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It’s a pretty crazy large number. People will point out, ‘Well, there are scholarships.’ But not everyone gets very big scholarships, and very few get anything for cost of living.
— Professor Derek Muller of the University of Iowa College of Law, commenting in an interview with Reuters on Columbia Law School’s cost of attendance for the upcoming academic year, which clocks in at $110,450, which includes $75,572 in tuition, plus living expenses and various university fees. Columbia is now the most expensive top law school in the country, with an estimated cost of $330,000 (or more) for a three-year degree. In that interview, Muller tied these “eye-popping” attendance fees to the most recent round of Biglaw salary wars, where compensation for an incoming associate was raised to $215,000. With that kind of money, elite law school graduates will be able to pay off their student loans.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
