Welcome to Michigan Law’s Debt Wizard!

Our Debt Wizard is a calculator that provides a simple means to explore your ability to service your prospective law school debt under various repayment options in multiple locales.

The model has just a few variables: type of post-grad employment (five possible choices); geographic market (11 choices—at the moment; we're interested in adding more); and law school debt level (six choices). Choose one of each variable to produce a graph that displays a rich array of data illustrating 12 possible levels of annual salary (based on national NALP data; detailed information about Michigan Law-specific outcomes and salaries is available on our Career Planning site), each with four approaches to loan repayment and management. When you move your cursor over each of the four approaches, a rollover box will appear showing a monthly breakdown of net income and the estimated amount necessary to manage law school debt plus housing; the percentage of monthly net (post-tax) income that the debt plus housing amount represents; and the remaining monthly income available.

The results are neither prediction nor promise (particularly with regard to the likelihood of obtaining any given job, which will vary widely among law schools and between individuals), but rather our effort to clearly represent 11,000 possible repayment paths, which in turn can serve as a basis for exploration of law school and career choices.

We hope this model will allow law school applicants to begin developing a sense of how location, housing costs, career type, level of law school federal loan debt, and level of income interact in monthly budgets during the initial period following graduation. But financial planning is a complex undertaking, and we recommend you treat this tool as a launching point for understanding the ramifications of law school debt and a legal career path; talking to a financial advisor about the specifics of your situation is always a good idea.