University of Miami

But Anonymous how can you mock law school as a huge financial gamble? I've read the median salaries listed in U.S. News and World report (here, latest numbers are not available on the free USN website.)

Okay, well let's use the University of Miami School of Law as an example. They recently listed a median salary of 103,000. Not too shabby. Certainly worth investing six figures in. And hey that's only the median salary! I'm sure I'll graduate at least the middle of my class!

Unfortunately this statistic is a lie. And an easily disproved lie. Heck, UMiami (to their credit) isn't even trying to hide it. See page 23 of their viewbook for more details. Let's count the tricks they use to inflate their salary:

1. No response percentage. We can see that 6% of graduates went solo but there is a "n/a" for salary of solos. More importantly there is no response percentage for ANY of the categories. 33% of the class entered a small firm (2-10) attorneys. Since small firms pay the least, who wants to bet that students were reluctant to brag about their low salary? Exactly. And the students making the six figure salaries were likely the most eager beavers to send back the salary survey. Probably 90%+ of $100,000 graduates send back the form, while 10% or 20% of under $50,000 graduates return it.

2. Wonky math. Public interest range is between 38,000 and 50,000. Okay, fair enough. It takes guts to admit to a 38,000 salary and I applaud UMiami for not hiding this statistic. I'm sure whales need to be saved or something. However, the problem appears when one looks at the median salary for public interest - 38,000. And the mean - also 38,000. Where is the 50,000 coming from ?

3. Business and Industry - n/a. So no one in this sector listed their income? And 7.0% of the class went into business and industry. 7% isn't huge, but it is large enough to say. . . inflate a school's median salary to 6 figures. (Just a random example.) And "business and industry" is such a vague category. I could be making lattes at Starbucks or waiting tables, or doing any job where a JD isn't required and be in "business and industry".

4. Employment rate doesnt' require a JD. Employment rate is a pointless term. All law schools can , and do, list 90%+ rates of employment. Starbucks, Burger King, the exact same job you had before law school all count as employment. This is meaningless!

5. List of firms that hire UMiami. There is an impressively weeded list of employers that hire UMiami grads. Of course this list is from "recent years". Hmmm, could UMiami have selected the most prestigious employers from the last decade to fill out this list?

My point is not that UMiami is a bad school. However their numbers are lying. What is the real median salary? I don't know. The data is incomplete. There is not a representative sample. $50,000? $60,000? Lower? Of course it is possible to achieve a great job from UMiami. The highest salary listed is a top tier $160,000 and their are many $100,000 graduates. As a consumer you should be wary that your chances of getting one of these jobs are far slimmer than US News numbers lead.