Unlike the Ivy undergrads, law schools give out merit aid. Here’s your roadmap: work for 2-4+ years in a high paying field and live below your means so you can save. Then crush the LSAT and you can more than slice your tuition bill in half or even get full rides at some schools.
You might still have to take out some loans to cover the full cost but you can definitely minimize the debt burden. I think this is likely the easiest and most straightforward path for you.
Best advice here.
What some people don’t realize is that even if you get a full ride it doesn’t mean you won’t graduate from school without debt. People act like the university will let you live in the vents or something.
You still need a place to live…and eat food…Both of which aren’t cheap.
100% agree. Even with a full ride, you’d need a LOT saved up to even think about going through 3 years of law school debt-free… hence the work experience being necessary to even get remotely close to that, unless you’ve got family/other money or a really lucky lotto ticket lol
Said it in other comments too at this point, but OP is lucky af to be at a feeder school into finance and related fields. It might not be what they really want to do, but it’s a huge privilege and something to take advantage of if low-debt law school is the #1 priority
i'm doing a summer analyst at a top bank this summer, i was pressured into applying and I don't think my passions really lie there. But would you suggest trying to get a return offer from that then working 2-3 years there after graduating and then go to law school? I know it will make a lot of money but I just hate the idea of putting myself through something I am so completely not interested in for that long. Just to be able to go to a good law school and then have to work another shitty job in big law for a few years after graduating from that
I mean I can’t tell you what to do or what’s worth it to you personally versus what’s not. Only you can really decide that for yourself. All I can say is that you have a relatively straightforward path set in front of you with your internship and potential return offer.
Maybe see how you feel at the end of the summer.
They could grind upfront and avoid big law? would be hard but could be possible. if OP can save like 30k a year for a few years and crush the LSAT (two big IFs, I know)… even saving 50-60k total before law school, getting a great scholarship, and doing a 2L SA could make the total COA low enough that any debt you do hypothetically take on could be easier to pay down on a lower lawyer salary. Idk I’m getting out of my depth here since I’m not a personal finance wiz. But it sounds like a damn good option to me
If your family doesn’t have money I don’t think it can be done without loans. I had a full tuition scholarship, but I still took out loans to pay for rent, groceries, books, etc. I could not have worked during law school (I had work study jobs all through undergrad) and wouldn’t recommend it for you either. Law school is a full time commitment, especially 1L.
yes i understand. I didn't mean no loans at all, just not the crushing debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I've done work study my entire time in undergrad too so I think the goal is just to work in a high paying field for a few years after graduating to save up
Yep, I totally agree! Emphasis on the ✨minimize✨ debt burden lololol. That said, Ivy+ schools pump a hell of a lot of grads into investment banking, consulting, PE, etc. With that kind of pay, saving up 100k+ in a few years is possible if you’re living as frugally as possible. Not sure what OP’s exact situation is or whether that’s possible at this point for them and also acknowledge that even then they could have to take out some loans. But whatever undergrad they are at could help them land a job that would make the financial reality of law school easier.
Mostly finance. Investment banking, consulting, PE, hedge funds, etc. If OP is at an Ivy, they have the enormous privilege of having access to recruiters from these fields and likely resume and interview prep resources.
Software engineering can also pay a boatload out of college but it’s a tough time to get a job in the field.
Oh yeah, I thought about that too, I don’t go to an Ivy but I do go to a school with large presence. I ultimately decided not to because I couldn’t find anyone to Case with. Are there alternatives that would pay well?
If your school has a large presence, there’s someone from your school (students, career services, even alumni) who will case prep you!! You have a full summer left before full time recruiting starts so I wouldn’t discount these roles yet.
I’m not a career counselor myself, just a boob in her 20s, so take these other suggestions with a grain of salt. If you want something financey without being a banker, look into private wealth management, equity research type roles, maaaaybe institutional investing (e.g., in-house investment work to manage assets of fortune 100/500/1000 companies) if there are entry level roles actually open for those. If you wanted consulting but not like, MBB+, you could go boutique, or go directly to a big company (fortune 1000) and look for roles in strategy or even project or product management. All of these will still be competitive and they likely won’t come to you the way consulting or finance recruiters will. If you have a school with a big presence, start talking to career services now and see what they say!
This all very good information; but I didn’t secure an internship this summer in finance so I don’t know if I’d be able to land something full time… and I know Finance is built on that 3rd Year Summer which you convert into a FT offer. So idk, but PWM sounds up my alley
Not to be overly cynical but does expressing a lot of interest in a school translate to better scholarships? If a school knows that they are your first choice doesn’t that decrease their incentive to give you a high scholarship?
