About three-quarters of law schools leave their students with unaffordable student loan debt.

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.