Is law school worth it? For any one applicant, the answer turns on two things: what a specific school will cost you, and what its recent graduates went on to do. Both are public. The ABA posts each approved school’s cost, scholarship, employment and bar passage reports on its required disclosures site.
This article reads those reports for three schools at very different prices: Harvard Law School, Temple University’s Beasley School of Law and Brooklyn Law School. They are worked examples, not recommendations. Run the same checks on every school on your list.
Is Law School Worth It? Six Numbers and Where to Find Them
| Question | Where the answer is published | Latest data, as of October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| What does one year cost? | The school's ABA Standard 509 report (tuition, fees, living expenses) | 2025-26 |
| How much do students get in grants? | The same 509 report (grants, conditional scholarships) | 2024-25 |
| Did graduates get jobs that need a law license? | The school's ABA employment summary | Class of 2025, status on March 16, 2026 |
| Did they pass the bar? | The school's ABA bar passage report | 2025 graduation year |
| What did graduates borrow and earn? | U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard | Graduates of 2018-19 and 2019-20 |
| How much can you borrow from the government? | Federal Student Aid | Loans first disbursed from July 1, 2026 |
These numbers describe a school’s past classes. Your own price depends on the grant you are offered, and no report predicts one graduate’s result.
What One Year Costs Before Grants
| School (2025 Standard 509 report) | Full-time tuition, 2025-26 | Annual fees | Living expenses, off campus | One year before grants (our sum) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard Law School | $77,100 | $1,592 | $38,690 | $117,382 |
| Temple, resident | $32,588 | $1,549 | $27,812 | $61,949 |
| Temple, nonresident | $48,996 | $1,549 | $27,812 | $78,357 |
| Brooklyn Law School | $75,496 | $1,450 | $36,528 | $113,474 |
Temple is a public school, so its tuition depends on residency. Harvard and Brooklyn list the same tuition for residents and nonresidents.
What Students Pay After Grants
The sticker price is not what most students pay at Temple or Brooklyn. The same 509 reports show how many students received grants in 2024-25 and how large the grants were.
| School (509 report, 2024-25) | Students receiving grants | 50th percentile grant, full time |
|---|---|---|
| Harvard Law School | 38% | $27,510 |
| Temple | 85% | $31,334 |
| Brooklyn Law School | 91% | $34,000 |
Conditional scholarships
Some grants can shrink after the first year. Harvard and Temple each state in their reports that they do not award scholarships “that may be reduced or eliminated based on law school academic performance other than failure to maintain good academic standing.”
Brooklyn does award conditional scholarships. Of 360 students who entered in 2024-25 with one, 69 had it reduced or eliminated. By our math, that is about one in five.
What Graduates Did: Jobs and Bar Passage
The employment summary
| Class of 2025 (ABA employment summary) | Harvard | Temple | Brooklyn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total graduates | 602 | 195 | 356 |
| Full-time, long-term jobs, bar admission required or anticipated | 561 | 172 | 301 |
| Of those, funded by the law school | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Unemployed, seeking | 2 | 3 | 22 |
| Full-time, long-term jobs at law firms of 501+ | 322 | 33 | 65 |
| Full-time, long-term federal clerkships | 100 | 5 | 8 |
Start with the full-time, long-term jobs that require or anticipate bar admission, and divide by the total. That gives 93.2% at Harvard, 88.2% at Temple and 84.6% at Brooklyn. The summary lists jobs funded by the law school on a separate line. Harvard funded 15 of its 561, and without them its share is 90.7%.
Then read the rest of the page. At Harvard, 322 graduates (53.5%) went to full-time, long-term jobs at firms in the 501+ size band, against 33 at Temple (16.9%) and 65 at Brooklyn (18.3%). Brooklyn reported 22 graduates (6.2%) unemployed and seeking work. Each summary also names the three states with the most employed graduates: for Temple’s class of 2025, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey.
The employment summary does not report salaries. Earnings come from a federal source, covered below.
The bar passage report
Each school’s ABA bar passage report gives its first-time pass rate and prints a weighted average beside it for comparison. For the 2025 graduation year, per the reports for Harvard, Temple and Brooklyn:
- Harvard: 97.90%, against a weighted average of 85.24%
- Temple: 89.00%, against 79.85%
- Brooklyn: 85.47%, against 86.89% (1.42 points below)
Each report also breaks results down by jurisdiction. Of the 358 first-time takers in Brooklyn’s 2025 line, 338 sat in New York. Read the line for the state or jurisdiction where you plan to practice.