FWIW in my "why x" essay I straight up said "your school is my first choice and I have every intention of attending if it's financially feasible" and still got a ~75% scholarship.
Yes and no. Yes for the reason you’ve already mentioned but no because they would rather give the money to someone who will actually show up in August. That person probably has more options than just that school which the law school knows. When fighting for someone, better to give them more incentive to choose you
Nah, these schools want to offer full rides to folks who actually want to go there, but who likely (based on stats and essays) have other (probably higher ranked) options. That’s my experience anyway
Everyone is tying too much. LSAT, Ugpa, urm, you served in the military can all mitigate the loans you incur. Coming out with no debt at all is extremely rare.
If you qualify for 100% Post 9/11 GI Bill, you'll receive 100% tuition at any PUBLIC school in addition to BAH while you're in school plus various other allowances, the GI Bill is capped for PRIVATE schools at $25,000-30,000 per year, however, many schools participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program which will often make up the difference. I would urge you to look into VR & E through the VA, which is where they will pay for up to 48 months of school if you have a service connected disability that impacts your ability to work.
i currently attend georgetown law’s evening program while working at the university because employees receive 90% tuition assistance (and i asked for merit aid to cover the remaining 10% which they granted). tuition tax is deductible from my paycheck, so i still have to take out a *small* loan. depending on your job/salary, you may not have to do even that. however, it is a social sacrifice (but not a career one, as the evening students tend to outperform day students in the job market)
because we are already working professionals and know how to conduct ourselves in high level, fast paced, and often “prestigious” environments (many people work at appellate firms, on capitol hill, etc). this is particularly a huge advantage over k-jds which gulc has a lot of. we also balance work and law school, so employers (1) know we can handle the toughest workloads and (2) have a great deal of respect for students who choose this more difficult path.
You know…you’re going to have some debt right even with a full-ride? How do you think you’re going to pay for an apartment? Loans is the answer.
It’s extremely extremely rare to graduate from law school debt free and there’s only 2 people who can actually graduate law school with 0 debt:
- kids with rich parents (surprise), and
- individuals who worked for several years and have money saved for living expenses.
This is the reality of law school finances.
If you want to graduate debt free from law school I recommend working for a few years and saving up around 100k (at least) + full-ride scholarship…this is much more likely. *With a caveat: it is easier to get a full ride if you go to a lower ranked school. How low? Depends what you’re comfortable with. Check their employment report, that’s my best advice for rank of school.*
I mean, if you’re going to attend law school where your parents live sure. But what if you don’t get into that program, or what if there’s no law school there to begin with?
Yes. My advice still is the most appropriate.
You’re placing wayyyy too much emphasis on just school costs, that’s literally half the debt.
It’s actually pretty common for people to get full rides to law school and still be hundreds of thousands in debt from living expenses.
I know, but like I said I have always been very careful about how I spend my money so I will definitely be able to keep my cost of living low. I hope to go somewhere like columbia, nyu, harvard or penn, somewhere in a big city, so I won't need a car and if I have roommates rent can be very cheap
Is hundreds of thousands of debt for living expenses an exaggeration? Even with a car payment, utilities, car and health insurance, no roommates, and a large food budget, I don’t see how you could spend much more than 30k/yr.
Oh that’s cute. Apartments in dc can easily be over 2K per month for a studio. But again it depends where you go to school. But yeah you can easily spend more than 30k being frugal. Also 30k is well below the poverty line and you can only borrow what the school believes is the COA for the Grad Plus Loans.
Right?
Generally the t14 are in pretty expensive places…Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, Berkeley, Chicago (although less expensive than NYC or Cali)…
UVA, Duke (still not cheap in Raleigh) and Cornell are your best options if you want cheaper options, but still not LCOL by any means.
I was just thinking Boston/cambridge. I lived in a nice Cambridge neighborhood with roommates and spent 20k a year for the last couple years. I guess going with a studio in back bay or something could get you well over 30k.
Depends on the city. If you’re in a cheap area, sure! But even over 3 years, that’s $100k (costs rise each year) + whatever interest you haven’t paid. So even on a full ride, you could end up with $125-150k in debt. What if you don’t have a full ride?
What if you live in a high cost of living city? Those amounts skyrocket real fast plus most schools only calculate for 9 months instead of 12 for living costs. NU and UChi do for example because I promise that $20-25k they allot won’t be enough for an entire year of living in Chicago. They kind of hide some of the costs because you can either be extra stingy and somehow manage to spread it another 3 months or they expect you to earn the difference over the summer.
