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Financial Aid for Law School
Resources for Students Considering Graduate and Professional School
Financial Aid Timetable
Words of Wisdom on Financing Your Legal Education
Financial Planning Links
Financial Aid Links for Minority & Disadvantaged Students
Financial Aid Links for International Students
Paying for Law School
Financial Aid Timetable
| Month |
Student Responsibility |
Financial Aid Office |
| OCTOBER |
FILE ADMISSION APPLICATION |
RECRUITMENT ACTIVITIES/SCHOLARSHIP GOALS |
| NOVEMBER |
FILE INSTITUTIONAL NEED ANALYSIS FORMS |
PLANNING FOR COMING YEAR, SCHOLARSHIP NOTIFICATION, COMPUTER UPDATES, ADMISSIONS DECISIONS START |
| DECEMBER |
EXAMS |
FINISH COMPUTER SYSTEM ENHANCEMENTS |
| JANUARY |
FILE FAFSA |
RUN PACKAGING SIMULATIONS |
| FEBRUARY |
REVIEW STATUS OF ADMISSION AND FINANCIAL AID APPLICATIONS |
BEGIN AWARD CYCLE |
| MARCH |
DECISION TIME |
CONTINUE AWARD CYCLE, STUDY ABROAD APPLICATIONS |
| APRIL/MAY |
BEGIN SERIOUS FINANCIAL PLANNING, EVALUATE LOAN SOURCES, EXIT INTERVIEWS |
WORK WITH NEW ADMITS, PACKAGE RETURNING STUDENTS, EXIT INTERVIEWS, SUMMER SESSION FIN. AID |
| JUNE |
FILE LOAN APPS, SUMMER CLASSES |
LOAN PROCESSING BEGINS |
| JULY |
SUMMER JOB |
BEGIN BILLING SYCLE, LOAN PROCESSING |
| AUGUST |
REPORT TO SCHOOL, ORIENTATION |
PREPARE REFUND CHECKS, SETTLE ACCOUNTS |
| SEPTEMBER |
CLASSES BEGIN |
PROBLEM RESOLUTION |
Words of Wisdom on Financing Your Legal Education
An essential part of planning for law school must include a consideration of its cost. Unless you are independently wealthy, subsidized by your family, or have managed to work and save significant money, chances are you will graduate from law school with sizeable debt. The average graduate owes $71,200+ upon receiving a J.D. One adds to that amount the debt accumulated for undergraduate education. Thus the size of one's student debt can have a significant impact upon one's choice of legal career ($71,200 translates to roughly $800.00/ month for ten years.) The rule of thumb is that for every $10,000 borrowed, one pays $150 in monthly payments.
What can you do about this? Most importantly, you must become informed before you enroll about costs and financial aid. Every law school creates a COA (Cost of Attendance) or yearly budget. Find out what the COA is for the law schools to which you have been accepted. COA includes:
•Tuition
•Room and Board
•Insurance
•Transportation
•Books
•Living Expenses
•Misc.
The average COA for private schools is $35,000 and for public schools is $24,000.
Be sure that your credit is good (i.e. you don't have huge credit card bills that you have not been paying off regularly.). If the former is the case the government will provide you yearly with up to $8,500 in a subsidized Stafford loan (government pays interest while you are in school) and up to $10,000 in an unsubsidized loan (interest accrues over the entire life of the loan.)
If you plan to attend a private school, then you will still need to come up with an additional $16,500 (on average) for the rest of your yearly expenses. Students frequently turn to private loans for that money, especially since law schools strongly discourage you from working during your first year. Private loans are available from a number of different lenders. (See list of private loan programs below.) It is best to choose one lender after comparison shopping and stay with the same one to make repayment and renegotiation easier. Borrow ONLY WHAT YOU ABSOLUTELY need to live frugally, not to live in style.
Another way to help fund your costs while in law school is through scholarships. You can find A LOT OF INFORMATION on the subject if you go to: www.finaid.org. By doing a thorough web search you may be able to apply for small grants that would help you defray your costs, e.g. $1000 could cover books, etc. What you don't want to do is pay money to get information on scholarships - because you can do just as well yourself with your own search.
Law schools themselves, cognizant of the increasingly daunting costs of a legal education, are beginning to respond by providing more merit based grants. Although this type of aid has been, until recently, most typically available from the less competitive schools, even some of the top schools are starting to do this. Thus, you should find out about what scholarships are available from the schools where you are applying. This information may also factor into your final decision about where you choose to go to school (as may cost of living expenses in the location of the law school.) It is important to stay on top of all the important deadlines for submitting financial aid forms. (See "Financial Aid Timetable" linked on our web page "Considering Graduate or Professional School" then "Law School".)
If you are thinking that you would like to go into public interest law, which is traditionally a low paying career track, law schools sometimes provide scholarships if you agree to work for a certain number of years in public interest upon graduation. These are frequently highly competitive, however, and not to be counted on. Law schools also often have loan forgiveness programs for public interest law. You should examine the latter carefully, however, since these can come with conditions that may be difficult to meet, or they may not be very generous. Find out in specific terms what they involve.
Probably the best way to come out ahead on your budgeting for law school is to work for a year or two before going to school in order to save up some money for living expenses. Once in law school, you should plan to live frugally, even if you are not in the habit of doing so. When you have completed your education, you will have more options in your choice of jobs, the less burdened you are by debt. It is essential to keep incidental expenses down because small expenses add up, e.g. a $5.00 lunch daily is $25.00 per week or $100.00 per month.
