Wayne Law top school for lowest debt-to-income for graduates
Wayne State University Law School is ranked #11 of all U.S. law schools when it comes to top schools for salary versus debt, according to The National Jurist’s prelaw Magazine. This means that graduates of Wayne Law have a unique advantage of graduating without taking on extreme debt.
The HEA Group, a consulting agency that focuses on higher education, uses data from U.S. Department of Education records to assess which graduates are most able to pay down federal student loans. This study looked at 2014 and 2015 graduates from 187 law schools, with a five-year repayment window. In total, 1,661 institutions of higher education and 6,371 graduate programs were included in this study, including law schools. A two-year cohort of graduate students were examined to determine how much they owe on their federal education loans five years after they have left an institution (2018-19, 2019-20) and entered repayment (2013-14, 2014-15). Lastly, individual graduate programs were examined across the US, a debt-to-income ratio was calculated for each. For this, the median debt and earnings data was used, measured four years after they have completed their program of study.
In another study, U.S. News and World Report also ranks Wayne Law #2 of the top 20 law schools where students are able to pay off their debt with their earnings. Student loans are the primary way many students fund their legal education. According to the U.S. News and Worlds Report, students from the Class of 2022 at 124 ranked U.S. law schools that reported debt figures to U.S. News, incurred an average median debt of approximately $102,140. However, high debt can be compensated with higher salary. The U.S. News reports that students from those 124 law schools working in private firms reported an average of $92,008 for a full-time salary. In addition, the 20 schools with the highest salary-to-debt ratio in the U.S. News 2023-2024 Best Law Schools rankings reported an average median salary of $147,036 for their 2022 graduates.
“No student wants to start a graduate or professional program knowing they will be drowning in student debt when they complete it. As a best-performing law school when it comes to debt-to-income, our graduates have a significant advantage upon graduation, which presents a tremendous value in attending Wayne Law,” said Dean and John W. Reed Professor of Law, Richard Bierschbach.
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Contact: Jennifer Kennedy
Email: Jennifer.kennedy2@wayne.edu
Office: 313-577-4629