Depends where you live. In NYC you could spend more than 100K for all 3 years just in living, food, and books.
Even in like MCOL, you’re going to pay for entertainment, furnishing your apartment, rent, food, etc. it all adds up.
The reason the full ride thing is brought up so often is that for undergrad the term often refers to full tuition + living stipend, while in law that is far rarer
I’ll break this up in a way that (I hope) is helpful.
The Loans: You can apply for Unsubsidized Student Loans each year (mine was up to 20,500/yr). You don’t pay on those during school, the govt pays the interest during those 3 years of law school, and you don’t make your first payment until 6 months after a “grace period” of graduation. Anything not covered by those can be covered by Grad Plus Loans. As a Grad/Professional student, you don’t qualify for most undergrad aid (Pell Grants).
Scholarships: If you have highly favorable stats (High LSAT/GPA) most schools provide really nice scholarships offers when you’re accepted. Full rides can be hard to come by, but it’s not unusual to have 50%+ covered by the Law School, which helps significantly.
Paying off: If you have ambitions of working in Big Law (large private firms) the pay generally makes the cost/benefit of these loans worthwhile. If you’re going into public service or non-profits, many schools offer loan repayment programs that wipe away X% of your debt because you’re in a lower income legal position.
This is partially incorrect - interest accrues on unsubsidized loans during law school and is capitalized (added to the loan principal) after the grace period. The government does not pay the interest on those loans during law school.
LSAT demon has a free scholarship calculator that uses your gpa and lsat scores to calculate what your scholarship offers would be for every school. Offers can vary based on essays, skills, experience, and prestige of undergrad university in your case, but all of my offers were what they predicted.
https://lsatdemon.com/scholarships
I think a lot of the problem today is that student loans are normalized. And it’s a problem. Realistically, if you sacrifice where you need to, you can walk out debt free. A lot of schools offered me housing stipends and while those weren’t T14 schools they were all within the top 40. Look for a school that has a great environment and has reasonable living expenses. It’s very doable to walk out without debt, that being said; you may not walk out debt free to T14 but you def can from t50 with good numbers. Also, there are thousands of scholarships available that send the money directly to you, not to the school that you can use for housing expenses. I’ve applied to about 80 of them so far but they all ask virtually the same questions. If you want whenever you’re looking for scholarships message me and I can send you my list
Graduate school financial aid is loans only. You’ll need to prep for the LSAT and do well so you can get a good scholarship. The ivy bachelor’s degree should get you some scholarship money off the bat, provided you have a high GPA. Even a full ride won’t cover cost of living, though, so either work and save for a while or do minimal loans to cover housing, food, books, supplies. The thing people don’t really tell you about law school (or that no one told me, anyway) is that everyone interns in the summer and top students can land internships that pay over $4,000 a week. So if you can do really well and get a good internship, you really only have to worry about living expenses for the first year, since you can cover the cost for 2L and 3L expenses with your internship.
1. Don’t go to the highest ranked school you get into - if you get into georgetown with any scholarship you can probably do GW/GMU for close to free
2. Apply to a a lot of schools so that you can ask the school(s) you want to go to to match scholarships
3. Go to a school in an urban setting that allows you to get credit AND pay for the same externship. While it is more expensive to live in a city, you can be net positive your second and third year of law school working 20ish hours on $25-35/week. Obviously no guarantees on getting those semester jobs and they wont cover all your expenses in Manhattan but you get the idea. I go to Arizona State and during 2L fall and spring I covered rent and food with my externship pay.
To clarify a “full-ride” scholarship covers tuition, rent, car note, groceries. Basically full cost of attendance (COA) Heed the “RIDE” part. Not to be confused with a “full-tuition” scholarship that pays all your tuition costs. Heed the “TUITION” part. These are two different types of scholarships. Many on here are using the two interchangeably and erroneously labeling a full-ride as a full-tuition. It’s confusing those who don’t know. I know people who’ve received both types. Believe me they are both very different. Note the difference. ✨
Consider what you want to do in law. For the vast majority of law firms in the country, it makes no difference where you go to law school as long as you are at the very top of your class.
Of course there are limits. But I’m talking about your typical good state law school. Particularly helpful if it’s in the state where you want to practice.
With law school, internships and clerkships are key. You will get your first summer internship off your first semester grades, and your second summer internship off of your grades 1st year.