Some tips to keeping down your expenses:
•Don't get a car if at all possible (thus avoiding maintenance and insurance costs.)
•Don't eat out regularly and learn to cook simple meals.
•Don't buy new clothes but frequent second hand stores where you can get designer labels for a fraction of the cost of regular stores.
•If you do buy clothes, make sure they are wash and wear so you keep down your dry cleaning expenses.
•Buy just one suit for interviews, etc.
•Don't get a cell phone.
•Live with as many people as you can without going crazy.
SOME PRIVATE LOAN PROGRAMS:
LAW ACCESS
1-800-282-1550
www.accessgroup.org
CITIASSIST
1-800-745-5473
www.citibank.com/student
NELLIE MAE/NYU
1-888-NYU-9932
www.nelliemae.org
LAWLOANS PREMIER LOAN
1-800-984-0190
www.salliemae.com
TERI
1-800-255-8374
www.teri.org
T.H.E. LOAN
1-888-THE-3095
www.northstar.org
LAW ACHIEVER
1-800-KEY-LEND
www.keybank.com/educate
EDUCAID
1-800-255-8374
www.educaid.com
FLEET 1ST
1-888-FLEET-GO
www.fleet.com
Financial Planning Links
Access Group
Campus Compact--Information on Loan Forgiveness
Cleo Scholars- for Students from Underrepresented Backgrounds
College Board
College Zine (KAPLAN)
Council On Legal Education Opportunity
Direct Loans
FAFSA on the Web
FastWeb
Financial Aid Information Page
*NASFAA
NCHELP
Nellie Mae
Sallie Mae
US News and World Report
Financial Aid Links for Minority & Disadvantaged Students
MCCA Lloyd M. Johnson, Jr. Scholarship Program
The Minority Corporate Counsel Association announced a new scholarship program for law school students. The new Lloyd M. Johnson Jr. scholarships will be administered by the United Negro College Fund. Ten scholarships of $10,000 will be awarded each year to first-year law students who are then eligible to renew the scholarships for their second and third years of law school. Students of all races are eligible for the scholarships but they must be financially in need and have an interest in corporate law and diversity in the legal profession. Corporations that have contributed to the scholarship fund include Abbott Laboratories, Boeing, DuPont, Marriott, and Microsoft. Lloyd M. Johnson Jr. is the founder of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association and until recently served as chair of its board of directors.
Council on Legal Education Opportunity
CLEO, the Council on Legal Education Opportunity, is a non-profit project of the American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education, dedicated to diversifying the legal profession by expanding legal education opportunities for members of under represented groups. For the past five years, the Committee on Diversity, through the Section of Business Law, has awarded four to five $1,000 scholarships annually to CLEO Fellow Scholars. CLEO Fellow Scholars are selected based on an essay competition to attend the Section of Business Law Spring Meeting. The CLEO Fellow Scholar must be a first or second year law student that participated in a CLEO pre-law summer institute program or a pre-law weekend program, is a member of the ABA Law Student Division and is interested in pursuing a career in business law. It is the hope that upon graduation, the CLEO Fellow Scholars will remain actively involved in the Section of Business Law.
ABA Legal Opportunity Scholarship Fund
The ABA Legal Opportunity Scholarship Fund currently is expected to award $5,000 of financial assistance annually per student. An award made to an entering freshman may be renewable for each year, resulting in financial assistance totaling $15,000 during, his or her three years of law school. Although the recipient will need to apply for the scholarship in his or her second and third year, the expectation is that the scholarship will be renewed for all three years. Students interested in the ABA Legal Opportunity Scholarships will submit an application providing information relating to their education, community service and need for financial assistance. Before receiving scholarship funds, recipients will be required to demonstrate their acceptance at an ABA-accredited law school.
Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund
The Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund (TMSF) was established in 1987 to carry on Justice Marshall's legacy of equal access to higher education by supporting exceptional merit scholars attending America's Public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The Office for the Advancement of Public Black Colleges (OAPBC) created TMSF with Justice Marshall's support. [OAPBC is an information and advocacy unit of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) in cooperation with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.] Today, 47 schools are members of the TMSF, including many of the nation's largest and most prestigious institutions of higher education.
Financial Aid Links for International Students
Since 1979 the number of foreign students studying in the U.S. has doubled – 11% of the 1.7 million graduate students in this country are foreign. The top ten countries sending students here are: China, India, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Canada, Japan, Turkey, Germany and Mexico. The leading fields of study are engineering, business and management, physical and life sciences, math and computer sciences, and social sciences.
Funding for most international graduate students comes from the U.S. college or university and from personal and family sources. Most private financial aid companies will lend money to international students if they have either an American co-signer or good credit.
Because the backbone of financial aid graduate programs is the Stafford Loan program, which is available only to U.S. citizens, international students without personal resources often need to find multiple sources of funding for their graduate education.
If you are planning graduate or professional study in the U.S. and need information on funding you may find it helpful to check out the following sites.
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International
American Association of University Women (AAUW)
GATE Student Loan Program
Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority
The Smart Student Guide to Studying in the USA
Association of International Educators (NAFSA)
ASIA-HELP: interest free loans for students from Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Must apply through the Office of International Programs
GMsupplier.net (Citibank School Loans)
Source of financial information for international students
Advice on choosing, financing and supporting education for British students in the U.K. and abroad
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