LSAC’s Knowledge Report: 2024-2025 Test Takers

In the 2023-24 admission cycle, law schools faced a changing landscape, beginning with the June 2023 Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard decision. Since then, legal education has come up against abrupt changes in standards, policies, and legal practices, from anti-DEI legislation and executive orders to major changes to federal Grad PLUS loans. As schools navigated these changes during the 2024-25 cycle, candidates took the LSAT and applied to law school in record numbers.

Speculation abounded on why more candidates were pursuing a legal education and how changes such as caps on federal loans would affect what candidates are thinking, feeling, and doing. LSAC’s Post-LSAT Questionnaire (PLQ) provides the first empirical glimpse into the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the first cohort to take the redesigned LSAT (without an analytical reasoning section), an event that came amid a competitive admission cycle unfolding during a period of legislative, policy, political, economic, and social change. Based on data collected from over 15,000 test takers between August 2024 and April 2025, this report focuses on:

1. When test takers first thought about going to law school.
2. What motivates test takers to pursue law school.
3. What are test takers’ plans for the application cycle, including who they plan to turn to for support and when they plan to submit applications.
4. What are test takers’ anticipated barriers to attending law school.

This report has several insights that can help law schools and other organizations recruit and support future law students in an ever-changing landscape and inform efforts to ensure law school is financially feasible for the next generation of aspiring lawyers. These insights include:

• When test takers began thinking of attending law school. Like the 2023-24 test takers, most 2024-25 test takers initially considered going to law school before attending college — in many cases, well before college. Indeed, first-generation college graduates were nearly 20% more likely than their continuing-generation college peers to report first thinking about law school in elementary school or middle school.
• Motivations for attending law school. During a record year for testing and applicants, what motivated individuals to pursue legal education? Like their peers before them, test takers want to do good, which can mean different things to different candidates. Compared to 2023-24 test takers, 2024-25 test takers’ motivation to “help others” increased by about 20%, while their motivation to “advocate for social justice” increased by more than 30%.
• Who test takers turn to for advice and information about the application process. The top people or groups of people on whom test takers rely for information or advice about the law school application process were (1) peers or friends, (2) an attorney, and (3) a family member. However, one in five test takers report having no one to rely on — and first-generation college graduates report this absence at a rate almost 60% higher than their continuing-generation college peers.
• When test takers plan on submitting their applications. More than 70% of test takers between August 2024 and April 2025 report that they plan on applying to law school during the 2024-25 admission cycle, with the remaining 24% planning on applying in future admission cycles. However, when test takers plan to apply to law school changes in January. At that time 29% say they plan to apply to law school in the 2025-26 and other future admission cycles. The shift varies by first-generation college and Pell Grant status.
• How anticipated barriers to law school have grown. If admitted to their preferred law school, test takers say the top three barriers that would stop them from attending are (1) the overall cost of attendance, (2) not receiving sufficient financial aid, and (3) having to take out too many loans. Such financial concerns reverberated across test takers in the 2024-25 testing cycle. For example, when 2023-24 test takers were asked what would hold them back if they were admitted to their preferred law school, 30% reported nothing would stop them, but in the 2024-25 cycle, that rate dropped to only 18% — a decrease of 40% (or 12 percentage points). This trend is paralleled by a rise in factors that test takers said would hold them back. For example, if admitted to their preferred law school, 38% of test takers in 2023-24 reported that the total cost to attend would stop them from going, but this increased by 45% (or 17 percentage points) in 2024-25, with 55% of test takers reporting that the overall cost of attending their preferred law school would stop them from enrolling. These trends are significantly pronounced based on Pell Grant Status.

Access to effective guidance, support systems, and resources is at the core of how test takers think about, plan, and experience the journey to law school. Inequality persists in who helps aspiring law students and how they approach the application process. The concerning insight in this year’s report is that candidates’ anticipated barriers to law school have grown. As the first empirical measurement of how the new federal loan caps will affect aspiring lawyers, we find that the specific barrier of cost has increased by more than 40% from 2023-24 to 2024-25 test takers, and fewer test takers report that if they are admitted to their preferred law school, nothing will stop them.

Aspiring lawyers first think about law school long before taking the LSAT, and they are highly driven and motivated to do good. But the financial feasibility of law school is top of mind for today’s test takers, especially those who are Pell Grant recipients. In the past, many of these test takers relied on federal loans to remove their biggest barrier to attending their chosen law school. With the availability of those loans now uncertain, future law students are facing financial challenges their predecessors did not. Indeed, test takers’ responses indicate that the future of the legal profession might not include them if law school is financially out of reach. In short, the changes to federal loans will have a long-lasting impact on not just individual aspiring lawyers, but also their families, their communities, and the legal profession.

The insights from this report can help inform a collective effort, from prelaw through admission, to make legal education attainable for future aspiring lawyers. LSAC will continue to collect data and share snapshots of the journey to support the legal community.

To learn more, download the report here. If you have any questions related to this project or future work informed by the results, please contact LSAC Applied Research at StrategicResearch@LSAC.org.