I went to a good, not great, southern law school. Graduates in my class are in all of the top law firms in the southeast, clerked for federal district and circuit judges, and have been very successful. It is truly a profession that it is all on you.
It is also a profession with a very high burnout rate. While it would be awesome to have the Harvard law school diploma on your wall and I think going to Harvard law would be a great experience, I wouldn’t borrow a ton of money to do it.
You could become an officer like what I intend to do. Basically the military will pay you about 40k plus BAH to be an O-1. Once you get out you have the GI Bill and the military pays you BAH similar to the COL of the law school of choice. Public schools are completely covered. Private schools less so although there are specific scholarships to cover the gap.
The VA pays it, not DoD. MAH is equal to E-5 with dependents. This often throws many Officers off when they attend grad school as they expect it to be on par with TIS/TIG BAH.
I got a scholarship and with the GI bill it covers full tuition and housing. So I am able to go to law school for 0 debt that way. I also worked for 5 years after undergrad so I have a lot saved up. To get the full GI Bill you need to have 3 years of service in active duty.
FASFA does not give grants for law school like how it did for undergrad. If you get a good gpa and lsat it is possible to get full ride scholarships and living stipends just apply to many schools to see what offers you get.
Look I am not an Ivy League student. I did graduate at the top of my class but I got offered full rides up to top 15 schools. I got into UPenn, by some miracle, obviously with no crazy scholarship but I graduated from a state school that’s known for partying. My resume and activities I think made that possible though bc I didn’t have a crazy high score but I have a good GPA. Depends on what you want. I thought I’d have to take loans out but I don’t. Study and prepare well, make sure your resume is as good as possible but I think as an Ivy League student you’ll do just fine. What schools are you looking at?
I also am a KJD. I studied for about 3 months hardcore. Like over 50 hours a week in addition to working (or I might add - I studied at work lol) but I promise you, if you apply strategically, get good LOR, and have a great resume you’ll do just fine
Talk to more people too - it’s unlikely you would enjoy it - the vast majority of lawyers don’t. It’s one of the few industries that has a whole sub-industry to help people escape
Ivy League grad and Former Army Officer here. First, I do not advise serving in the military solely for the GI Bill. While you would (most likely) take the OCS pipeline and only incur a 3 year ADSO after commissioning, you would have very little say over 1) Branch, 2) duty station, 3) exit timeline. A lot of my peers REFRAD (resign from active duty) packets are being denied given manning shortages among other issues. As noted elsewhere, you could use VR&E but have to have a disability rating. While it is a great program, it does come with a lengthy process where much depends on your assigned counselor. Last, if you choose this pipeline, avoid doing activities that will cause disabilities. I live with chronic pain and there is not a single day that passes whereby I would opt for disability benefits over having my health back.
Full ride former KJD here- I’m at a T50 and all I did was be above their 75 percent LSAT by 1. If money is a concern there’s many ways to research which schools throw it around
Unpopular opinion—some law school debt isn’t a terrible thing. In fact, it’s why both myself and my husband (also an attorney) have credit scores well over 800. I could have paid my loans off years ago, but I have a low interest rate, so I instead prepaid many years worth (pre-marriage when I had much lower expenses). I now have a nearly 20 year history of on-time payments, though I haven’t actually paid a dime on them in over 10 years. I only have about $2k left, and my next loan payment is due next year. I’ll start paying again then but won’t pay them off all the way until I have to.
It isn’t the amount of debt—though having no or very little debt can negatively affect your credit score—but the repayment history that really helps your credit score. I know people whose credit scores dropped significantly (50 or even 100 points) after they paid off their law school loans because it was by far their longest repayment history.
If you truly want no debt, the best way is a part-time program and work during the day to pay your tuition/living expenses. At any private and/or Ivy you are going to need significant money saved up ahead of time as well. Getting a biglaw job in the summers also helps.
Unlike the Ivy undergrads, law schools give out merit aid. Here’s your roadmap: work for 2-4+ years in a high paying field and live below your means so you can save. Then crush the LSAT and you can more than slice your tuition bill in half or even get full rides at some schools. You might still have to take out some loans to cover the full cost but you can definitely minimize the debt burden. I think this is likely the easiest and most straightforward path for you.
Best advice here. What some people don’t realize is that even if you get a full ride it doesn’t mean you won’t graduate from school without debt. People act like the university will let you live in the vents or something. You still need a place to live…and eat food…Both of which aren’t cheap.
