National Jurist named KU Law its #5 Best Value Law School in 2025, and the underlying numbers explain why. As a public law school inside the University of Kansas, Green Hall combines a moderate cost structure with strong bar and employment outcomes — the two variables that drive any real value calculation.
Most students do. Eighty-five percent of KU Law students receive some form of grant aid, and the median grant among full-time students is $15,000. Looking at how that aid is distributed: 47% of students receive a grant covering less than half of tuition, 17% receive a grant covering half to full tuition, and 14% receive a full-tuition grant. That means just under one in three grant recipients is covering at least half their tuition through scholarship money alone — a meaningful discount off sticker price for a large share of the incoming class.
The pack does not report KU Law's specific tuition or full cost-of-attendance figures, so applicants should pull current tuition directly from the school before budgeting — that number moves year to year and isn't something to estimate. What is reported is the estimated off-campus living cost: $20,238 per year, which reflects Lawrence, Kansas's cost of living rather than a coastal or major-metro price tag. For students weighing total debt load, a lower living-cost baseline compounds with grant aid to keep borrowing needs down relative to schools in expensive cities.
Conditional scholarships have gotten safer at KU Law over the past three entering classes, not riskier. Among students on conditional scholarships, the share who had their award reduced dropped from 23.8% (2022-23 cohort) to 21.5% (2023-24) to 17.6% (2024-25). In the most recent cohort, only 6 of 34 students on a conditional scholarship lost part of it. That downward trend matters because conditional scholarships are common at many law schools and can function as a bait-and-switch if retention benchmarks are unrealistic; KU Law's recent numbers suggest most students who arrive with a scholarship keep it.
Yes — value only means something if the degree pays off, and KU Law's outcomes data supports the price side of the ledger. Ninety-six percent of the Class of 2025 landed full-time, long-term jobs requiring bar passage or a JD advantage within ten months of graduation, and 94.21% passed the Kansas bar on their first attempt, against a state average of 83.83% — the 25th-best first-time pass rate nationally that cycle. The two-year ultimate bar passage rate reached 96.81%. Combined with a U.S. News rank of 46, KU Law is delivering a solidly ranked degree, a strong local bar pass rate, and high graduate employment at a cost structure built around public in-state tuition and an affordable college town — which is the actual formula behind a "best value" designation, not just a marketing label.
KU Law admitted 39.08% of its applicants for the most recent entering class, offering 458 seats out of 1,172 applications to build a class of 122 students. That acceptance rate is one data point among several, but the number alone doesn't tell an applicant where they stand — the school's LSAT and GPA medians do.
The entering class's LSAT split is 158 at the 25th percentile, 162 at the median, and 164 at the 75th percentile. GPA runs 3.58 (25th), 3.85 (median), and 3.95 (75th). An applicant with a 162 and a 3.85 is sitting at KU Law's academic center of gravity; a 164 LSAT and 3.95 GPA place someone at the top quarter of the class on both metrics, while a 158 and 3.58 mark the bottom quarter of admitted students the school currently enrolls. These medians are planning anchors for where an applicant's numbers fall relative to the class KU Law actually built — not a prediction of any individual outcome, since acceptance decisions weigh the full file.
KU Law's admissions process accepts the LSAT; the pack does not list GRE or other standardized test acceptance, so applicants should confirm directly with the admissions office which tests the school currently accepts before applying with a non-LSAT score. For LSAT preparation mechanics — timing, section format, and how schools use the highest score — see the shared LSAT prep guide (/how-to-study-for-the-lsat).
KU Law lists a priority application deadline of March 1 for the J.D. program (the LL.M. program's priority deadline is February 1, with a March 1 final date). Priority deadlines at most law schools correlate with earlier scholarship decisions and fuller seat availability, since class size is fixed at roughly 122 students per year and offers are extended on a rolling basis against that target. Applying well ahead of March 1, rather than at the deadline, gives an application the best chance of being reviewed while the bulk of the class and scholarship budget are still open — a general admissions-timeline principle covered in more detail at /law-school-application-timeline.
