America's nosediving law-school applications: By the numbers

The number of students trying to get into law school is declining sharply as tuition and student debt rise while job openings dwindle

Applications submitted to law schools in January decreased by 20 percent compared to a year before.
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Applications to U.S. law schools have plummeted to a 30-year low. With tuition rising and jobs increasingly scarce, more and more students are apparently concluding that the time and money it takes to get a law degree just won't pay off. "We are going through a revolution in law with a time bomb on our admissions books," Indiana University law professor William D. Henderson tells The New York Times. "Thirty years ago if you were looking to get on the escalator to upward mobility, you went to business or law school. Today, the law school escalator is broken." Here, a look at the dimming allure of the nation's law schools, by the numbers:

30,000

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.