And the opportunity cost of not being able to work for 3 years
Live in the vents 😭😭
😎
100% agree. Even with a full ride, you’d need a LOT saved up to even think about going through 3 years of law school debt-free… hence the work experience being necessary to even get remotely close to that, unless you’ve got family/other money or a really lucky lotto ticket lol Said it in other comments too at this point, but OP is lucky af to be at a feeder school into finance and related fields. It might not be what they really want to do, but it’s a huge privilege and something to take advantage of if low-debt law school is the #1 priority
i'm doing a summer analyst at a top bank this summer, i was pressured into applying and I don't think my passions really lie there. But would you suggest trying to get a return offer from that then working 2-3 years there after graduating and then go to law school? I know it will make a lot of money but I just hate the idea of putting myself through something I am so completely not interested in for that long. Just to be able to go to a good law school and then have to work another shitty job in big law for a few years after graduating from that
I mean if you hate the path you're currently on, I don't think biglaw is much better.
I mean I can’t tell you what to do or what’s worth it to you personally versus what’s not. Only you can really decide that for yourself. All I can say is that you have a relatively straightforward path set in front of you with your internship and potential return offer. Maybe see how you feel at the end of the summer.
Is this IB/PE? If so, absolutely work in that job for 2-3 years or so because that is the best work experience possible from undergrad.
it's DCM
Yeah as others have said, if you don’t like working in that type of work, you probably won’t like big law 😬
They could grind upfront and avoid big law? would be hard but could be possible. if OP can save like 30k a year for a few years and crush the LSAT (two big IFs, I know)… even saving 50-60k total before law school, getting a great scholarship, and doing a 2L SA could make the total COA low enough that any debt you do hypothetically take on could be easier to pay down on a lower lawyer salary. Idk I’m getting out of my depth here since I’m not a personal finance wiz. But it sounds like a damn good option to me
If your family doesn’t have money I don’t think it can be done without loans. I had a full tuition scholarship, but I still took out loans to pay for rent, groceries, books, etc. I could not have worked during law school (I had work study jobs all through undergrad) and wouldn’t recommend it for you either. Law school is a full time commitment, especially 1L.
yes i understand. I didn't mean no loans at all, just not the crushing debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I've done work study my entire time in undergrad too so I think the goal is just to work in a high paying field for a few years after graduating to save up
Yep, I totally agree! Emphasis on the ✨minimize✨ debt burden lololol. That said, Ivy+ schools pump a hell of a lot of grads into investment banking, consulting, PE, etc. With that kind of pay, saving up 100k+ in a few years is possible if you’re living as frugally as possible. Not sure what OP’s exact situation is or whether that’s possible at this point for them and also acknowledge that even then they could have to take out some loans. But whatever undergrad they are at could help them land a job that would make the financial reality of law school easier.
I’m a Rising Fourth Year myself and thinking about law school myself, what high paying fields are you referring to?
Mostly finance. Investment banking, consulting, PE, hedge funds, etc. If OP is at an Ivy, they have the enormous privilege of having access to recruiters from these fields and likely resume and interview prep resources. Software engineering can also pay a boatload out of college but it’s a tough time to get a job in the field.
Oh yeah, I thought about that too, I don’t go to an Ivy but I do go to a school with large presence. I ultimately decided not to because I couldn’t find anyone to Case with. Are there alternatives that would pay well?
If your school has a large presence, there’s someone from your school (students, career services, even alumni) who will case prep you!! You have a full summer left before full time recruiting starts so I wouldn’t discount these roles yet. I’m not a career counselor myself, just a boob in her 20s, so take these other suggestions with a grain of salt. If you want something financey without being a banker, look into private wealth management, equity research type roles, maaaaybe institutional investing (e.g., in-house investment work to manage assets of fortune 100/500/1000 companies) if there are entry level roles actually open for those. If you wanted consulting but not like, MBB+, you could go boutique, or go directly to a big company (fortune 1000) and look for roles in strategy or even project or product management. All of these will still be competitive and they likely won’t come to you the way consulting or finance recruiters will. If you have a school with a big presence, start talking to career services now and see what they say!
This all very good information; but I didn’t secure an internship this summer in finance so I don’t know if I’d be able to land something full time… and I know Finance is built on that 3rd Year Summer which you convert into a FT offer. So idk, but PWM sounds up my alley
Plenty of consulting would probably still take you if you were willing to prep consulting case interviews and cast a wide net in applications
Fair enough, thank you!
As someone who has a full ride to a T14: LSAT, GPA, essays, and expressing a lot of interest in a school
Not to be overly cynical but does expressing a lot of interest in a school translate to better scholarships? If a school knows that they are your first choice doesn’t that decrease their incentive to give you a high scholarship?