It can. KU Law's conditional scholarships are tied to maintaining an academic benchmark, and in the 2024-25 cohort, 17.6% of students on a conditional scholarship saw it reduced — down from 23.8% two years earlier. An applicant admitted with numbers near the 25th percentile (158 LSAT / 3.58 GPA) who receives a conditional scholarship should plan around the possibility of needing to hit a specific law school GPA to keep the full award, and can weigh that risk against the school's improving retention trend. For a general framework on how conditional scholarships work and how to negotiate them, see /law-school-scholarship-negotiation.
Yes — and the gap is not close. KU Law's Class of 2025 posted a 94.21% first-time pass rate on the Kansas bar exam, against a statewide first-time average of 83.83% for all test-takers that cycle. That is a spread of roughly 10.4 percentage points, and the data pack identifies it as the 25th-best first-time bar passage rate in the country. For a school whose graduates overwhelmingly sit for the Kansas exam, that single number is one of the most quotable, checkable facts in the entire profile.
The first-time rate is only half the picture. KU Law's ultimate pass rate — the share of test-takers who pass within two years, counting retakes — reaches 96.81%. That means the small minority who don't clear the bar on the first attempt overwhelmingly clear it on a second try, which matters more than it might seem: a bar failure delays a start date, a bar exam salary, and sometimes a firm offer, but it rarely ends a Kansas-trained lawyer's path to licensure at KU.
A 10-point gap over the state average is a meaningfully large margin in bar-passage terms, where most ABA-accredited schools cluster within a few points of their state's baseline. Because Kansas reports a single statewide average that includes graduates of every law school whose alumni sit for that exam, KU Law's outperformance is a relative, checkable claim rather than a vague marketing line — it is stated as a direct comparison in the school's own reporting for its most recent graduating class.
The data pack doesn't isolate a single cause, and it would be an overreach to assign the outcome to any one factor. What the pack does show is a class whose LSAT and GPA profile sits in a defined band — a 25th/50th/75th LSAT of 158/162/164 and GPA of 3.58/3.85/3.95 — combined with heavy use of practice-based coursework: 360 filled seats in simulation courses, 132 field placements, and 63 filled clinic seats out of 98 available slots in a single reporting year. Whether that curriculum mix, the admitted class's academic profile, or both together drive the bar outcome isn't something the pack lets us untangle with certainty, so treat that connection as informed context rather than a proven causal claim.
One adjacent data point worth knowing: KU Law's conditional scholarship program has shown real, non-trivial attrition. In the 2022-23 entering cohort, 23.8% of students receiving conditional scholarships had their award reduced; in 2023-24 that figure was 21.5%; in the smaller 2024-25 cohort it was 17.6%. That doesn't measure bar risk directly — conditional scholarships are usually tied to law school GPA benchmarks, not to bar outcomes — but it does suggest a first-year academic environment with real stakes attached to performance, which is a separate but related signal for anyone comparing scholarship offers against the discipline of the classroom that follows them.
If passing the bar on the first attempt and doing so in the state you intend to practice in is a priority, KU Law's reported first-time and ultimate pass rates for the Class of 2025 are strong, verifiable data points to anchor a decision — not a guarantee for any individual, but a track record specific to this school's most recent cohort. Anyone weighing this figure against another school's bar rate should confirm both schools are reporting the same testing cycle and the same jurisdiction's average, since bar rates move year to year and state averages are recalculated with every administration.
Mostly in Kansas — the data pack itself identifies "Kansas" as the single largest employment category for the school's graduates, and 96% of the Class of 2025's 126 graduates landed in full-time, long-term jobs that either required bar passage or gave a J.D. advantage. That is the headline fact for anyone asking whether a KU Law degree travels: it primarily and successfully serves the state and region it sits in, with meaningful but smaller pipelines into large-firm practice, government, and the federal judiciary.
Of the 126 graduates the pack tracks, the firm-size breakdown skews toward small and mid-size practice: 23 graduates went to firms of 1-10 attorneys, 12 to firms of 11-25, 7 to firms of 26-50, 5 to firms of 51-100, and 2 to firms of 101-250. At the largest end, 7 graduates joined firms of 251-500 attorneys, and 10 graduates — 7.9% of the class — landed at firms of 501 or more attorneys, the bracket typically called Big Law. That 7.9% figure is a real, if modest, Big Law pipeline; it means roughly 1 in 13 graduates entered the highest-paying tier of private practice, while the much larger share of firm-bound graduates went to small and regional firms more typical of Kansas and the surrounding market.
Government employment absorbed 19 graduates (15.1% of the class), and public interest work took 11 graduates (8.7%) — together accounting for close to a quarter of the class, a sizable share relative to the private-firm numbers above. Judicial clerkships added another 16 graduates: 5 in federal clerkships and 11 in state or local clerkships. Business and industry roles — in-house or corporate positions outside law firms — accounted for 9 graduates. Stacked together, these categories show a class whose outcomes are spread across public service, the judiciary, and industry, not concentrated solely in private practice.
Not necessarily, and the pack gives a countervailing data point: KU Law reports more than 8,000 living alumni spread across all 50 states, several U.S. territories, and dozens of foreign countries. So while the single largest identified employment category for a given graduating class is in-state, the alumni base overall is far more geographically dispersed — a pattern consistent with a school that trains most of a class for the regional market (Kansas and the surrounding region) while still producing graduates who move into national and even international practice over a career.
The pack's notable-alumni list gives concrete, checkable examples of the range of outcomes rather than a marketing generality. It includes Mary Beck Briscoe, Mary H. Murguia, Carlos Murguia, David Stras, Julie A. Robinson, Sheila Bair, Jerry Moran, Sam Brownback, Carol Beier, and Lawton Nuss. This list underscores that while the bulk of a given class stays close to Kansas and the surrounding region for its first job, KU Law alumni have gone on to a wide range of roles beyond the state.
If your goal is Big Law from day one, KU Law's 7.9% placement rate into 501+ firms is the number to sit with — it is a real outcome for some graduates each year, but it is not the dominant path through the school. If your goal is a stable legal career centered on Kansas or the broader Midwest, with solid odds of full-time, JD-required employment (96% of the Class of 2025) and real representation in government, clerkships, and public interest work, the employment map here is a closer match. Either way, these are class-wide, reported figures for a single graduating class, not a guarantee of where any individual student will land.
Contrary to what the phrase "conditional scholarship" usually implies, KU Law's own ABA-reported data shows the share of students losing part of their conditional aid has been shrinking, not growing. In the 2022-23 cohort, 101 students entered with conditional scholarships and 24 of them (23.8%) had their award reduced. In 2023-24, 93 entering students saw 20 reductions (21.5%). By 2024-25, only 34 students entered under conditional terms, and just 6 (17.6%) lost part of their aid. Read plainly: a conditional-scholarship recipient at KU today has a better chance of keeping their full award than one who enrolled two cycles earlier.
That said, the same numbers raise a separate question worth noticing: the size of the conditional-scholarship cohort itself has fallen sharply, from 101 students to 93 to just 34 over three years. That could reflect fewer scholarships being issued with conditions attached, a shift toward flat awards, or simply cohort-to-cohort variation — the pack doesn't say which, and prospective students should ask the admissions office directly how current-cycle offers are structured before assuming last year's pattern holds.
More broadly, KU reports that 85% of its J.D. students receive some grant aid, with a median award of $15,000. But the distribution matters as much as the median: 47% of students receive grants covering less than half of tuition, 17% receive between half and full tuition, and 14% receive a full-tuition award. In other words, fewer than one in three grant recipients gets scholarship aid covering half or more of tuition — most students are stacking a partial grant against a remaining balance, plus an estimated $20,238 in annual off-campus living costs that the school reports separately from tuition.
What this means practically for an admitted student weighing a conditional offer: ask exactly what GPA or class-rank benchmark preserves the award, since the pack does not specify the conditional terms themselves — only the retention outcomes. Given that outcomes have trended favorably in the two most recent reporting years, a conditional award at KU today carries less downside risk than the historical average, but "less risk" is not "no risk," and any applicant relying on a conditional scholarship to make the cost work should build a budget around the possibility of losing it. For the general mechanics of negotiating and evaluating scholarship offers, see the shared guide on law school scholarship negotiation.
Yes — KU Law runs a substantial experiential docket, with 132 field placement seats filled and 360 simulation-course enrollments in the most recent reporting period, on top of 63 filled seats across 98 available clinic slots. For a school with a 122-student entering class and 356 total J.D. enrollment, that volume means most students pass through at least one live-client or simulation experience before graduation, and many go through several.
