There’s an old saying that no one likes a lawyer until they need one. In many cases, the attorney that someone desperately needs is a public interest attorney, people who put their invaluable legal expertise to work not to make millions of dollars for themselves, but rather to uphold justice, defend marginalized communities, and make society healthier as a whole.
These are people who work hard to get through law school, all while taking on enormous amounts of debt to make their dreams of defending the powerless a reality. Unfortunately, provisions in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill recently passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump have the power to crush those dreams and deprive the public of accessible legal advocacy.
Law school isn’t merely tuition — it’s a mound of expenses including, but not limited to, rent, books, health insurance, bar prep and daily living expenses.
The introduction of a $200,000 lifetime borrowing cap in the budget bill puts students in a financial chokehold, restricting opportunities before students even have a chance to crack open a casebook. In West Virginia for example, tuition alone can cost more than $131,000 for out-of-state law school students and more than $78,000 for in-state.
To applaud the $200,000 cap is to fundamentally misunderstand the scope of a law student’s financial reality. For students pursuing clerkships or public interest careers — roles that prioritize impact on society over becoming wealthy — their aspirations may be thwarted not by a lack of passion, but a lack of sustainable funding. We often hear talk about “good debt” and “bad debt,” but in a profession built to serve justice, why should the burden be placed so steeply on those who seek to uphold it?
The consequences of this legislation will be immediate and unforgiving. Students will reach the $200K borrowing cap before graduation, federal aid will be cut off, and they’ll be forced to scramble for thousands to cover remaining tuition and living expenses.
Some may be forced to reduce their course load, delay graduation, or even drop out entirely — not because they lack drive, but because the safety net beneath them has vanished. Private loans often come with predatory interest rates and far fewer consumer protections. The GradPLUS loan once offered short-term relief, but now students will be left trading it for long-term instability.
Not only does this cap freeze funding, but it also freezes momentum, fostering an elitist educational system where only the privileged can afford to finish what they’ve started.
Diversity in law isn’t just a buzzword or a box to check; it’s the bedrock of an equitable justice system. It means having attorneys and judges who understand the lived realities of the very communities they serve. By capping federal loans without taking into consideration actual law school expenses, we run the risk of homogenizing and narrowing the pipeline to the legal profession more than it already is.
This big beautiful burden will create seismic shifts in law school as we know it — slamming doors that many have spent years trying to open, implicitly favoring wealthier students, and systematically edging out those whose brilliance isn’t backed by a bank account.
Nyjilah Webb is a second-year law student at Howard University School of Law and is a Southern Legal Intern at the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia.