Almost one-third of all third-year law students expect to graduate with more than $120,000 in debt, according to the recent LSSSE report, released Jan. 6th.
The numbers are not only getting worse, they are moving quickly in the wrong direction.
The overall percent of students who expect to graduate with more than $120,000 in debt has grown from 18 percent in 2006 to 29 percent in 2009.
The findings come from the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (PDF), which garnered responses from 26,641 law students at 82 law schools in spring 2009.
But while students have an increasing debt burden, it is not impacting their career choices.
“Third-year students with substantial law school debt report being just as likely to expect to work in various public interest settings compared with 3Ls with little or no law school debt,” the study reports.