The named placements reported by the school cover a distinctive range. The Paul E. Wilson Project for Innocence and Post-Conviction Remedies puts students on active wrongful-conviction casework. The Tribal Judicial Support Clinic connects to KU's broader tribal-law focus (see the Tribal Law and Government Center below). The Veterans Legal Support Clinic and the Medical-Legal Partnership Field Placement pair students with underserved client populations, while the Elder Law Field Placement and Criminal Prosecution Field Placement give more traditional courtroom and government-practice exposure. The Legal Aid Clinic rounds out the direct-services offerings, and the Judicial Field Placement puts students inside chambers.
The most geographically distinctive offering is the 6th Semester in Washington, D.C. Externship, which sends students to the capital for a full semester of legal work — a structure aimed squarely at students interested in federal government, agency, or policy practice rather than staying in-state. Combined with 22 co-curricular offerings reported by the school, KU Law's experiential curriculum extends well past the standard clinic-and-moot-court model that many regional law schools offer.
What the pack does not specify is enrollment caps, application selectivity, or credit-hour structures for any individual clinic or the D.C. externship, so applicants who want a specific placement guaranteed should confirm current availability directly with Green Hall rather than assuming a seat.
KU Law's alumni roster includes a notable concentration of sitting and former judges, which matters if a judicial clerkship or bench career is part of your own plan. The school's reported alumni list includes Mary Beck Briscoe, Carlos Murguia, Mary H. Murguia, Julie A. Robinson, Lawton Nuss, Carol Beier, Lawrence E. Meyers, and David Stras. The list also includes Sam Brownback, Jerry Moran, Sheila Bair, and Janet Murguia.
This judicial density lines up with KU's current placement data: the Class of 2025 reported 5 federal clerkships and 11 state or local clerkships, a meaningful clerkship pipeline for a class of 126 graduates. The school also reports more than 8,000 living alumni spread across all 50 states, several U.S. territories, and multiple foreign countries — a network size that matters most for graduates practicing in Kansas and the surrounding region, where that density is concentrated.
KU Law organizes three named centers around distinct practice tracks: the Shook, Hardy & Bacon Center for Excellence in Advocacy, the Polsinelli Transactional Law Center, and the Tribal Law and Government Center. Each is tied to a corresponding certificate or skills track — the school separately offers an Advocacy Skills Certificate and a Business and Commercial Law Certificate that dovetail with the advocacy and transactional centers, respectively.
The advocacy center's presence lines up with KU's reported nationally ranked moot court program, giving students who want litigation or trial practice a structured path from coursework into competition and clinical fieldwork. The transactional center, backed by law firm Polsinelli, targets students headed toward corporate, business, or deal-side practice — a track reinforced by the Business and Commercial Law Certificate and the school's Tax Law and International Trade and Finance certificates.
The Tribal Law and Government Center is the most distinctive of the three, connecting classroom study to the school's Tribal Judicial Support Clinic. Combined, these give students interested in Indian law and tribal governance a rare combination of coursework, clinical placement, and a named research center in one law school — a concentration area many regional public law schools do not offer at all. The pack does not detail specific center leadership, publication output, or event programming, so applicants drawn to a particular center should verify current staffing and activity directly with the school.
KU Law's most recent entering class reports a 25th/50th/75th percentile LSAT of 158/162/164, so a 162 places an applicant at the statistical middle of the class and a 164 or higher sits at or above the top quartile. On the GPA side, the same class runs 3.58/3.85/3.95 at the 25th/50th/75th, meaning a strong majority of admitted students carry GPAs well above 3.5. Neither figure predicts an individual outcome — think of them as planning anchors for where your numbers fall relative to the pool KU actually enrolled, not a probability of admission.
The LSAT itself has looked different since August 2024: it's now two scored Logical Reasoning sections, one scored Reading Comprehension section, and one unscored variable section, with Logic Games removed entirely. Argumentative Writing is submitted separately as an unscored, online-proctored sample. Because the test is shorter and more reasoning-heavy than the old format, many applicants find that a structured, multi-month prep cycle using official practice material — rather than cramming — is what actually moves a score from the high 150s into the low-to-mid 160s, the range that matters most for KU's band. Schools consider your highest score, so a retake after real, diagnosed improvement is rarely wasted effort.
