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Estimated Average Law School Investment
Comparison of total program cost versus average student loan debt.
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Is law school worth it? California's top lawyer says yes.
Rob Bonta, attorney general of California, following an interview in San Francisco. Jason Henry/Bloomberg via Getty Images 2026-04-09T18:00:25.788Z California Attorney General Rob Bonta piled up student loans by attending law school. He said law school is still "worth it" — even in the age of artificial intelligence. Bonta also explained why his office is testing AI tools internally. California Attorney General Rob Bonta cleaned laundry rooms to support himself through college and still left Yale Law School with a mountain of debt. Bonta says he'd do it all again."I get a lot of questions from young folks who ask me if law school's worth it," Bonta told Business Insider. "I still tell every person to ask me, 'Yes, it's worth it.'"A law degree doesn't come cheap. The Education Data Initiative estimates the average total cost of law school was $217,480 in 2025. That investment looks shakier in the age of artificial intelligence, as software takes on the routine work done by junior lawyers.Still, Bonta said, the skills learned in law school allow graduates to "impact the future of our state and our nation and make a difference in society." Those skills, he added, will continue to separate job candidates from the pack, whether they pursue roles in or out of legal. "I couldn't do this job," or "a bunch of other jobs," without a law degree, he said. "I wouldn't think or learn or speak or write the way I do without the training."Bonta started his career in private practice, putting his dream of public service on hold, he said, to pay down his student loans. He went on to become a young lawyer in the San Francisco City Attorney's Office and a state legislator, before being sworn in as California's attorney general in 2021.That role has put him at the center of California's crackdown on artificial intelligence. The push includes efforts to police deepfakes and harms to children, as well as a new program inside the attorney general's office to build in-house technical expertise.Asked whether his office is also testing AI tools to speed up work, Bonta said his team is reviewing what's available, though he declined to name any vendors. He acknowledged that while the government is "notoriously slower" than the private sector in adopting new tech, "we can't be too out of sync."Banta's peers in the private sector tell him that they're under pressure from clients to deploy artificial intelligence and trim legal bills. "We will need to start doing that more, as well,...
Is Law School Worth It? | Bankrate (2025) - queleparece.com
Law school can be a hefty investment, but like many postgraduate programs, it may be the key to entering your career field of choice. When weighing whether a law school education is worth the time and financial investment, it’s important to consider the average debtload of graduates, your potential return on investment, your career goals, average entry-level salaries, and more.What to consider before going to law schoolBefore you invest considerable time and financial resources into law school, it’s crucial to weigh the pros and cons and consider some alternatives. After all, there are many other careers that pay six-figure salaries without the lengthy higher education commitment and the additional costs involved in earning a law degree.When deciding if law school is worth it, compare the costs of earning a law degree to the salary you can expect in the end. Since law school takes several more years to complete after you earn a bachelor’s degree, you should also consider the opportunity cost of spending more time in school and less time in the workforce.Average cost of law schoolThe average cost of a law school education in 2023 was $220,335 for a 3-year program, according to the Education Data Initiative.Similar to other fields of study, public institutions tend to cost significantly less than private schools– to the tune of over a $20,000 difference annually. Though scholarships and grants can help students to offset some of the cost, the nonprofit Law School Transparency notes that for decades, the cost of law school has soared above the rate of inflation.Average law school debtThe average law school debt is $160,000, and 71.2 percent of law school graduates in the U.S. had student loan debt in 2022. Some schools, including Howard University and the University of Idaho, reported more than 90 percent of their graduates having law school debt.Student loan debt can be made up of federal student loans, private student loans or both. The standard repayment term for federal student loans is 10 years; an average interest rate of 6 percent on $160,000 of loan debt would cost you a staggering $1,776 per month to pay it off in that time.Depending on your career path after graduation, it may take some time to get to the point where you can afford that. Fortunately, there are some programs available to make payments more affordable based on your income or even assist you with paying them off — we’ll get to those below.Average earnings with a law degreeHow much you ...
Does a law degree pay off? New study says yes | Reuters
Parents pushing their kids to go to law or medical school have new data to back them up, thanks to researchers at Yale University and Vassar College.
Stanford tops latest US News law school rankings, while Yale slips to ...
Stanford Law School maintained its top spot in U.S. News & World Report's 2026 rankings of best law schools, as Yale Law School dropped to No. 2, now sharing that spot with the University of ...
