Holy Tons Of Public Interest Money, Batman!

According to Harvard's new admissions blog, Harvard law gave out over $1.5 million dollars in subsidies to its students engaged in public interest work last summer. Apparently, if you work a summer public interest job, you're guaranteed $4500 from the school. Harvard also has an Office of Public Interest Advising that employs 9 attorneys (full-time, I assume) helping students find public interest jobs.

Just for the sake of comparison, GW gave out something near $160,000 last year in public interest subsidies, and that includes some stipends during the school year so the summer amount was less. GW has no office of public interest advising or anything that would even approximate such a thing, and, as far as I know, it has one attorney and one career office assistant who each spend half their time helping students find public interest jobs.

Obviously it pays to go to the top school, but I never realized just how much. Unfortunately, it looks like Harvard didn't participate in the Equal Justice Works E-Guide to Public Service at America's Law Schools so I can't make more direct comparisons between the two schools. It's not like I'm surprised to learn of Harvard's huge advantage here, anyway, it's just the size of the difference that shocks me.

Posted November 13, 2005 06:38 PM | 3L law school