Where you land in KU's LSAT distribution has consequences beyond the admission decision itself: it's also the single biggest lever on the size of any scholarship offer, since merit aid at most schools (KU included) tracks index numbers built heavily from LSAT and GPA. An applicant sitting at or above KU's 164 75th-percentile LSAT is negotiating from a materially stronger position than one at the 158 floor, even though both may receive an offer. For the mechanics of building a study plan and deciding whether a retake is worth the time investment, see /how-to-study-for-the-lsat.
KU Law's stated priority deadline for the J.D. program is March 1, and applications submitted after that point are still reviewed but compete for whatever seats and scholarship dollars remain. Because KU, like most ABA-accredited schools, reviews files on a rolling basis, an application completed and submitted in the fall or early winter is read against a fuller scholarship budget and a less-filled class than one submitted the week of the deadline itself.
KU Law's admissions math gives a sense of what "complete and submitted early" is competing against: the school received 1,172 applications for a most-recent entering class of 122 students, extending 458 offers along the way for an overall acceptance rate of roughly 39%. That is a meaningfully selective ratio of applications to seats, but it also means KU is not a lottery — a well-built file with a clear narrative has room to stand out, especially before the applicant pool peaks later in the cycle.
On testing, KU's data lists the LSAT as its accepted admissions test; applicants should confirm current test-acceptance policy directly with the admissions office before assuming any alternative test is an option this cycle, since policies at law schools generally have shifted in recent years. Beyond the test score and GPA, a competitive KU file typically needs the standard building blocks common to every ABA school: a personal statement that gives the committee a specific, well-supported reason to admit you rather than a generic account of wanting to attend law school; letters of recommendation from people who can speak concretely to your analytical and written work, usually professors or supervisors rather than family friends or public figures; and a transcript and LSAC report submitted early enough that processing delays don't push your file past the priority window.
A practical sequencing strategy: take the LSAT (or your final retake) with enough runway to have an official score in hand by late fall, draft and revise the personal statement well before the December holidays, request recommendation letters at least a month ahead of when you need them submitted, and aim to have the complete file — test score, transcripts, letters, statement — in KU's queue well before March 1 rather than at the wire. Because scholarship budgets are typically allocated as offers go out, applying early doesn't just help with admission timing; it also means your file is evaluated for aid while more of that budget is still available. For a fuller month-by-month framework that applies across schools, see /law-school-application-timeline.
The honest answer is that KU Law's net price depends heavily on the scholarship you're offered, and the underlying tuition figure isn't cleanly available in this data set — so any specific sticker-price number should be confirmed directly on KU Law's current cost-of-attendance page rather than assumed. What is documented is the living-cost side: KU estimates off-campus living expenses at roughly $20,238 for the year, a number worth budgeting around regardless of what tuition itself turns out to be.
On the aid side, KU reports that 85% of students receive some grant funding, with a median grant among funded students of $15,000. That aid is not distributed evenly, though. KU's own banding shows 47% of the class receiving grants covering less than half of tuition, 17% receiving grants covering roughly half to full tuition, and 14% receiving grants that cover full tuition — meaning a substantial share of students are financing a large uncovered balance even after a scholarship letter arrives. Where you land in that band tracks closely with where your LSAT and GPA sit relative to KU's medians (158/162/164 and 3.58/3.85/3.95), which is why negotiating a scholarship offer against a competing school's number can genuinely move the figure; see /law-school-scholarship-negotiation for how that conversation works.
A detail every KU-bound admit should read before signing anything: KU's conditional scholarship retention data shows that reduction rates have run meaningfully high in recent entering classes — 23.8% of the 2022-23 entering cohort and 21.5% of the 2023-24 cohort had their scholarships reduced, with the 2024-25 cohort at 17.6%. In plain terms, a real share of students who start with a conditional merit award lose part of it after their first year, typically tied to a GPA or class-rank benchmark. Before enrolling, ask admissions exactly what retention condition attaches to your specific offer and what percentage of a recent class actually kept the full award — a scholarship that isn't durable through graduation is not the same offer as one that is.
