While a number of law school grads knock their decision to go to law school — saying the return on the investment was not what they expected — at least they didn’t go to a barber school.
Champ’s Barber School in Lancaster, Pa., led the nation when it came to student loan defaults, at 53.4%, in fiscal year 2016.
Arguably, law schools look positively rosy compared to that. Indeed, the law school with the highest default rate for the same year was Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, a school that is not accredited by the American Bar Association, at 5.5%.
Coming in second was Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minn., at 4.80%.
The numbers come from a national survey of default rates by LendEDU, a website that helps consumers learn about and compare financial products. It broke down data provided by the U.S. Department of Education. The full report can been seen here.
It’s hard to judge the overall picture when it comes to law schools, though. The default rate of law schools affiliated with universities is not known because those figures are lumped in with the parent university’s overall default rate.
Data is only available for freestanding law schools.
In the past, some have criticized the nation’s affiliated law schools for not being more transparent when it comes to their default rates. They make up the majority of law schools, after all. There’s no way of knowing where they stand, it’s argued.
Nationally, the default rate was 10.10% for all schools, including barber schools, which fared among the worst. Eight were among the 10 schools having the highest rates of defaults.
Historically black colleges performed more poorly than average, with a default rate of 15.66 percent.
Nevada scored the poorest among all states, with a rate of 18.16%.
Here’s the list of law schools:
|
Massachusetts School Of Law At Andover |
Massachusetts |
Private, Non Profit* |
5.50% |
|
Mitchell Hamline School Of Law |
Minnesota |
Private, Non Profit |
4.80% |
|
Vermont Law School |
Vermont |
Private, Non Profit |
3.70% |
|
San Joaquin College Of Law |
California |
Private, Non Profit* |
3.40% |
|
Thomas M. Cooley Law School |
Michigan |
Private, Non Profit |
3.40% |
|
Thomas Jefferson School Of Law |
California |
Private, Non Profit |
3.10% |
|
New England Law | Boston |
Massachusetts |
Private, Non Profit |
2.20% |
|
New York Law School |
New York |
Private, Non Profit |
2.10% |
|
Charleston School Of Law |
South Carolina |
Proprietary |
1.80% |
|
CUNY School Of Law |
New York |
Public |
1.70% |
|
Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School |
Georgia |
Proprietary |
1.60% |
|
Florida Coastal School Of Law |
Florida |
Proprietary |
1.40% |
|
John Marshall Law School |
Illinois |
Private, Non Profit |
1.40% |
|
Appalachian School Of Law |
Virginia |
Private, Non Profit |
1.30% |
|
Albany Law School Of Union University |
New York |
Private, Non Profit |
1.20% |
|
Southwestern Law School |
California |
Private, Non Profit |
1.10% |
|
UC Hastings |
California |
Public |
1.00% |
|
Brooklyn Law School |
New York |
Private, Non Profit |
1.00% |
|
South Texas College Of Law Houston |
Texas |
Private, Non Profit |
1.00% |
|
Ave Maria School Of Law |
Florida |
Private, Non Profit |
0.80% |
|
Michigan State University College Of Law |
Michigan |
Private, Non Profit |
0.70% |
|
California Western School Of Law |
California |
Private, Non Profit |
0.70% |
|
* Not ABA accredited |
