The College of Law rose this year in the national rankings from 95 to 82, according to a U.S. News report, still placing it near the bottom of the Big Ten, but showing overall improvement. Although the school has gained recognition, graduates face the tough task of finding part-time or full-time jobs. Of the 2011 College of Law graduates who responded to a survey, 92 percent reported having a salary, but only 53.7 percent had part-time or full-time jobs requiring the passage of the bar exam, with a median salary of $56,511.

The National Association of Law Placement reported similar numbers for 2011 national graduates, with employment rates at their lowest level since 1994. From the survey, 85.6 percent of 2011 graduates reported employment nine months after law school. Of that group, only 65.4 percent held positions requiring a passing score on the bar exam.

With these statistics showing employment numbers at their lowest in decades for law graduates, it could cause some students to wait before applying to law school. MSU’s College of Law has an estimated total cost of over $40,000 an academic year, and if there is a higher possibility of graduating from law school with severe debt and a job that does not pay enough to alleviate this debt, some students might choose to work after receiving their undergraduate degree, instead of applying to law school right away.

Higher-level education is becoming too expensive for these higher levels of unemployment all graduates are facing. With a lack of funding from the state, many colleges’ only option is to raise tuition, placing a heavy burden on their students.

Students who must attend graduate schooling, such as law or medical students, face even more of a burden because they have to pay off debt from undergraduate and graduate studies. It used to be that law students would obtain their degrees, pass the bar and be placed into a high-paying law career. Now, these students face the possibility of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on school just to end up unemployed, leaving them scrambling to pay off student loans — a familiar predicament for all college graduates.

It is fortunate the College of Law is rising in rankings, but unemployment for these graduates also is rising. Some students might have to find a job to support themselves for a few years after getting an undergraduate degree to prepare for paying for law school, now that there is a stronger possibility that they could be unemployed after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to earn a degree.