On the federal loan side, the rules changing for new borrowers as of July 1, 2026 matter regardless of which school you choose: Grad PLUS loans are eliminated, and law students are capped at $50,000 per year and $200,000 aggregate in Direct Unsubsidized loans, within a $257,500 lifetime federal limit, at a rate near 8.07% plus roughly a 1.057% origination fee. Because federal loans alone may not cover the full cost of attendance at any law school under this cap, the gap between KU's living-cost estimate, whatever tuition figure you confirm, and your grant award is the number that determines whether private loans or savings need to fill in. If loan forgiveness through public-service work is part of your plan, note that the new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) — not the default Standard Plan — is what counts toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness, so enrollment choice matters. See /law-school-loans-and-pslf for the mechanics, and /is-law-school-worth-it for how to weigh total borrowing against likely early-career earnings.
Whether KU Law is worth it depends less on its reputation and more on the math you personally plug into three variables: what you'll pay, what debt structure you'll live under afterward, and what your target job actually requires. Here's how to run that analysis using KU's own numbers as anchors.
Start with admission fit. KU's 25th/50th/75th LSAT bands sit at 158/162/164, with GPAs at 3.58/3.85/3.95. If your numbers land at or above the median, you are in a strong position to negotiate scholarship money rather than simply accept whatever offer arrives — see our scholarship negotiation playbook (/law-school-scholarship-negotiation) for how to leverage a competing offer. If you're below the 25th percentile on either metric, expect a smaller grant or none at all: KU's data shows 47% of students receive less than half-tuition grants and only 14% get full-tuition packages, so most admitted students are paying a substantial share of cost out of pocket or with loans.
Second, scrutinize any conditional scholarship carefully. KU's most recent cohort data shows 17.6% of entering scholarship recipients had their award reduced after year one (versus roughly 22-24% in the two prior years) — a real, non-trivial risk. Before enrolling, get the exact GPA retention floor in writing and calculate your worst-case annual cost if you land below it. A scholarship that assumes you'll finish in the top third of the class is a different financial bet than one that only requires good academic standing.
Third, model your borrowing under the current federal framework. As of the 2025-26 cycle, Grad PLUS loans are gone for new borrowers starting July 1, 2026, and federal Direct Unsubsidized loans cap out at $50,000/year and $200,000 aggregate — verify current figures before you commit, since these rules are freshly enacted and still settling. If KU's cost of attendance (tuition plus the roughly $20,238 living estimate the school reports for off-campus students) exceeds what federal loans and your grant cover, you'll need savings or private loans to close the gap, and private loans don't carry income-driven repayment or forgiveness protections. Run this math before you sign a deposit, not after.
Fourth, weigh repayment plan against career track. New borrowers only have two options: a Standard Plan (default, earns zero PSLF credit) or the Repayment Assistance Plan, an income-driven option that does count toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness after 120 qualifying payments in government or nonprofit work. KU's outcomes show meaningful public-sector placement — 15.1% government and 8.7% public interest, plus 16 clerkships (5 federal, 11 state/local) — so for a real slice of each class, PSLF is a legitimate part of the financial plan, not a footnote. If you're aiming for one of those paths, enroll in RAP deliberately; the default plan won't get you there. If you're instead targeting the 7.9% of the class that lands in a 501+ firm at Big Law compensation, you'll likely repay directly off salary and PSLF is largely irrelevant to your plan.
Fifth, price in the bar exam. KU's reported first-time pass rate of 94.21% against a state average of 83.83%, with a 96.81% ultimate pass rate within two years, suggests the school's bar-prep infrastructure meaningfully de-risks this step relative to peers in Kansas — one less variable to worry about in your total cost-of-delay calculation.
Put together: if you're at or near KU's medians, receiving a grant that covers at least half tuition, and targeting Kansas-market or public-sector employment where the school's placement numbers are strongest, the value case is straightforward. If you're borrowing near the sticker price for a shot at a 501+ firm outcome that only about 8% of the class reaches, run the numbers harder before committing. For the general mechanics behind every step above, see /is-law-school-worth-it and /law-school-loans-and-pslf.