-50 chance of being a successful lawyer (and getting about $1,000,000-$2,000,000 in additional lifetime income) but taking on $150,000 debt, or taking an entry level college graduate position that has basically minimal chance of climbing out of the middle class without a graduate degree. I know what I would tell my child given these odds.

This is a totally false dichotomy. Even if we said that Boston College gave you a 50% chance of being a successful lawyer, that’s basically flipping a coin with $150K of debt over my head. I suppose it depends on how risk-averse you are, but I certainly would not make that choice. (In fact, it’s one of the reasons I decided against applying to law school myself, and I graduated college the same year the bottom went out so I had no idea how bad it would get.)

But the other side is that this is a complete underestimate of what a bachelor’s-level graduate with a marketing major or something can do. It’s not “minimal odds” of climbing out of the middle-class. To take your marketing example, a mid-career market analyst or researcher can easily make between $55,000 and $75,000, which is a pretty middle-class income. And marketing and advertising managers average $123,000 a year (http://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/advertising-promotions-and-marketing-managers.htm). And there are lots of other majors and careers - computer science, math, statistics, political science, economics, nursing, education - that lead to good career outcomes with a bachelor’s degree. (Also, why are we comparing BAs with JDs? There’s also the option that that BA does a different graduate degree with better odds.)

The NALP says that public interest lawyers just starting out actually do average around $45-55,000 a year (http://www.nalp.org/july14research#table1) and 11-15 years in are making around $65-85,000, which is what a person with a bachelor’s could make after 11-15 years of working and appropriate promotions. But even if we say an entry-level lawyer in a small Boston firm can make $60-80,000 a year to start out with…there are many careers that a person can get a graduate degree and start out making around that much without the $150K+ in debt hanging over their head. Mid-career social science majors without a bachelor’s degree average in that range, and when I say “mid-career” I mean “5-10 years of experience.”

So if you go to law school and end up starting at a small firm, chances are really good that your friends who went straight to work after college are making around the same amount as you. Or, they may be making around $10K less than you, but they also have less than a third of your debt.

And who the heck wants to spend three years and $200,000 on a law degree and end up doing a job that you can do with a BA and a certificate from a community college? (Not that I’m disdaining paralegal work, because I think it’s awesome. It’s just that I don’t think attorneys with six-figure debt want to be legal assistants.)