Simply put

Simply put, the number of people who are/were at some point interested in going to law school greatly outweighs the number of those who actually do. There are a number of reasons explaining this phenomenon. One explanation may be other job offers come first. There's the possibility that one's LSAT score and GPA were simply too low to get in anywhere. Laziness is another possibility. Also, there are horror stories circulating regarding the terrible legal job market and inability for graduates to get jobs. However, it's my contention that the single most deterring factor is the high cost of attending law school. We'll look at an example to get some numbers in our heads.

Let's take DePaul College of Law, for example. DePaul is a private institution ranked right at the middle of the pack. Tuition for the 2010 entering class sits at roughly $37,000. Living expenses in Chicago (which are higher than most cities) come in at just over $22,000. So, with tuition and living expenses alone you're looking at $60K per year. Do that for two additional years and you're putting your debt somewhere in the realm of $180,000. That, my friends, is quite a scary number. And remember, this was before we figured in any additional fees, textbooks, entertainment, etc.

So, now that everyone's shaking in their proverbial boots and thinking why anyone would go to law school and then thinking about the tens of thousands of lawyers who have already incurred similar amounts of debt, let's look at this more realistically.

While most law students finance their education primarily by taking out loans (which we will talk about in a moment) there are other sources of financing.

For example, the vast majority of institutions offer merit-based scholarships to qualifying students. While you're not likely to receive one if you barely make the cutoff to get in, if your numbers (LSAT and GPA) lie above the school's expected mean then you may be looking at some financial assistance. While these merit-based scholarships are of course and honor to receive and will lighten the load of financing law school, they often complicate the decision of which school to attend.For example, someone may apply to Northwestern and DePaul and get into both places. However, they may get into Northwestern by a hair and have to pay full-tuition while at DePaul they are likely to boast the best numbers out of many applicants and thus could be granted big bucks to attend. This undoubtedly begs the questions, "Go to a better or school or get a law school education on someone else's dime?" Nevertheless, this article is about financing you education not where to receive it so we'll move on.