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I'm a 0L and a TLS lurker. I've seen this question broached a few times but haven't seen it addressed in depth before. (Please forgive me if I've completely missed it and am making a redundant post.)

If a prospective law student knows he's going to enroll in IBR/PAYE and/or his school's LRAP program, then what are the drawbacks of paying a school's sticker price? Let's assume we're talking about T20 here.

As I see it, there are a couple obvious drawbacks from the get-go:
1) You blow it during 1L, or you blow it at OCI, screwing your employment chances. Even if you somehow manage to get an IBR/PAYE-eligible job after graduating, you've wasted three years of your life and now your income will be garnished for the next quarter-century.
2) If you do get a job after graduating, you have to deal with the psychological stress of having a $300,000 debt for 10-25 years.
3) There's the possibility that the LRAP program won't exist 10 years after you graduate. Hell, sequestration seemed impossible a couple years ago, and look what happened.

I keep hearing the opinion from current law students that sticker price is worth it for the T20 if you plan on enrolling in IBR/PAYE/LRAP. This seems sketchy as hell to me, so I'm looking for some TLS wisdom.

If it helps, my stats are 3.3 GPA, 168 (taken once), non-URM, accepted to GULC, I want to do some form of PI work (haven't figured out what yet), no geographical ties.

Uh, are all the negatives you mentioned not enough for you to conclude its a bad idea?

You dont even know what kind of PI work you want

eggyolk wrote:I'm a 0L and a TLS lurker. I've seen this question broached a few times but haven't seen it addressed in depth before. (Please forgive me if I've completely missed it and am making a redundant post.)

If a prospective law student knows he's going to enroll in IBR/PAYE and/or his school's LRAP program, then what are the drawbacks of paying a school's sticker price? Let's assume we're talking about T20 here.

As I see it, there are a couple obvious drawbacks from the get-go:
1) You blow it during 1L, or you blow it at OCI, screwing your employment chances. Even if you somehow manage to get an IBR/PAYE-eligible job after graduating, you've wasted three years of your life and now your income will be garnished for the next quarter-century.
2) If you do get a job after graduating, you have to deal with the psychological stress of having a $300,000 debt for 10-25 years.
3) There's the possibility that the LRAP program won't exist 10 years after you graduate. Hell, sequestration seemed impossible a couple years ago, and look what happened.

I keep hearing the opinion from current law students that sticker price is worth it for the T20 if you plan on enrolling in IBR/PAYE/LRAP. This seems sketchy as hell to me, so I'm looking for some TLS wisdom.

If it helps, my stats are 3.3 GPA, 168 (taken once), non-URM, accepted to GULC, I want to do some form of PI work (haven't figured out what yet), no geographical ties.

I mean the real risk is that you don't get a job that qualifies, or you do but you can't leave for 10 years unless you find something else that qualifies. GULC only covers the first $75,000 which is a great salary if you have no loans, but if you're trying to stay in DC it's going to be quite expensive to live there + nearly impossible to accumulate savings to go towards a house, family, retirement, etc.

eggyolk wrote: 1) You blow it during 1L, or you blow it at OCI, screwing your employment chances. Even if you somehow manage to get an IBR/PAYE-eligible job after graduating, you've wasted three years of your life and now your income will be garnished for the next quarter-century.

The bolded is important. I'm not sure who's telling you that T20 at sticker is a good idea but it's not. Maybe if people are comparing it to full-ride at a TTT or something, but objectively it's very risky. It could end up working out sure but only you can decide if you want to take that risk.

IMO the real danger is the scarcity of PI jobs, and the fact that the salary is typically so low. This is not necessarily true for government jobs, but those are also really hard to get.

Even if you have LRAP to help pay your share of your loans until PSLF kicks in (FYI LRAP will probably always exist, but PSLF may not in its current form), you could still be making $30,000/yr., which is significantly less than what corporate paralegals make. None of that $30K goes to loans, but you will be really poor.

Nobody should pay sticker if they want to do PI, unless they're independently wealthy or willing to go big law for a few years to pay down debt.

I think you're overlooking the very real possibility that you don't even particularly blow it 1L or at OCI and still end up unable to land a IBR/PAYE-eligible job. It does happen. So I'm not sure you can reliably "know" that you'll be making use of either.

The circumstances under which I would advise paying sticker for a T20, or any school, are severely limited.

Remember that most schools (GULC included) require your PI job to be JD preferred or required. So a generic PI job won't cut it if you're not in a legal capacity.

What I think sometimes gets lost in these LRAP debates is that the question is usually regarding paying sticker and then using LRAP. But, you can do PSLF for any amount. If you're 95% confident that you only want to do PI work, then maximize your scholarship and then you can do LRAP/PSLF for the much smaller loan amounts you need to take out. In this case, if by 3L you struck out with PI, then you have a small amount of loans to pay off and you can probably do it without hating your life. If by 3L you have that PI job lined up then LRAP away. If you quit PI in year 6, the loans you have to pay back is much much smaller than if you had gone at sticker.

eggyolk wrote: If a person knows he's going to visit the hospital anyway, then what are the drawbacks of sticking his genitals into a high-speed blender?

As I see it, there are a couple obvious drawbacks from the get-go:
1) You blow your junk all to hell, screwing your procreation chances. Even if you somehow manage to get surgery after the fact, you've wasted a lot of money on hospital bills and your package is gonna look hella weird.
2) If you do survive the massive blood loss, you have to deal with the psychological stress of having a Frankenstein's Monster weiner.
3) There's the possibility that genital transplants won't be available after you do the deed.

I keep hearing the opinion from mouth-breathing idiots that genital-blendering is worth it for the top tier blenders. This seems sketchy as hell to me, so I'm looking for some wisdom from snarky assholes whose general take on this situation is extremely well recorded.

If it helps, my stats are 8+ uncut, non-URM, and looking at Osterizer or Black&Decker for blenders

FTFY

Thanks all. I needed somebody to bust my balls over this. Excellent points about scarcity of PI and IBR eligible jobs, pointlessness of sticker price for PI track, etc.

eggyolk wrote:Thanks all. I needed somebody to bust my balls over this. Excellent points about scarcity of PI and IBR eligible jobs, pointlessness of sticker price for PI track, etc.

It's what we're here for. Best of luck to you, whatever you decide to do.

I would add that if the T14 you'd be paying sticker at is Yale, then go to Yale. Their LRAP is absurdly good. One could also maybe make an argument for HLS and SLS. But anything below that is a no.

When you commit to going to law school with $$$, you neither have to enjoy it or excel at it. When you commit to going to law school with $, you have to excel at it and enjoy it enough to pay off minor debt. When you go without any money, you have to be great at it and love it (or otherwise be a miserable slave), because it comprises your foreseeable future.

I think the anti-sticker sentiment on TLS is often read as "law school is not worth sticker" but in fact the danger of sticker is that you may not fall into the final group that actually enjoys that law. I honestly believe that some 0Ls can and do know that they love the law and are committed (maybe because of some pre-L W/E). For those types of people, I don't think paying sticker is always a bad decision.

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ILoveYou wrote:

eggyolk wrote:Thanks all. I needed somebody to bust my balls over this. Excellent points about scarcity of PI and IBR eligible jobs, pointlessness of sticker price for PI track, etc.

It's what we're here for. Best of luck to you, whatever you decide to do.

This. Kidding aside, we hate because we love.

I'd be most worried about a combination of 2) and 3). If you get debtfucked, you get seriously debtfucked.