Military/Academia LRAP Questions Forum

[El_Gallo]

I am a 0L looking into LRAP programs and considering different career paths. I am considering schools like Columbia, NYU, and Duke. My apologies if these questions are naive or have already been answered multiple times.

1) JAG attorneys receive a base pay of about 45K. In addition, they receive small, non-taxable, allowances for housing and food. Do schools' LRAP programs take these allowances into account when determining graduates' necessary loan repayment contributions?

2) I realize that getting into legal academia is extremely difficult. However, if a graduate is able to do it, would this type of employment be allowed under most schools' LRAPs if the graduate does not exceed the salary cap? Does it matter if the school he/she is teaching at is a private or public institution?

[El_Gallo]

bump

[Jeffro]

I can't say for sure about either scenario, but I would think that your housing (BAH) and food (BAS) allowances would be calculated into your overall income and therefore affect your expected contribution under a LRAP.

As you mentioned, these stipends are non-taxable, but they are not necessarily "small." For simplicity sake, assuming you were a Captain (O-3), stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC (zip code 28307), and did not have any dependents, you would be making $1140/month BAH and $223.04/month BAS. This equates to an extra $16,356.48 each year, which cannot be taxed. A civilian job would just pay such cost of living adjustments directly to you as salary, but the military just breaks it down into these different payments. To me, this equates your base pay of $45k/annually to actually being somewhere in the neighborhood of $61k/annually, pre-taxes. Your BAH would also vary depending on where you live, as the rates are fixed to zip code.

Again I do not know for sure, but that seems to be a large enough amount of extra money that a repayment program would not only expect you to report it, but also knows that a JAG officer should be reporting it.

Sources
BAH: https://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/bahCalc.cfm
BAS: --LinkRemoved--

[legalmindedfella]

It's also worth looking into whether there might be loan repayment help from the institutions you'd be trying to work for, in addition to LRAP support.