It’s always interesting when you read something and realize your life mirrors a scientific study. The PEW Research Center released a study on May 24, 2016, finding that “for the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household.” Two factors attributed to this change. First, fewer young Americans are choosing to settle down romantically before age 35. Second, young Americans have suffered from downward trends in employment and wage status. Young men’s wages, after adjusting for inflation, have been on a downward trajectory since 1970.
I’m living the study because my adult children have both lived on and off with me as they pursue their education and training. I see it as a positive and practical thing for us to do as a family. As adults, they make their own life decisions, and, while I don’t charge rent, they pay their own way. All I ask is that they tell me when they are going to be gone overnight (not why) so I know when to file a missing person report.
But this study and my personal experience made me wonder whether law students and new lawyers were also following this trend. I think the answer is probably yes. Most law schools provide comparative estimates of the cost of going to law school. Wayne State University Law School estimates that law students who live with a parent will spend about $10,000 less annually. The University of Richmond Law School also estimates that law students living with their parents can save more than $10,000 over law students living on or off campus.
As far as after law school, I found one post from 2010 by a lawyer on the West Coast who said he lived with a parent while going to law school and after he took his first law job. It allowed this person to reduce student debt and concentrate on paying that debt in the first years of practice. This makes sense in light of how much it costs to go to law school. Above the Law published the 2016 ATL Top 50 Law School Rankings in May, with salary-to-debt ratios showing the relationship between graduates’ average salaries versus their loan burden. As a rule of thumb your entire student debt should not exceed your anticipated first year's salary. Over all the schools in the study, the average salary-to-debt ratio was .94 (annual salaries were 94 percent of student loan debt). These five law schools had ratios exceeding the rule of thumb, but the bottom five law schools had salary-to-debt ratios slightly above .50, which means these grads’ annual salaries were slightly more than 50 percent of their debt.
The West Coast lawyer posting in 2010 took some grief in his posting. But if living with parents works for the parent and the newly graduated lawyer and the focus is on avoiding and reducing substantial debt, it makes sense to me.