Non-Professional General Legal Studies (Undergraduate) at Louisiana Christian University

Borrowing $27,000 to earn roughly $39,000 in your first year creates a workable but tight financial situation for someone pursuing legal studies without a clear path to law school. Based on comparable undergraduate legal studies programs nationwide, this debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.69 suggests you'd need to dedicate about 8 months of gross income to clear the debt—manageable, but only if you land employment that actually uses this credential.

The challenge with general legal studies at the bachelor's level is that it often sits in an awkward middle ground: you're not a paralegal (which typically requires specialized training), you're not a lawyer (which requires law school), and you're competing for administrative or compliance roles against candidates with business or communication degrees who may have similar earnings potential with less specialized coursework. Louisiana Christian's 41% Pell Grant population suggests many families here are making significant financial stretches for this degree.

If your child is genuinely headed to law school, this could work as a foundation—but know that law school will require substantial additional debt. If they're not planning on graduate school, push them to articulate exactly what jobs they're targeting and whether this credential opens those doors better than alternatives. The estimated numbers suggest this won't leave them financially stranded, but it's not creating obvious economic advantage either.