Debt Against Earnings: The College Scorecard
The U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard reports, for a school’s law program, graduates’ median federal loan debt and the median earnings, one year after finishing, of graduates who were working and not enrolled. Its most recent figures describe students who completed in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 award years. Their earnings were measured in 2020 and 2021 and are shown in 2022 dollars.
| School (College Scorecard, law, first professional degree) | Median Stafford and Grad PLUS debt | Median earnings 1 year after completing (working, not enrolled) | Debt to earnings (our math) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard | $93,235 | $175,880 | 0.53 |
| Temple | $81,733 | $71,729 | 1.14 |
| Brooklyn Law School | $96,951 | $79,481 | 1.22 |
Harvard graduates’ median earnings were close to twice their median debt. At Temple and Brooklyn, median federal debt was larger than a year’s median earnings.
The Scorecard’s field of study documentation sets the limits. Its debt figures count “only federal loans for only Title IV borrowers.” It also warns that users “should not assume that Scorecard data values are representative of all students who graduated from a particular field of study.” These classes also borrowed under rules that changed in 2026.
What Changed for Law School Borrowers in July 2026
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed on July 4, 2025, and some of its changes took effect on July 1, 2026. Federal Student Aid lists law (L.L.B. or J.D.) among its professional degrees under the new rules. Three changes bear on the cost side:
- Grad PLUS loans are closing. Federal Student Aid says the law “will gradually end PLUS loan eligibility for graduate and professional students.” Its Grad PLUS page limits the exception to students who were enrolled on June 30, 2026, had borrowed a Direct Loan for that program before July 1, 2026, and stay in the same program without a break, and only for their expected time to credential.
- New caps on Direct Unsubsidized Loans. Professional students who do not qualify for the interim exception can borrow up to $50,000 a year, against $20,500 before. The total limit is $200,000, minus any amount received as a graduate student.
- Rates for 2026-27. For loans first disbursed from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, Federal Student Aid’s rates table lists a fixed 8.07% on graduate and professional Direct Unsubsidized Loans and 9.07% on Direct PLUS Loans. Loan fees are 1.057% on Direct Unsubsidized Loans and 4.228% on PLUS Loans.
Set the cap against the cost table. At 2025-26 prices, a year at Harvard ($117,382) or Brooklyn ($113,474) before grants is more than twice the $50,000 annual cap. A Temple resident’s year ($61,949) is $11,949 over it. Whatever grants and federal loans do not cover has to come from somewhere else, such as savings or private loans.
Two more notes from Federal Student Aid. A federal court stayed part of the Department’s professional degree definition on June 24, 2026, and the agency asks students to check with their school. And if you have any loan first disbursed on or after July 1, 2026, your repayment options for all your Direct Loans are the Repayment Assistance Plan and the Tiered Standard Plan.
The Questions to Ask, School by School
Admission comes first. Your GPA, your LSAT score and each school’s law school admissions requirements shape where you can get in. These questions help you decide where to go, school by school:
- What will I pay after my grant, in each of the three years? Ask whether the grant renews at the same amount.
- Is my scholarship conditional? If it is, ask what GPA or class rank keeps it, and check the retention numbers in the 509 report.
- What share of the latest class had full-time, long-term jobs requiring bar admission? Subtract any jobs the school funded.
- Where do graduates work? Check that the top states in the employment summary include the one you want.
- What was the first-time bar pass rate in that jurisdiction? Compare it with the weighted average beside it.
- How much will I borrow under the 2026 federal limits? Name the source for every dollar above $50,000 a year.
- What does the College Scorecard show for this school’s law program? Set median debt against median earnings.
These questions belong in your plan from the start, not only after offers arrive. ExceptionalGrad’s law school application services include Hourly Applicant Advising, which the service page describes as “individual advising sessions for JD applicants in order to plan their journey.” Whether law school admissions consulting is worth its own fee is a separate question, answered the same way: price against what you get.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is law school worth the debt?
It can be, if the school’s outcomes support what you borrow. The ABA 509 report shows a school’s price and grants. Its employment summary gives the share of graduates in full-time, long-term jobs requiring bar admission. The College Scorecard sets its law graduates’ median federal debt against their median earnings.
How much does law school cost?
It varies widely by school. For 2025-26, adding the tuition, fees and single-student living costs in the ABA 509 reports gives $61,949 for a Temple resident and $117,382 at Harvard, by our arithmetic. Grants change the real price: 85% of Temple’s students received one in 2024-25.
How long does it take to pay off law school debt?
Federal Student Aid gives maximum terms. Its Tiered Standard Plan allows up to 25 years for a Direct Loan balance of $100,000 or more, and 20 years from $50,000 to under $100,000. Borrowers with a loan first disbursed from July 1, 2026 can also choose the Repayment Assistance Plan.