Junior Associates - How much student loan debt are you and your peers in these days? A few young partners and counsel at my firm were discussing the student loan moratorium and most of us were convinced we could have paid the majority of our loans off with the bonuses associates got these last two years. But we are all old and when we graduated 150k to 200k was about the max student loan debt people graduated with. So educate me. What is the average student loan debt these days?

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I think around $150-200k is the average, but I know a lot of people between $250k-300k. If you have zero help from family and zero savings, the cost of attendance has gotten really really high.

2020 grad here and I only have $40k.. I wasn’t willing to go to law school without a massive scholarship so I retook the LSAT. I also had a little help from family with cost of living.

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Thanks for sharing!

2016 grad. No undergrad debt. Went to a T2 law school on a near-full ride. Had help from family, used paid internships, part-time work, summer associate pay, other endowed scholarships I applied for and earned, about $10k of low interest federal loans, and kept living costs as low as possible to pay the rest of the way through law school.

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2020 grad. 280K for undergrad & law school.

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I graduated with $195,000 in debt and paid off the $15K of that that was interest during the deferment. That’s with State Undergrad (only living expenses bc tuition was paid for with Cal and Pell grants) and Private university for law school with 60% of my tuition paid for via scholarship.

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2019- $122k. After reading so many of these comments, I feel "blessed." While lighting every candle to every deity I can find praying that POTUS forgives some, any, or all.

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$400k combined between my spouse and I. He is a partner and I am an associate. Make about $600k ( gross) usually, a little higher this year. Between mortgage, nanny for baby, three years of IVF and caring for four sick and aging parents, our loans get the minimum payments sent off each month ($5000). Number hasnt budged in years and frankly we dont care. Making more money by owning our home and investing in this market than paying off loans.

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2018 grad with 125k left

And families to help even if we don’t have kids.

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2019 - 130k at graduation. Depending on COL of city, biglaw associates can pay this off after 2 years of market salary and 2 bonuses

This is sort of eye opening but the numbers are less than I thought. In the group of us that were talking, the majority of us had just about 140k in debt when we graduated in 2010-2013. To be clear, the comment about paying off debt was mostly about mid and senior associates that averaged well over 150k in bonuses at my firm this year. But we are under the impression they had more debt than we did and that current junior associates must be carrying a ton of debt.

If the comment was directed towards midlevel and senior associates, why did you ask junior associates about their debt levels? Lol. The bonuses that juniors made over the last 2 years don't even equal close to $200k pre-taxes...

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2014 grad. $150k. No biglaw for the first few years and underpaid at previous firms. Also bought a home in a HCOL and needed to save for the down payment. Started at 270k and have been paying down aggressively during this no interest/repayment COVID period. Goal is to get it to 100 by May 1 reactivation of loan repayments/interest actual and done within 2 years of that.

2017 grad with 180k, but that’s after commuting to a state school for undergrad and a half tuition scholarship for law school.

I’ve got 70k, my best friend has 240k (am law top 25), and my (soon to be) fiancé has 270k (luckily she’s doing PSLF)

2019 had a full tuition scholarship so took out about $90k. Have about $80 left because when covid paused so did I. I can pay it when it comes back but I just haven’t until I have to.

2019, 70k and I only joined BL this past year.

I graduated with $250k. This year’s bonus will be the end of it god willing but I’m keeping it in cash in case some or all of it gets canceled before interest starts back up. Class of 2018.

2020 grad, $80k. Had a full tuition scholarship. Same as A18—haven’t made much progress until I have to.

2020 grad, graduated with 300k (full tuition T14), down to 290k with about 40k tucked away for post-forbearance. I should have saved more over the last year, I know. Put about 15k into 401k.

2017 Grad - started at about 130 (UG + law school), down to 70, but I clerked for two years, so I wasn’t making as large of payments initially

Class of 2020. $145k.

2015 grad - paid my loans off in February (had already refinanced with SoFi so it made sense to keep paying). Total came out to just over $200k.

2019 grad - graduated with 160, down to 45 as of today!

2018 grad, $60k.

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