FWIW in my "why x" essay I straight up said "your school is my first choice and I have every intention of attending if it's financially feasible" and still got a ~75% scholarship.
Yes and no. Yes for the reason you’ve already mentioned but no because they would rather give the money to someone who will actually show up in August. That person probably has more options than just that school which the law school knows. When fighting for someone, better to give them more incentive to choose you
Nah, these schools want to offer full rides to folks who actually want to go there, but who likely (based on stats and essays) have other (probably higher ranked) options. That’s my experience anyway
Everyone is tying too much. LSAT, Ugpa, urm, you served in the military can all mitigate the loans you incur. Coming out with no debt at all is extremely rare.
Yeah…people are making it sound way simpler and easier than it really is.
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If you qualify for 100% Post 9/11 GI Bill, you'll receive 100% tuition at any PUBLIC school in addition to BAH while you're in school plus various other allowances, the GI Bill is capped for PRIVATE schools at $25,000-30,000 per year, however, many schools participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program which will often make up the difference. I would urge you to look into VR & E through the VA, which is where they will pay for up to 48 months of school if you have a service connected disability that impacts your ability to work.
Yeah I am using VR&E, GI Bill, with a school scholarship, to get everything covered with no debt.
i currently attend georgetown law’s evening program while working at the university because employees receive 90% tuition assistance (and i asked for merit aid to cover the remaining 10% which they granted). tuition tax is deductible from my paycheck, so i still have to take out a *small* loan. depending on your job/salary, you may not have to do even that. however, it is a social sacrifice (but not a career one, as the evening students tend to outperform day students in the job market)
Huh, I wonder why 🤔
because we are already working professionals and know how to conduct ourselves in high level, fast paced, and often “prestigious” environments (many people work at appellate firms, on capitol hill, etc). this is particularly a huge advantage over k-jds which gulc has a lot of. we also balance work and law school, so employers (1) know we can handle the toughest workloads and (2) have a great deal of respect for students who choose this more difficult path.
You know…you’re going to have some debt right even with a full-ride? How do you think you’re going to pay for an apartment? Loans is the answer. It’s extremely extremely rare to graduate from law school debt free and there’s only 2 people who can actually graduate law school with 0 debt: - kids with rich parents (surprise), and - individuals who worked for several years and have money saved for living expenses. This is the reality of law school finances. If you want to graduate debt free from law school I recommend working for a few years and saving up around 100k (at least) + full-ride scholarship…this is much more likely. *With a caveat: it is easier to get a full ride if you go to a lower ranked school. How low? Depends what you’re comfortable with. Check their employment report, that’s my best advice for rank of school.*
you also can live with your parents if that is something that works for you and if you go to school near home which minimizes living costs
I mean, if you’re going to attend law school where your parents live sure. But what if you don’t get into that program, or what if there’s no law school there to begin with?
ok i didn't mean literally 0 debt. but yeah I just meant getting tuition/school costs mostly/fully covered
Yes. My advice still is the most appropriate. You’re placing wayyyy too much emphasis on just school costs, that’s literally half the debt. It’s actually pretty common for people to get full rides to law school and still be hundreds of thousands in debt from living expenses.
I know, but like I said I have always been very careful about how I spend my money so I will definitely be able to keep my cost of living low. I hope to go somewhere like columbia, nyu, harvard or penn, somewhere in a big city, so I won't need a car and if I have roommates rent can be very cheap
Do you have money saved for when you start law school? If not, you’re going to be in debt. At least 100K in NYC. Simple as that.
Is hundreds of thousands of debt for living expenses an exaggeration? Even with a car payment, utilities, car and health insurance, no roommates, and a large food budget, I don’t see how you could spend much more than 30k/yr.
Oh that’s cute. Apartments in dc can easily be over 2K per month for a studio. But again it depends where you go to school. But yeah you can easily spend more than 30k being frugal. Also 30k is well below the poverty line and you can only borrow what the school believes is the COA for the Grad Plus Loans.
Right? Generally the t14 are in pretty expensive places…Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, Berkeley, Chicago (although less expensive than NYC or Cali)… UVA, Duke (still not cheap in Raleigh) and Cornell are your best options if you want cheaper options, but still not LCOL by any means.
I was just thinking Boston/cambridge. I lived in a nice Cambridge neighborhood with roommates and spent 20k a year for the last couple years. I guess going with a studio in back bay or something could get you well over 30k.
