Six years ago, I noted that around 30 law schools had become “more affordable” over the a three-year period. Three years ago, I noted that most law schools had become more affordable. In the last three years, law schools have continued to become more affordable—at least, in the measure of student debt.

USNWR reports average indebtedness at graduation among law school graduates and the percentage who took out loans. (Go there to see the highs and the lows.)

I removed all schools that failed to disclose debt figures for either 2016 graduates or 2019 graduates. (I had a partial data set from 2016, apologies!) That brought us to 150 schools.

Some schools are unable to read the USNWR forms correctly and only report some of the debt one year and the cumulative debt another year; I don't attempt to determine which schools made that error, but schools appear better at reporting data over the years.

I calculated 6.5% inflation between the Class of 2016 and the Class of 2019, and adjusted the 2016 figures accordingly. (Inflation adjustment comes with its own controversial choices, to be sure!) The debt figures listed on USNWR are an average for those who incurred debt; to arrive at a more accurate picture of the debt load of the class as a whole, I then factored in the percentage of students who graduated without any debt to reach an overall average.

Among the 150 schools, 120 saw a decline in overall debt loads; just 30 saw an inflation-adjusted increase.

Many possible reasons for the changes are possible. As I explained in 2016, students may graduate without debt for many reasons: "That could be because they are independently wealthy or come from a wealthy family willing to finance the education; they could have substantial scholarship assistance; they could earn income during school or during the summers; they could live in a low cost-of-living area, or live frugally; or some combination of these and other factors. It's worth noting that several thousand students graduate each year without any debt."

Scholarship awards appear to be outpacing tuition hikes—which has been a several-year trend and places schools in increasingly precarious financial positions. Students are no longer purchasing health care due to the ability to remain on their parents' health insurance under federal law, a significant cost for students a few years ago. Schools have increasingly eased, or abolished, stipulations on scholarships, which means students graduate with less debt. Some schools have slashed tuition prices. We might simply be experiencing the decline of economically poorer law students, resulting in more students who need smaller student loans—or none at all. Students may be taking advantage of accelerated programs that allow them to graduate faster with less debt (but there are few such programs). Finally, as JD class sizes shrink, it's increasingly apparent that students who would have paid the "sticker" price as increasingly pursuing options at institutions that offer them tuition discounts.

Additionally, as I've noted before, the "percentage may be somewhat deceptive, because at a very low-cost school, a modest increase in debt load may appear, on a percentage basis, much higher than comparable increase at a high-cost school. A $10,000 increase in debt at a school that previously had just $20,000 in debt looks like 50%; at a school with $100,000 in debt, just 10%. But I thought percentage would still be the most useful."

And of course, these debt figures are only an average; they do not include undergraduate debt, credit card debt, or interest accrued on law school loans while in school. And, as I've written, "The averages are not precise, either, for individuals. The average may be artificially high if a few students took out extremely high debt loads that distorted the average, or artificially low if a few students took out nominal debt loads that distorted the average."

It's worth noting that some of these changes are hardly random.

Major announcements from institutions like Iowa, Arizona, and Chicago back in 2013 signaled major changes in tuition or scholarship structures in 2016; those schools led the reduction in debt for the Class of 2016. Those reductions remained largely steady for the Class of 2019 for Iowa and Arizona, but Chicago saw a fairly sizeable increase in debt loads.

Similarly, announcements from Tulsa, George Mason, Texas A&M, and Wayne State on slashing tuition or major scholarship programs turned into significant reductions in student debt loads.

Finally—and while it should go without saying, I fear I need to say it anyway—this is hardly a statement about whether any particular law school is a "good" value or whether the debt loads are appropriate. It's simply a relative comparison of debt loads over three years.