Diplomas and No Tuition Debt for 16 NYU Law Grads
Thanks to an alumni fundraising drive, 16 graduates of New York University School of Law are headed to public interest careers with no tuition debt.
For the first time in years, a law school scholarship program has been able to cover three years of tuition—which ordinarily would have cost about $120,000—to a select group of students seeking relatively low-paying nonprofit and government jobs, reports the New York Law Journal.
There is a cost to being in the program, though: Graduates headed to BigLaw firms can expect to make $150,000 or more, to start. Those who begin their legal careers in public interest jobs might get $40,000 to $50,000. The scholarships convey a moral obligation to pursue a public interest career for a decade, according to NYU officials.
A fundraising campaign that began a decade ago brought in $30 million to amp up the Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship Program. Among the chief donors was Jerome Kern, a 1960 NYU law graduate and himself a beneficiary of the scholarhip program. Now the chairman of a Colorado-based broadband distribution company, Symphony Media Systems, he contributed $7.5 million.
“What these young people have already done, even before their careers have started, is remarkable. I am very, very proud of them,” says Kern of the scholarship recipients. If law school officials had approached him and said, ” ‘We’ll name a building after you,’ I wouldn’t have any interest,” Kern tells the legal publication. “But this—an ability to help young, dedicated people—is my legacy.”
