How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker? Forum

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Cobretti

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by Cobretti » Thu May 16, 2013 1:46 pm

rickgrimes69 wrote:
Desert Fox wrote:
jbagelboy wrote:At what point is the debt even manageable then? When we are pushing $280K sticker at top schools, would you say $200K is a "Good Decision" at T5? or $150K? When does it become a "great investment"? its such an astronomically huge sum of cash that it's very difficult for an 0L or 1L to conceive. I think a lot of law students who are loaning out this much money and don't have parental support actually just blindly hope the federal government will relieve their loan at some point. Thus, when your in law school and you see your debt pile increasing rapidly into six figures, I bet some kids decide to go on LRAP with the justification that their loans will be covered after 10 yrs.
There is no magic number. Different people will have different numbers based on their opprunity cost, willingness to accept risk, and other factors.

And nobody is talking about PAYE. If they fix the tax bomb, your 250k of debt isn't really 250k.
Yeah, if. They haven't fixed it for IBR, why would they for PAYE? Especially in this age of sequester?
It doesn't have to be fixed for another 20+ years until the first person would be affected by it. Looking that far out has its own risks, but current trends are by no means strong evidence that it won't be fixed.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by Rahviveh » Thu May 16, 2013 1:48 pm

Cobretti wrote:
rickgrimes69 wrote:
Desert Fox wrote:
jbagelboy wrote:At what point is the debt even manageable then? When we are pushing $280K sticker at top schools, would you say $200K is a "Good Decision" at T5? or $150K? When does it become a "great investment"? its such an astronomically huge sum of cash that it's very difficult for an 0L or 1L to conceive. I think a lot of law students who are loaning out this much money and don't have parental support actually just blindly hope the federal government will relieve their loan at some point. Thus, when your in law school and you see your debt pile increasing rapidly into six figures, I bet some kids decide to go on LRAP with the justification that their loans will be covered after 10 yrs.
There is no magic number. Different people will have different numbers based on their opprunity cost, willingness to accept risk, and other factors.

And nobody is talking about PAYE. If they fix the tax bomb, your 250k of debt isn't really 250k.
Yeah, if. They haven't fixed it for IBR, why would they for PAYE? Especially in this age of sequester?
It doesn't have to be fixed for another 20+ years until the first person would be affected by it. Looking that far out has its own risks, but current trends are by no means strong evidence that it won't be fixed.
Its more likely they fix it sooner than later. The reason IBR got expanded to PAYE was to make it more generous and encourage people to use it. The tax bomb is another factor scaring people away and kind of defeats the purpose of the program in many cases

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by 09042014 » Thu May 16, 2013 1:50 pm

rickgrimes69 wrote:
Desert Fox wrote:
jbagelboy wrote:At what point is the debt even manageable then? When we are pushing $280K sticker at top schools, would you say $200K is a "Good Decision" at T5? or $150K? When does it become a "great investment"? its such an astronomically huge sum of cash that it's very difficult for an 0L or 1L to conceive. I think a lot of law students who are loaning out this much money and don't have parental support actually just blindly hope the federal government will relieve their loan at some point. Thus, when your in law school and you see your debt pile increasing rapidly into six figures, I bet some kids decide to go on LRAP with the justification that their loans will be covered after 10 yrs.
There is no magic number. Different people will have different numbers based on their opprunity cost, willingness to accept risk, and other factors.

And nobody is talking about PAYE. If they fix the tax bomb, your 250k of debt isn't really 250k.
Yeah, if. They haven't fixed it for IBR, why would they for PAYE? Especially in this age of sequester?
Because a bill that does so just passed the House committee with bipartisan support. I wouldn't count on it until it's the law, but I think it's safe to discuss it as a real possibility.

Taxing loan forgiveness is retarded and totally against the purpose of the loan program. And Republicans are against Taxes, and democrats love millennial debt forgiveness.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by Cobretti » Thu May 16, 2013 1:53 pm

feralinfant wrote: +1. PAYE does a lot to mitigate the worst case scenario of striking out/getting pushed out way too early from biglaw.

