Today, the Texas Public Policy Foundation published the paper Objection! Law Schools Can Be Hazardous to Students’ Financial Health.

“Among academic fields with the most graduates, the field of law performed the worst on a debt-to-earnings test called the Gainful Employment Equivalent (GEE),” said the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Andrew Gillen, Ph.D. “Of the 168 law schools we examined, only 16 passed the GEE with another 30 on probation. Shockingly, almost three-quarters of law school programs leave their typical student borrower with debt so high relative to their post-graduation earnings that they are unlikely to be able to afford to make their student loan payments.”

Key Points:

  • Education can be an investment in a student’s future, but not all educational investments are worthwhile.
  • This analysis aims to help students avoid making malinvestments by documenting which college programs leave students with unaffordable student loan debt using a debt-to-earnings test called Gainful Employment Equivalent.
  • Among academic fields with the most graduates, the field of law performed the worst on Gainful Employment Equivalent.
  • Of the 168 law school programs with data, 122 (73%) fail Gainful Employment Equivalent.
    Failing programs accounted for 68% of all law school graduates.

To read the paper in full, please visit:

https://www.texaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Gillen-Law-School-Choice.pdf