The Economic Value of a Law Degree
研究发现，对大多数法学院毕业生而言，法学学位的现值超过成本数十万美元，中位数和25百分位收入溢价足以支持入学决策。
We investigate the economic value of a law degree and find that for most law school graduates, the present value of a law degree typically exceeds its cost by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The median and 25th-percentile earnings premiums justify enrollment. We track lifetime earnings of a large sample of law degree holders. Previous studies focused on starting salaries, generic professional degree holders, or the subset of law degree holders who practice law. We incorporate unemployment and disability risk and measure earnings premiums separately for men and for women. After controlling for observable ability sorting, we find that a law degree is associated with median increases of 73 percent in earnings and 60 percent in hourly wages. The mean annual earnings premium is approximately $57,200 in 2013 dollars. Values in recent years are within historical norms. The mean pretax lifetime value of a law degree is approximately $1 million.