And as far as manageable, I agree it will vary, but seriously is 50k post-tax/loan payments really just ABJECT poverty? I mean i realize you're making a commitment here to paying down debt for a while and it may impact decisions like buying a house and so on...but still.
Agree completely... not sure when 50k take home for a few years became such a sacrifice. Sticker at a top school for people who have done their homework is not an objectively bad decision.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by timbs4339 » Thu May 16, 2013 2:24 pm

Assuming you get biglaw or some other prestigious job like a clerkship or fed gov, it's not impossible. You just have to be willing to live significantly lower than your gross paycheck would suggest for a few years while working an extremely stressful job and entering a phase of your life where your expenses will balloon and ramen and sweatpants won't cut it.

For example, I know several biglaw associates who have multiple roommates. The idea that someone making 160+K would ever have roommates would just seem fantastical to the average man on the street, but that's what happens when you pay off 60K of debt a year.

But what is overblown is the notion that you will be taken outside and shot in the back of the head when you're done with biglaw. Yes, there are stories of people getting Lathamed and not being able to get back into a decently paying job, but from anecdotal information it appears that most people exit into good jobs even after year 2.

What I think will happen is that even if it might wokr out to be a net gain over 10, 20, 40 years, a lot of people just won't want the experience of living with that much debt even for a 5 year period of time. Or the negative consequences of striking out or getting laid off, however small the risk, will be so great that people will pursue other options.
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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by Rahviveh » Thu May 16, 2013 2:27 pm

timbs4339 wrote:Assuming you get biglaw or some other prestigious job like a clerkship or fed gov, it's not impossible. You just have to be willing to live significantly lower than your gross paycheck would suggest for a few years while working an extremely stressful job and entering a phase of your life where your expenses will balloon and ramen and sweatpants won't cut it.

For example, I know several biglaw associates who have multiple roommates. The idea that someone making 160+K would ever have roommates would just seem fantastical to the average man on the street, but that's what happens when you pay off 60K of debt a year.
Would you say this is mostly a New York thing? I would bet you can have a solid quality of life in a non NYC (and maybe not DC either) market without having roommates. The trick is getting a job there in the first place...

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by timbs4339 » Thu May 16, 2013 2:29 pm

ChampagnePapi wrote:
timbs4339 wrote:Assuming you get biglaw or some other prestigious job like a clerkship or fed gov, it's not impossible. You just have to be willing to live significantly lower than your gross paycheck would suggest for a few years while working an extremely stressful job and entering a phase of your life where your expenses will balloon and ramen and sweatpants won't cut it.

For example, I know several biglaw associates who have multiple roommates. The idea that someone making 160+K would ever have roommates would just seem fantastical to the average man on the street, but that's what happens when you pay off 60K of debt a year.
Would you say this is mostly a New York thing? I would bet you can have a solid quality of life in a non NYC (and maybe not DC either) market without having roommates. The trick is getting a job there in the first place...
Yeah. I went to CLS and most everyone I know is doing NYC biglaw, and there is definitely a sort of "experience" that for my friends without long-term S/Os involves a lifestyle not much different from when we were in LS except with way more work.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by y2zipper » Thu May 16, 2013 2:59 pm

Sticker is for people like me who have low GPA's and no money. If I were taking home 40-50k after loan debt, I'd be significantly better off than I am today. Plus I already deal with crappy hours.

I'd never encourage it if you can afford your own place to live and save money. In that case, you probably shouldn't go toward school at all without a full ride or a good price.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by feralinfant » Thu May 16, 2013 3:14 pm

y2zipper wrote:Sticker is for people like me who have low GPA's and no money. If I were taking home 40-50k after loan debt, I'd be significantly better off than I am today. Plus I already deal with crappy hours.

I'd never encourage it if you can afford your own place to live and save money. In that case, you probably shouldn't go toward school at all without a full ride or a good price.
yeah i think this is where it all just comes down to your current situation and your expectations.

