This is from Harvard's website. I assume most other schools are the same:GinaTheresa wrote:Let's say I had a pretty good job until leaving to go to law school in summer 2011, and I'm using all of my savings to pay a portion of L1 (and loans for the rest), then will I be eligible for need-based aid for L2 and L3? Isn't this the situation for pretty much every non-wealthy law student?
Many students report decreases in assets from year to year which exceed the 33% that we normally assess as part of the expected student contribution. In some cases, this is due to a decision made on the part of the student to utilize more than the expected 33% in a given year in order to delay the need to borrow additional unsubsidized loan funds, effectively saving on overall interest costs. While this is a perfectly acceptable decision, and a logical one from the perspective of reducing the total amount of loan interest paid, it does not influence the way we assess a student's contribution from assets. We will still calculate asset contribution for each year in law school (33% of the original amount of assets reported on the first application for aid plus any subsequent reported asset increase). Students considering this approach are urged to read LIPP Implications of Asset Use as part of their budgeting and long-term strategy.
