It seems like a tremendous amount when you consider that the amount of prestige "BigLaw" jobs that can shoulder that debt burden are a fairly small portion of t

It seems like a tremendous amount when you consider that the amount of prestige "BigLaw" jobs that can shoulder that debt burden are a fairly small portion of the average graduating cohort's employment. In contrast, I completed my professional degree and a masters in law at the two best universities in my country for a total out of pocket tuition cost of approximately $9,000. That's around 1.3 orders of magnitude apart. I'm sure there will be replies about the quality of the alumni networks or the level of scholarship (which would be very poorly founded), but that misses the point: the magnitude of debt is shocking.