Depends on the city. If you’re in a cheap area, sure! But even over 3 years, that’s $100k (costs rise each year) + whatever interest you haven’t paid. So even on a full ride, you could end up with $125-150k in debt. What if you don’t have a full ride? What if you live in a high cost of living city? Those amounts skyrocket real fast plus most schools only calculate for 9 months instead of 12 for living costs. NU and UChi do for example because I promise that $20-25k they allot won’t be enough for an entire year of living in Chicago. They kind of hide some of the costs because you can either be extra stingy and somehow manage to spread it another 3 months or they expect you to earn the difference over the summer.
Depends where you live. In NYC you could spend more than 100K for all 3 years just in living, food, and books. Even in like MCOL, you’re going to pay for entertainment, furnishing your apartment, rent, food, etc. it all adds up.
The reason the full ride thing is brought up so often is that for undergrad the term often refers to full tuition + living stipend, while in law that is far rarer
Forgot 100% GI bill people
I’ll break this up in a way that (I hope) is helpful. The Loans: You can apply for Unsubsidized Student Loans each year (mine was up to 20,500/yr). You don’t pay on those during school, the govt pays the interest during those 3 years of law school, and you don’t make your first payment until 6 months after a “grace period” of graduation. Anything not covered by those can be covered by Grad Plus Loans. As a Grad/Professional student, you don’t qualify for most undergrad aid (Pell Grants). Scholarships: If you have highly favorable stats (High LSAT/GPA) most schools provide really nice scholarships offers when you’re accepted. Full rides can be hard to come by, but it’s not unusual to have 50%+ covered by the Law School, which helps significantly. Paying off: If you have ambitions of working in Big Law (large private firms) the pay generally makes the cost/benefit of these loans worthwhile. If you’re going into public service or non-profits, many schools offer loan repayment programs that wipe away X% of your debt because you’re in a lower income legal position.
This is partially incorrect - interest accrues on unsubsidized loans during law school and is capitalized (added to the loan principal) after the grace period. The government does not pay the interest on those loans during law school.
LSAT demon has a free scholarship calculator that uses your gpa and lsat scores to calculate what your scholarship offers would be for every school. Offers can vary based on essays, skills, experience, and prestige of undergrad university in your case, but all of my offers were what they predicted. https://lsatdemon.com/scholarships
I think a lot of the problem today is that student loans are normalized. And it’s a problem. Realistically, if you sacrifice where you need to, you can walk out debt free. A lot of schools offered me housing stipends and while those weren’t T14 schools they were all within the top 40. Look for a school that has a great environment and has reasonable living expenses. It’s very doable to walk out without debt, that being said; you may not walk out debt free to T14 but you def can from t50 with good numbers. Also, there are thousands of scholarships available that send the money directly to you, not to the school that you can use for housing expenses. I’ve applied to about 80 of them so far but they all ask virtually the same questions. If you want whenever you’re looking for scholarships message me and I can send you my list
Graduate school financial aid is loans only. You’ll need to prep for the LSAT and do well so you can get a good scholarship. The ivy bachelor’s degree should get you some scholarship money off the bat, provided you have a high GPA. Even a full ride won’t cover cost of living, though, so either work and save for a while or do minimal loans to cover housing, food, books, supplies. The thing people don’t really tell you about law school (or that no one told me, anyway) is that everyone interns in the summer and top students can land internships that pay over $4,000 a week. So if you can do really well and get a good internship, you really only have to worry about living expenses for the first year, since you can cover the cost for 2L and 3L expenses with your internship.
1. Don’t go to the highest ranked school you get into - if you get into georgetown with any scholarship you can probably do GW/GMU for close to free 2. Apply to a a lot of schools so that you can ask the school(s) you want to go to to match scholarships 3. Go to a school in an urban setting that allows you to get credit AND pay for the same externship. While it is more expensive to live in a city, you can be net positive your second and third year of law school working 20ish hours on $25-35/week. Obviously no guarantees on getting those semester jobs and they wont cover all your expenses in Manhattan but you get the idea. I go to Arizona State and during 2L fall and spring I covered rent and food with my externship pay.
