Law School Debt and Career Choice

Carolyn Elefant at Law.com has an interesting post about How Student Loans Influence Legal Career Choices. Citing a New York Times article, she describes an experiment NYU is in the middle of.

From 1998 to 2001, NYU law school gave one group of students loans -- with the promise of debt forgiveness if they go into the public sector. It gave another group grants -- with the caveat that the grants would be converted into loans if the students did not go into the public sector. Preliminary indications are that the perception of big debt makes a difference -- between 36 and 45% more of the students in the grant group went into the public sector than did students in the loan group.

Filed in: LRAP, law-students, NYU, practice-of-law, empirical-studies, Elefant