I've been working a job where the hours are frequently awful (for example two years ago i finished off the year by working 2 100+ hour weeks in a row and while I got xmas day off i worked through xmas eve, NYE and NYD), the pay is almost nonexistent, most of the work is incredibly uninteresting with no promise of it getting any more sophisticated/challenging even years out and on top of it the upward trajectory is just a crapshoot at best.

law school at sticker and then aiming for biglaw seems like a great option for me.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by BeautifulSW » Thu May 16, 2013 3:37 pm

The joke used to be that law school is for bright people who can't do math. Nowadays, it's too painfully true to be a joke and true for a different reason. I'm sure the average law student can do arithmetic and figure the total cost of a student loan. Most probably have a rudimentary grasp of probability and statistics. Heck, a few can probably integrate nested trig functions.

But "doing math" also means accepting as true what the math is telling you and acting on that information. If more potential law students were like the OP, half of the law schools in the country would close.

Good luck with that.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by y2zipper » Thu May 16, 2013 3:43 pm

BeautifulSW wrote:The joke used to be that law school is for bright people who can't do math. Nowadays, it's too painfully true to be a joke and true for a different reason. I'm sure the average law student can do arithmetic and figure the total cost of a student loan. Most probably have a rudimentary grasp of probability and statistics. Heck, a few can probably integrate nested trig functions.

But "doing math" also means accepting as true what the math is telling you and acting on that information. If more potential law students were like the OP, half of the law schools in the country would close.

Good luck with that.
This I agree with. It's sorta like smoking. There's an original generation of smokers out there that got screwed, but now that you know that it gives you cancer, it's on you if you smoke and get it.

With law school, real math and employment data is out there. Find it before you go and decide whether it's worth the risk for you, but live with the consequences. Yeah, the recession screwed some people badly, but now it's on you if you go to bad school or don't understand what you're going into.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by toothbrush » Thu May 16, 2013 3:51 pm

y2zipper wrote:
BeautifulSW wrote:The joke used to be that law school is for bright people who can't do math. Nowadays, it's too painfully true to be a joke and true for a different reason. I'm sure the average law student can do arithmetic and figure the total cost of a student loan. Most probably have a rudimentary grasp of probability and statistics. Heck, a few can probably integrate nested trig functions.

But "doing math" also means accepting as true what the math is telling you and acting on that information. If more potential law students were like the OP, half of the law schools in the country would close.

Good luck with that.
This I agree with. It's sorta like smoking. There's an original generation of smokers out there that got screwed, but now that you know that it gives you cancer, it's on you if you smoke and get it.

With law school, real math and employment data is out there. Find it before you go and decide whether it's worth the risk for you, but live with the consequences. Yeah, the recession screwed some people badly, but now it's on you if you go to bad school or don't understand what you're going into.
People should be allowed to make stupid decisions. You're right - the data is out there. If people still matriculate at Cooley and end up indebted as if they went to HLS then that's on them. No one should pity them - however, it's also their prerogative.

The real dilemma for me with this whole law school thing is "what schools are worth sticker?" ITT someone said only HYS. Another guy said he's at a t14 non-HYS and he's confident he will be alright even paying sticker.

On top of that, I think people need to look at law school more as an investment. As Desert Fox (I believe he first said this) mentioned, it's the 30-40 year projectory that is useful. After 40 years of making 150k those law school loans are only 5% what you earned. Most boomers i'd say didn't start out wealthy. Those who are worked hard and long at first. Some still do. The return paid out in the end of their lives (45-55 yrs old) where they are now comfortable.

I'm not sure how I feel about the constant advice on TLS that looks only for the first 5, 10, hell - 15 years. Of course, there is no data for jobs in the legal field that far out - but .. I don't know.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by buddyt » Thu May 16, 2013 4:39 pm

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by NYstate » Thu May 16, 2013 4:45 pm

toothbrush wrote:
y2zipper wrote:
BeautifulSW wrote:The joke used to be that law school is for bright people who can't do math. Nowadays, it's too painfully true to be a joke and true for a different reason. I'm sure the average law student can do arithmetic and figure the total cost of a student loan. Most probably have a rudimentary grasp of probability and statistics. Heck, a few can probably integrate nested trig functions.

But "doing math" also means accepting as true what the math is telling you and acting on that information. If more potential law students were like the OP, half of the law schools in the country would close.