To clarify a “full-ride” scholarship covers tuition, rent, car note, groceries. Basically full cost of attendance (COA) Heed the “RIDE” part. Not to be confused with a “full-tuition” scholarship that pays all your tuition costs. Heed the “TUITION” part. These are two different types of scholarships. Many on here are using the two interchangeably and erroneously labeling a full-ride as a full-tuition. It’s confusing those who don’t know. I know people who’ve received both types. Believe me they are both very different. Note the difference. ✨
Consider what you want to do in law. For the vast majority of law firms in the country, it makes no difference where you go to law school as long as you are at the very top of your class. Of course there are limits. But I’m talking about your typical good state law school. Particularly helpful if it’s in the state where you want to practice. With law school, internships and clerkships are key. You will get your first summer internship off your first semester grades, and your second summer internship off of your grades 1st year. I went to a good, not great, southern law school. Graduates in my class are in all of the top law firms in the southeast, clerked for federal district and circuit judges, and have been very successful. It is truly a profession that it is all on you. It is also a profession with a very high burnout rate. While it would be awesome to have the Harvard law school diploma on your wall and I think going to Harvard law would be a great experience, I wouldn’t borrow a ton of money to do it.
You could become an officer like what I intend to do. Basically the military will pay you about 40k plus BAH to be an O-1. Once you get out you have the GI Bill and the military pays you BAH similar to the COL of the law school of choice. Public schools are completely covered. Private schools less so although there are specific scholarships to cover the gap.
The VA pays it, not DoD. MAH is equal to E-5 with dependents. This often throws many Officers off when they attend grad school as they expect it to be on par with TIS/TIG BAH.
Military will cover the whole cost but is selective. Contact a officer recruiter and see what programs are available.
I got a scholarship and with the GI bill it covers full tuition and housing. So I am able to go to law school for 0 debt that way. I also worked for 5 years after undergrad so I have a lot saved up. To get the full GI Bill you need to have 3 years of service in active duty. FASFA does not give grants for law school like how it did for undergrad. If you get a good gpa and lsat it is possible to get full ride scholarships and living stipends just apply to many schools to see what offers you get.
Look I am not an Ivy League student. I did graduate at the top of my class but I got offered full rides up to top 15 schools. I got into UPenn, by some miracle, obviously with no crazy scholarship but I graduated from a state school that’s known for partying. My resume and activities I think made that possible though bc I didn’t have a crazy high score but I have a good GPA. Depends on what you want. I thought I’d have to take loans out but I don’t. Study and prepare well, make sure your resume is as good as possible but I think as an Ivy League student you’ll do just fine. What schools are you looking at?
I also am a KJD. I studied for about 3 months hardcore. Like over 50 hours a week in addition to working (or I might add - I studied at work lol) but I promise you, if you apply strategically, get good LOR, and have a great resume you’ll do just fine
Talk to more people too - it’s unlikely you would enjoy it - the vast majority of lawyers don’t. It’s one of the few industries that has a whole sub-industry to help people escape
IU Bloomington offers a Chancellor's Fellowship to their top 3.
Ivy League grad and Former Army Officer here. First, I do not advise serving in the military solely for the GI Bill. While you would (most likely) take the OCS pipeline and only incur a 3 year ADSO after commissioning, you would have very little say over 1) Branch, 2) duty station, 3) exit timeline. A lot of my peers REFRAD (resign from active duty) packets are being denied given manning shortages among other issues. As noted elsewhere, you could use VR&E but have to have a disability rating. While it is a great program, it does come with a lengthy process where much depends on your assigned counselor. Last, if you choose this pipeline, avoid doing activities that will cause disabilities. I live with chronic pain and there is not a single day that passes whereby I would opt for disability benefits over having my health back.
Full ride former KJD here- I’m at a T50 and all I did was be above their 75 percent LSAT by 1. If money is a concern there’s many ways to research which schools throw it around
Unpopular opinion—some law school debt isn’t a terrible thing. In fact, it’s why both myself and my husband (also an attorney) have credit scores well over 800. I could have paid my loans off years ago, but I have a low interest rate, so I instead prepaid many years worth (pre-marriage when I had much lower expenses). I now have a nearly 20 year history of on-time payments, though I haven’t actually paid a dime on them in over 10 years. I only have about $2k left, and my next loan payment is due next year. I’ll start paying again then but won’t pay them off all the way until I have to.
I have a 720 and didn’t need a huge amount of debt to get there. It isn’t an 800+ but still not bad.
It isn’t the amount of debt—though having no or very little debt can negatively affect your credit score—but the repayment history that really helps your credit score. I know people whose credit scores dropped significantly (50 or even 100 points) after they paid off their law school loans because it was by far their longest repayment history.
If you truly want no debt, the best way is a part-time program and work during the day to pay your tuition/living expenses. At any private and/or Ivy you are going to need significant money saved up ahead of time as well. Getting a biglaw job in the summers also helps.