And double that think the course is not good value for money
Most law students think their degree is not good value for money, while a third admit they’d consider another course if they had their time again.
Asked ‘If you knew what you know now, would you have chosen another course?’, 31% punted for ‘definitely’ or ‘maybe’. More generally across all degree disciplines, 34% of the 14,057 undergraduate students questioned gave the same answer.
It is worth noting this question, asked by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), was directed at current students, not graduates. A law degree is well-respected and viewed as hard currency among graduate employers, both inside and outside of the legal system. However sometimes one only realises this post-graduation, not during an early morning, coffee-driven revision session spent crying over Vandervell. Perhaps the answer given would be different once said undergraduate has a degree result they’re proud of and, even better, a decent grad job.
Tied up with this law student regret is a perception the degree is not value for money. Lawyers have few contact hours and instead spend most their time taking notes from expensive textbooks they usually have to buy for themselves. As one student told Legal Cheek:
“I do wonder why I am spending £9,000 a year.”
With that said, it’s perhaps unsurprising just 33% of law students, as part of this HEPI study, rated their course’s value for money as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. This is compared to an average of 35% across all subjects.
Below average yes, but law’s rating is far from the worst.
A smaller percentage of students from courses including linguistics, history, philosophy, creative arts, technology and social sciences gave their courses the ‘worth the money’ thumbs up. The perception of value for money is strongest in more vocational courses like medicine and veterinary sciences, degree courses that are usually followed by swift employment instead of the further study anticipated by aspiring lawyers.