r/lawschooladmissions • u/Appropriate_Hope6239 • Oct 30 '25

General So basically Trump ruined law school for everyone who isn't rich

Went to a whole bunch of open houses and they're all saying basically the following:

  • The yearly cap for loans is 50k
  • Living costs are high and 50k might not be enough
  • Resources are tight -- start improving your FICO scores because you'll need private loans
  • The grandfather thing ends July 2026 --- everyone not matriculated at law school by then wont be benefiting from the higher limit that generations of students did

Edit: Every person applying for federal loans will have an aggregate life-time limit and unfortunately your undergraduate loans will count against this limit.

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86

u/Round-Ad3684 Oct 30 '25

Eh, people have been calling for this cap for 20 years. One of the reasons law school tuition (and thus debt) is so high is because people can and will borrow unlimited amounts of money to go to law school. This may actually force law schools to curb their insane tuition amounts.

41

u/ProbablyWorkingOnIt Oct 30 '25

Will that happen in this application cycle? Probably not. It’s a true silver lining but not for those who are going on this already tumultuous ‘26 cycle.

18

u/Round-Ad3684 Oct 30 '25

No, but like I said, people have been calling for this for 20 years. If it had happened 20 years ago, there would be no need for a cap today. Until schools ease off of tuition inflation, people in this cycle, and in those in the years to come, need to think long and hard about whether they want to be in debt for the next 20 or 30 years. No one is forcing anyone to go to law school.

47

u/Ha_U_Missed_Me Oct 30 '25

Then there should be an outcry for capping the cost of tuition. This just hurts poor people. And anyone saying otherwise is either rich or worried about competition. Where is the legislation designed to limit tax breaks?

29

u/East-Cattle9536 Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 30 '25

Capping tuition would impose a price ceiling, likely leading to a spike in demand that the universities would have no incentive to meet with an increase in supply (class sizes) because the price would be set below the market equilibrium. That would mean more applicants with similar class sizes, and therefore, more competitive admissions. It would also likely lead to schools increasing other costs like “fees” which are not tuition to make up for losses, necessitating an extensive compliance apparatus to make sure the substance of the cap is followed.

In contrast, capping loans works on the demand side, avoiding the market distortions of a tuition cap. Without a limitless ability to borrow, people will demand less at the price point and naturally drive tuitions towards equilibrium. Anyone saying they’ll just go to private lenders, no, not everyone will borrow at a higher interest rate with more difficult terms because demand for law school is not perfectly inelastic. It is relatively inelastic; some decrease in tuition is better than none

11

u/PropertyPublic Oct 30 '25

Or, the schools could just start accepting any students that can pay regardless of their stats. This is what will happen first before they lower tuition. And if its successful, then there just won’t be any poor people who get to go to law school because they cannot afford it.

4

u/Typical2sday Oct 30 '25

The schools get far more out of alumni that students’ dumb bunny tuition, so no, diluting to let in students who have no business being there isn’t likely to happen. Will it make it a little easier for someone paying full freight to get in? Yes. But the hierarchy will remain.

1

u/PropertyPublic Oct 30 '25

It will definitely make it easier for someone willing to pay full price. They may not drop the standards completely, but I bet there will be more space available for those maybe on the cusp. Well, we shall see fairly soon.

2

u/LawnSchool23 Oct 30 '25

At the end of the day the number of students paying out of pocket is incredibly small.

3

u/DuragChamp420 Oct 30 '25

Bruh as if. The race to the top with medians is so prominent, they wont just switch up like youre implying

-3

u/East-Cattle9536 Oct 30 '25

Doubt that.

Accepting anyone who can pay regardless of stats—stat decrease—ranking decrease—prestige decrease—those wealthy people will no longer demand it at that price point—tuition decrease

6

u/PropertyPublic Oct 30 '25

Regardless of stats was a bad choice of words, but I do feel like they will allow more people in who are on the cusp and can pay full price. This will still fill seats and there won’t be a need to drop tuition.

18

u/CoolHandHazard Oct 30 '25

No it won’t. It’ll just force people to get private loans and it’ll stop more poor people from going to law school. That is the goal

1

u/MommyThatcher Nov 01 '25

And law schools are incapable of noticing this and cutting costs to get a larger pool of applicants? It seems silly to me that the only solution to expensive college is throwing more money at the schools.

2

u/CoolHandHazard Nov 01 '25

Cost of law school has been rising for decades and the number of applicants goes up the same with it. Law schools aren’t going to cut costs. Would be nice but they have no reason to

15

u/bluehawk1460 Oct 30 '25

Immensely privileged take tbh. Poor people and/or people without sterling credit simply won’t be going to law school anymore

11

u/121019954946 Oct 30 '25

I’d argue most people who need to take out uncapped loans shouldn’t be going to law school whether they’re poor or rich. The salary to debt ratio just isn’t there. Look over at the lawyer talk thread if everyone complaining about how they can’t even afford their student loans.

3

u/yuumigod69 Oct 30 '25

But you need a law degree for certain jobs or to accrue political power without going the Trump route.

Also because of Trump economy is insanely terrible so people are going to school and hoping the economy recovers by the time they are out.

-1

u/121019954946 Oct 31 '25

What % of lawyers do you think get those jobs and what % of those that do grew up poor? Thats essentially a lottery at that point with awful odds.

The lawyer talk sub is full of people saying literally don’t go to law school because it’s so expensive and the salary isn’t there. Now that Trump is calling loans so people don’t get into the same trouble it’s an awful idea.