Good luck with that.
This I agree with. It's sorta like smoking. There's an original generation of smokers out there that got screwed, but now that you know that it gives you cancer, it's on you if you smoke and get it.

With law school, real math and employment data is out there. Find it before you go and decide whether it's worth the risk for you, but live with the consequences. Yeah, the recession screwed some people badly, but now it's on you if you go to bad school or don't understand what you're going into.
People should be allowed to make stupid decisions. You're right - the data is out there. If people still matriculate at Cooley and end up indebted as if they went to HLS then that's on them. No one should pity them - however, it's also their prerogative.

The real dilemma for me with this whole law school thing is "what schools are worth sticker?" ITT someone said only HYS. Another guy said he's at a t14 non-HYS and he's confident he will be alright even paying sticker.

On top of that, I think people need to look at law school more as an investment. As Desert Fox (I believe he first said this) mentioned, it's the 30-40 year projectory that is useful. After 40 years of making 150k those law school loans are only 5% what you earned. Most boomers i'd say didn't start out wealthy. Those who are worked hard and long at first. Some still do. The return paid out in the end of their lives (45-55 yrs old) where they are now comfortable.

I'm not sure how I feel about the constant advice on TLS that looks only for the first 5, 10, hell - 15 years. Of course, there is no data for jobs in the legal field that far out - but .. I don't know.
See I don't agree that enough people have the message yet. LST just started a couple of years ago. Schools are just now having to report employment data more honestly. And plenty of them still lie. Look at the school advertising thread.

I don't think there is a hard and fast rule on which schools are worth sticker. A great deal depends on if you want to do biglaw and think you can make it to biglaw. Not everyone who wants biglaw gets it, you cant assume 100% you will get a biglaw job. Or if you can get the limited public interest jobs that are out there.

I also wonder if people form backup plans for if they don't get biglaw or PI. How will they repay debt? People understand the bimodal salary of distribution in law. I think that people should consider their backup plan before they go, have some idea of how they will deal with the worst case scenario, or at least not simply consider the best case scenario.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by Rahviveh » Thu May 16, 2013 5:13 pm

NYstate wrote: I also wonder if people form backup plans for if they don't get biglaw or PI. How will they repay debt? People understand the bimodal salary of distribution in law. I think that people should consider their backup plan before they go, have some idea of how they will deal with the worst case scenario, or at least not simply consider the best case scenario.
There isn't really anything to deal with. If you strike out, don't get biglaw and you borrowed 120-150k or more, you will have to go on IBR.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by jbagelboy » Thu May 16, 2013 5:22 pm

BeautifulSW wrote:The joke used to be that law school is for bright people who can't do math. Nowadays, it's too painfully true to be a joke and true for a different reason. I'm sure the average law student can do arithmetic and figure the total cost of a student loan. Most probably have a rudimentary grasp of probability and statistics. Heck, a few can probably integrate nested trig functions.

But "doing math" also means accepting as true what the math is telling you and acting on that information. If more potential law students were like the OP, half of the law schools in the country would close.

Good luck with that.
I like what you did here

as an applied mathematics major who has taken substantial graduate analysis and PDE modeling coursework, I can testify that a few of us are significantly more capable than the bolded :P

Yet as you stated, understanding raw mathematical principles and truly coping with their manifestations are different stories entirely. Debt will be the end of all of us.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by NYstate » Thu May 16, 2013 5:26 pm

ChampagnePapi wrote:
NYstate wrote: I also wonder if people form backup plans for if they don't get biglaw or PI. How will they repay debt? People understand the bimodal salary of distribution in law. I think that people should consider their backup plan before they go, have some idea of how they will deal with the worst case scenario, or at least not simply consider the best case scenario.
There isn't really anything to deal with. If you strike out, don't get biglaw and you borrowed 120-150k or more, you will have to go on IBR.
Yes, but doing what? What job will you do? Just curious as to what people think they will be doing after law school if they don't get the job they need. Does everyone assume they will be practicing law somewhere, somehow? Or will they be doing something else?

