Npret wrote:LurkerTurnedMember wrote:I don't mean to be rude but why would you ever put yourself in a situation where you're hoping on some event 10 years down the road while in the mean time you're digging yourself in a bigger hole every day as interest accrues? In 10 years you'll likely be in your mid 30s to 40. You'll likely have kids and a family established and will need money for that. A lot of it. There's no way I'd take a chance that 10 years from now someone says, "Actually, we decided to get rid of that program and you gotta pay for everything." I don't care if it's just 1%, I'm not taking it. Just having those loans over me would stress me out for 10 years. Plus there are very specific rules on which payments count. If you pay above the minimum required and pay ahead, for example, the months where you don't need to pay anything since you're ahead won't count even if you make payments that month (my understanding of it but check me if I'm wrong). And if you keep paying ahead you could pay for years and not have any of it count cause you didn't read the fine print. The same goes for all the other requirements about what job qualifies, how long you gotta work there, etc. This whole thing seems like an insurance policy for an inevitable event and request for coverage, where after 10 years (or more if you haven't paid consistently) you gotta hope the "insurance company" comes through and doesn't unilaterally abolish the policy (which I'm not sure how that would even be legal) or finds some small nit picky thing to deny coverage. No thanks. Go big law for two years, pay it off asap. Then do what you want.
Because not everyone wants to do that? Why is that hard to understand? Top law schools have had their own loan repayment programs for public service long before PSLF came into existence.
Getting a biglaw job with a resume filled with public interest is not simple.
It's also not so easy to just go from biglaw into the type of not for profit work that people are doing now.
I understand that. In fact, a lot of people doing biglaw don't wanna do biglaw. They're only doing it to pay off loans and then move on to something else. My point wasn't that "biglaw is awesome, you should do it." My point was that 100k+ of loans that'll, I think, substantially grow over 10 years while only minimum payments are paid is a serious debt to have. And to take a risk that after 10 years you weren't in the right job for two years, or you didn't pay the right amount at the right time for these x number of months, or the program has been changed, etc, so you don't qualify for loan forgiveness is a serious decision to make that'll leave whoever makes it at an uncomfortably vulnerable position, especially if you have a family or other obligations on your table. What if he changes his mind 5 years in and doesn't want to do what is deemed a covered type of employment? What if he wants to get out of law for good? What if [enter life event like medical emergency or kids needing school money] happens and his public interest gigs aren't cutting it? Or he loses his public interest job and has to look for another qualifying one for months and those months then extend the 10 year period? All of this stuff has to be taken into considration. And on the whole, given the political climate, I think it would be better to at least consider biglaw for a year or two as an option.
With respect to landing a biglaw job, it's doable even with a pub interest background. And I'm sure "I had loans and a family to think of" is a good enough reason for a public interest interviewer when goin from biglaw to pub interest.