Which freestanding law schools had the highest loan default rates for fiscal year 2014?
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Updated: Six freestanding law schools recorded student loan default rates greater than 2 percent for Fiscal Year 2014, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Education.
The Institute for College Access & Success, a nonprofit group that works to increase the public’s understanding of student debt, designed a sortable spreadsheet with the Department of Education data. Based on that offering, freestanding law schools with the largest percentages of student loan defaults for fiscal year 2014 were:
• Massachusetts School of Law, Andover, Massachusetts—4.8 percent (12 in default among 250 who entered repayment plans.)
• Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego—3.8 percent (20 in default among 530 who entered repayment plans.)
• Appalachian School of Law, Grundy, Virginia—2.9 percent (three in default among 102 who entered repayment plans.)
• San Joaquin College of Law, Clovis, California—2.6 percent (two in default among 76 who entered repayment plans.)
• Thomas M. Cooley School of Law, Lansing, Michigan—2.5 percent (32 in default among 1,255 who entered repayment plans.)
• John Marshall Law School, Atlanta—2.3 percent (seven in default among 302 who entered repayment plans.)
According to an Institute for College Access & Success press release (PDF), the federal student loan default rate for all schools has risen for the first time in four years.
The tracking period for FY 2014 ran from Oct 1, 2013 to Sept. 30, 2016, according to a Department of Education press release. Over that span, 11.5 percent of borrowers—nearly 581,000—defaulted on student loans.
Updated Sept. 29 to limit reported figures to those of freestanding law schools.
