http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/is_department_of_education_data_on_student_loan_defaults_an_accurate_reflec
The News: On October 2, 2017, the ABA Journal published a Stephanie Francis Ward article entitled "Is Department of Education data on student loan defaults an accurate reflection of law schools?" Take a look at the following:
"Among the thousands of schools listed in the U.S. Department of Education’s student loan default data released last week, 23 were law schools, all of which have individual identification numbers for participating in Title IV aid…
There could be many more law schools with student loan default rates that aren’t included in the data, says Donald Lively, president of Arizona Summit School of Law.
“Law schools that are part of a university have their default rates aggregated with the university, so it is difficult to determine their default rates. Given that they constitute the vast majority of law schools, however, it could well be that some of them have the highest loan default rates,” Lively wrote in an email to the ABA Journal. His law school had a student loan default rate of 1 percent, according to the data.
The Department of Education Data is for the fiscal year 2014, which has a tracking period of Oct. 1, 2013 through Sept. 30, 2016. according to an agency press release. Between fiscal years 2013 and 2014, the overall student loan default rate increased from 11.3 percent to 11.5 percent, the release states.
Among the law schools with their own OPE ID numbers and a student loan default rate of more than 2 percent:
• Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, Massachusetts—4.8 percent (12 in default among 250 who entered repayment plans.)
• Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego—3.8 percent (20 in default among 530 who entered repayment plans.)
• Appalachian School of Law, Grundy, Virginia—2.9 percent (three in default among 102 who entered repayment plans.)
• Mitchell Hamline School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota—2.6 percent (eight in default among 306 who entered repayment plans.)
• San Joaquin College of Law, Clovis, California—2.6 percent (two in default among 76 who entered repayment plans.)
• Thomas M. Cooley School of Law, Lansing, Michigan—2.5 percent (32 in default among 1,255 who entered repayment plans.)
• Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, Atlanta—2.3 percent (seven in default among 302 who entered repayment plans.)" [Emphasis mine]
These figures do not tell the full story either. How many graduates are managing to pay the minimum monthly amount, while scraping by on a paltry $43K annual salary?
https://abovethelaw.com/2017/09/the-law-schools-with-the-highest-student-loan-default-rates/
Other Coverage: On September 29, 2017, Staci Zaretsky posted an ATL entry labeled “The Law Schools With The Highest Student Loan Default Rates.” Here is the full text below:
“Here at Above the Law, time and time again, we’ve warned both prospective and current law students about the dangers of student loans. According to the most recent data reported to U.S. News, recent graduates of public law schools have an average debt of $90,217, recent graduates of private law schools have an average debt of $130,349, and the average class of 2016 graduate has an average debt of $112,389. With debt loads that large, it is imperative that law school graduates secure employment with salaries high enough to service those loans, lest they risk defaulting on their debts. Given the dismal employment statistics that some law schools have continued to post year after year, it seems obvious that graduates will have issues when it comes to repaying their debts; some graduates will allow their loans to fall into delinquency, and other graduates will default on their loans outright.
The consequences of student loan default are severe, and can range from wage garnishments to Treasury offsets to acceleration of the entire debt owed. This is not a situation that anyone would want to deal with at any time in their lives, but some law school graduates have been forced to endure the disastrous repercussions of default.
Are graduates of your law school at risk of defaulting on their student loans? The latest information from the U.S. Department of Education may provide some guidance. During the tracking period for Fiscal Year 2014 — which includes data from October 1, 2013 to September 30, 2016 — six freestanding law schools (i.e., law schools that aren’t affiliated with any college or university) reported student loan default rates greater than 2 percent. For the sake of comparison, five law schools posted default rates greater than 2 percent for Fiscal Year 2013, and six law schools reported student loan default rates greater than 2 percent for Fiscal Year 2012.
As reported by the ABA Journal, these are the freestanding law schools with the highest student loan default rates for Fiscal Year 2014 (you may recognize a few of from prior coverage here at ATL):
• Massachusetts School of Law: 4.8 percent
• Thomas Jefferson School of Law: 3.8 percent
• Appalachian School of Law: 2.9 percent
• San Joaquin College of Law: 2.6 percent
• Thomas M. Cooley School of Law: 2.5 percent
• Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School: 2.3 percent” [Emphasis mine]
Of course, tons of college graduates will choose to sign on the dotted line. Apparently, helping “law professors” to maintain their vacation homes is a worthy endeavor.
Conclusion: We know that the vast majority of freshly-minted attorneys are not in Biglaw. As such, most are making $40K to $55K per year. The information has been out there for nearly a decade. Lower-ranked ABA schools are no longer asserting that 98% of their JDs are employed within 9-10 months of graduation. The cost of admission is outrageous. ABA-accredited cesspools have lowered their acceptance $tandard$. Yet, fools continue to apply and enroll. In the end, these willing marks deserve no sympathy.