SoFi Blog

Law careers are traditionally viewed as lucrative and enviable. Yet, many attorneys are saddled with mortgage-sized law school debt after graduation.

About five years ago, Harvard Law School left one law school grad and blogger, DebtFreeJD, with nearly $150,000 in student loan debt. After a few years of payments, she’d made a $25,000 dent in that total. Then, she and her husband made an ambitious vow to tackle her remaining law school debt in one year and two months—about the same amount of time it took to build the Empire State Building. Today, thanks to diligence and a refinance, she has earned her DebtFreeJD moniker.

We have seen some of the “Trump Trades” retrace a bit as equities have levelled off, interest rates have eased, and the dollar has weakened against both the yen and euro over the last week. The economic data continues to point to faster growth and accelerating inflation, but questions remain on whether the post-election euphoria will translate into increased spending.

New York real estate has much to offer depending on where you choose to live. The city that never sleeps has Central Park, the bright lights of Broadway, and countless restaurants with world-renowned chefs at the helm. The ‘burbs, on the other hand, offer large yards and more living space for your buck. Whether you’re ready to take on a borough or get away from it all, New York is a great place to call home.

When choosing a law school, your decision is most certainly based on the prestige of the faculty, the academic qualifications of the student body, and the institution’s success in placing graduates in satisfying careers. But what about the big money unknowns—the salary you’re likely to earn upon graduation and how much of your rookie attorney paycheck will go toward paying for your education?

To help take some of the guesswork out of your legal education strategy, we analyzed more than 60,000 student loan refinancing applications submitted to us from January 2014 to December 2016 to formulate SoFi’s Return on Education (ROED) Law School Rankings. After taking a long, hard look at the average salary and student debt load of law school graduates three years out of school, we compiled objective data that can’t be found anywhere else—verified income and debt, not just reported figures. The result: Rankings of how the top (and bottom) JD programs stack up when it comes to how your financial future will fare.

Editor’s Note: The following article on home renovation and budgeting originally appeared on our web partner Houzz’s website. It is the second part to Houzz’s Dream to Done series – home renovation advice on a budget. Some of the content has been slightly edited from its original version.

Matching your renovation dreams and dollars can sometimes feel like a challenge. But there’s a lot you can do to get the look you want at the right price. In the first story in this series, we laid out the steps in choosing the pros you will work with and setting an initial budget.