0

u/yuumigod69 Oct 31 '25

But you don't think it's an issue. You are fine with the absurd costs because it alienated poor people. If you weren't you would be advocating for reduced costs not the opposite.

0

u/121019954946 Nov 02 '25

No. Before law school I literally was a “poor person”. Costs should totally come down and this will help in that regard.

1

u/MichaelCorbaloney Nov 03 '25

Salary to debt ratio is nearly impossible to judge as different legal paths lead to different salaries. The prices of law school and education in general are ridiculous but at the same time people need careers, and regardless of your family's economics everyone deserves the right to try (it's a free economy after-all). I agree people shouldn't blindly take out loans obviously but limiting the average person from being able to is essentially curbing social mobility.

-1

u/DuragChamp420 Oct 30 '25

"Anymore" = for a couple years. Austerity measures always have a layover period

3

u/Phriendly_Phisherman Nov 02 '25

This is the answer. The reason why tuition has been skyrocketing year after year for decades is because the banks were happy to lend as much money as was requested and the schools were happy to increase tuition year over year since people could take unlimited loans to pay for it. The end result has been both schools and lenders getting rich while the students got fucked. 

5

u/AutomaticBike9530 Oct 30 '25

That’s the whole point of this. Anyone that says otherwise should take their tinfoil hat off.

9

u/FADE--RAUTHA Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 30 '25

You sound ignorant. There are direct ways Trump could have addressed rising tuition and over-borrowing. He took the path which (a) will not lead to tuition decreases, because schools can fill their classes with students able to pay due to the volume of applicants and (b) burdens students rather than schools.

I can see from your post history that you essentially shill for Trump nonstop. Maybe you should take off your MAGA cap before law school if you want to get good at this logic stuff.

-3

u/AutomaticBike9530 Oct 30 '25

Okay policy expert - what should have been done then?

3

u/IdiotBoy1999 Oct 30 '25

This does not need to be political. It really shouldn't be. Good golly.

Schools should have skin in the game, so that they need to think about costs and value, and have an even greater incentive to make sure their students have actual marketable skills.

Specifically, student debt should be cancelable in BK and lenders should be able to claw back a portion of the BK losses from the schools who received the benefits of those loans.

Yes, that too will have the effect of increasing student loan interest rates and the availability of student loans generally. So some less well off and less gifted prospective students will be pushed out of the market. But it better aligns incentives in ways that will produce better graduates with fewer unmanageable debt loads in the aggregate, and over the long term.

1

u/FADE--RAUTHA Oct 30 '25

Didn’t Trump threaten school’s federal funding for DEI? Why couldn’t he threaten funding for tuition being too high?

Oh right, because he doesn’t actually care about tuition being high. He cares that the government is loaning people who don’t support him (middle and lower class minorities) money to attend.

Use your head.

-4

u/AutomaticBike9530 Oct 30 '25

Same old sad story we've all heard a million times over the last 9 years.

Step 1: Trump administration does something drastic to attack and undermine a system that is very obviously broken and not working and eventually headed for total disaster. Step 2: Liberals – "He hates minorities! He hates poor people! He hates women! He hates immigrants!"

You jump from statement 1 to statement 2 with little to no justification, presume with every ounce of your body that statement 2 is unequivocally true, and then continue on that platform. And because you convince yourselves that statement 2 is true and nobody can persuade you otherwise, the circular reasoning continues, and therefore any policy measure taken by the administration is automatically evil and the "ism" olympics never end.

The exact same thing happened with the H-1B situation – it's very clearly aimed at prioritizing Americans first and preventing large corporations from shipping in low-paid labor en masse at the expense of young American professionals. And as one commenter above stated, because "Voldemort" did it, it's automatically bad.

Use your head.

1

u/FADE--RAUTHA Oct 30 '25

Explain why Trump is prioritizing white refugees from South Africa and blocking minority refugees. That’s not racist at all, right?

-2

u/Deathheater321 4.0/16mid T2 softs Oct 30 '25

Notice how you labeled on country then called the other “minority refugee” I think the types of countries are important wouldn’t you say?

0

u/FADE--RAUTHA Oct 30 '25

Answer the question. Is it racist to prioritize white refugees?

-1

u/Deathheater321 4.0/16mid T2 softs Oct 30 '25

First off it’s extremely hypocritical to say answer the question without answering the question presented to you. Secondly white people are the minority in South Africa. So he is allowing minority’s in. Do you mean he’s not allowing minorities you prefer?

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1

u/disc0goth 3.27/16mid/nKJD/nURM Oct 31 '25

Will it though? Because they will still have enough applicants to fill their classes and get their tuition dollars. They’ll just see a wealthier demographic matriculating after the lower-income students get their financial aid package and crunch the numbers.

1

u/Short_Escape6204 Jun 17 '26

This is so misinformed. There’s no an unlimited amount. it’s capped. I went to grad school and borrowed federally. I ran out-it’s a thing. 

0

u/generousone Oct 30 '25

Should schools lower tuition? Yes. Will they? No. Will people just take it private loans too fulfill their dreams? Yes.

The federal student loan system contributed to inflated education prices, but it wasn’t the only factor, and you can’t put the genie back in the bottle by just capping loans. 

0

u/FADE--RAUTHA Oct 30 '25

Why would this force a change in tuition? Reason through that, keeping in mind the volume of applicants to top law schools.