Student Debt
The Practice
September/October 2023
In the United States, student debt has risen to such an extreme that it is regularly regarded as a "crisis." Law school is also not cheap. What is the effect on lawyers, and more broadly, society?
September/October 2023
Introducing the September 2023 Issue
How is student debt impacting lives and careers—and the legal profession? A brief overview of our goals in this issue.
The Black-White Student Debt Gap Among Law School Graduates
The student debt crisis disproportionately impacts Black Americans, reflecting and perpetuating the Black-White wealth gap and reverberating over generations and the life course. Among law student populations, this disparity has spillover effects onto democratic processes and access to legal services, further creating and compounding inequality in the United States.
Debt Takes a Toll
How does debt impact physical and mental health? In this story, we talk to one researcher who studies long-term health trajectories to understand how debt affects people's lives over time, trying to understand for whom debt is and remains a deep burden.
Rethinking Law School Financing
Student debt is a public problem, but can the private sector help? A pair of case studies—on patent lawyer training and income share agreements—offer ways of rethinking how we pay for law school.
Understanding the Law of Debt
Dalié Jiménez, professor of law at The University of California, Irvine School of Law and director of the Student Law Loan Initiative, offers her perspective on lawyering for justice, the problems with debt collection and bankruptcy law, and ways students and society might move forward in confronting debt.
What We Owe Our Students
Senator Elizabeth Warren has been a fierce advocate for higher education reform and student debt cancellation for years. In this conversation with CLP faculty director David B. Wilkins, the senior senator from Massachusetts and former Harvard Law professor offers her thoughts on what is wrong with the current system and what should change if we want to bet on the next generation.