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by Rahviveh » Thu May 16, 2013 5:45 pm

NYstate wrote:
ChampagnePapi wrote:
NYstate wrote: I also wonder if people form backup plans for if they don't get biglaw or PI. How will they repay debt? People understand the bimodal salary of distribution in law. I think that people should consider their backup plan before they go, have some idea of how they will deal with the worst case scenario, or at least not simply consider the best case scenario.
There isn't really anything to deal with. If you strike out, don't get biglaw and you borrowed 120-150k or more, you will have to go on IBR.
Yes, but doing what? What job will you do? Just curious as to what people think they will be doing after law school if they don't get the job they need. Does everyone assume they will be practicing law somewhere, somehow? Or will they be doing something else?
There isn't enough data to answer that specifically. At a T14 school you will probably be practicing law, but not making much and possibly doing shitlaw.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by y2zipper » Thu May 16, 2013 5:59 pm

NYstate wrote:
ChampagnePapi wrote:
NYstate wrote: I also wonder if people form backup plans for if they don't get biglaw or PI. How will they repay debt? People understand the bimodal salary of distribution in law. I think that people should consider their backup plan before they go, have some idea of how they will deal with the worst case scenario, or at least not simply consider the best case scenario.
There isn't really anything to deal with. If you strike out, don't get biglaw and you borrowed 120-150k or more, you will have to go on IBR.
Yes, but doing what? What job will you do? Just curious as to what people think they will be doing after law school if they don't get the job they need. Does everyone assume they will be practicing law somewhere, somehow? Or will they be doing something else?
The backup plan is that you wait tables or some other tipped position where your employer doesn't report tips to the IRS. That way you go on IBR at minimum wage and make an income you can live on. :-)

In all seriousness, yeah there's no real backup plan if you strike out, but I think there are places where sticker is worth it.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by NYstate » Fri May 17, 2013 1:08 pm

y2zipper wrote:
NYstate wrote:
ChampagnePapi wrote:
NYstate wrote: I also wonder if people form backup plans for if they don't get biglaw or PI. How will they repay debt? People understand the bimodal salary of distribution in law. I think that people should consider their backup plan before they go, have some idea of how they will deal with the worst case scenario, or at least not simply consider the best case scenario.
There isn't really anything to deal with. If you strike out, don't get biglaw and you borrowed 120-150k or more, you will have to go on IBR.
Yes, but doing what? What job will you do? Just curious as to what people think they will be doing after law school if they don't get the job they need. Does everyone assume they will be practicing law somewhere, somehow? Or will they be doing something else?
The backup plan is that you wait tables or some other tipped position where your employer doesn't report tips to the IRS. That way you go on IBR at minimum wage and make an income you can live on. :-)

In all seriousness, yeah there's no real backup plan if you strike out, but I think there are places where sticker is worth it.
Yes, I guess this is where the phrase big law or bust comes from. With no prior career to return to, where do people who strike out end up? If you are going to law school to escape from a place that had no jobs, what happens when law falls through and you are more than $200,000 in debt? I think people should think through the worst case and what they will do, but I don't see many 0Ls willing to do that. If you end up just getting a job and going on IBR, then what was the point of law school?. The problem is that all you can do is hedge your bets as no one can predict how they will do in law school.

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by sinfiery » Fri May 17, 2013 3:32 pm

PAYE! :D

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by BitterSplitter » Sun May 19, 2013 6:59 pm

.
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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by californiauser » Sun May 19, 2013 7:08 pm

As others have said, it doesn't seem to matter if you have 130, 185, or even 300 thousand dollars worth of debt if you can utilize PAYE.

You can still use it in biglaw, correct?

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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by BitterSplitter » Sun May 19, 2013 7:37 pm

.
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Re: How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker?

Post by Tiago Splitter » Sun May 19, 2013 7:49 pm

californiauser wrote:As others have said, it doesn't seem to matter if you have 130, 185, or even 300 thousand dollars worth of debt if you can utilize PAYE.

You can still use it in biglaw, correct?
You can't use it if your loan payments under the 10 year plan would be less than your payments under PAYE. So someone in BigLaw who has a relatively small balance (like 130k) won't be eligible.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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