LRAP's Compared Forum

[00TREX00]

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[badfish]

Can a mod please sticky this thread?

[doyleoil]

penn has been added

(thanks for the support bf)

[doyleoil]

Columbia Law School always attempts to ensure that, to the extent possible, changes in the coverage and policies of the Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) do not prejudice the interests of graduates who made fundamental decisions in reliance on the basic features of the Program at the time they entered the Law School. Applicants should be aware that other factors, including fiscal constraints and the changing needs of the legal community, also will be considered in determining the design and administration of the Program over the years. Eligibility and the extent of support available under the Program will be determined at the time a graduate applies to the Program, in accordance with the rules and policies then applicable.

The website's way of saying, "We'll try to not to screw you, but if things get really bad, we just might! "

thanks for finding this trex - i would imagine that the schools will try to support these things as much as possible, but that they would probably all provide the kind of caveat columbia did, in case they find themselves up a financial creek - that's another question that's probably worth asking before committing

[doyleoil]

uva is up

[takingmytime]

Does anyone know how additional loan payments are treated? For example, if I have a 1.5k loan payment due every month, of which, according to the LRAP program I pay $500, but I have the money to pay $1000 on a consistent basis, what happens? Does this extra payment count against me?

[doyleoil]

Does anyone know how additional loan payments are treated? For example, if I have a 1.5k loan payment due every month, of which, according to the LRAP program I pay $500, but I have the money to pay $1000 on a consistent basis, what happens? Does this extra payment count against me?

yes, i'm pretty sure this counts against you under lrap - you can only pay the $500 that you're supposed to pay, with lrap benefits picking up the rest, under a 10-year scheduled repayment (for most of the programs) - if you pay more than that, you forfeit the lrap benefits you received (and probably either have to pay them back to the school "straight-up" or with interest added) - you can't really "get ahead" in payments under any lrap plan

[doyleoil]

Michigan is now up, which rounds out the top ten.

What I'm going to do next is run the hypotheticals under federal IBR (http://www.finaid.org/loans/ibr.phtml), show how most of the take-home income figures come out better under IBR, then talk about some of the drawbacks to IBR and how it might compare with LRAP programs (to make a long story short, I've already concluded that only Yale and Stanford, and possibly NYU depending on how home equity works, are preferable to IBR, and then only in certain circumstances). IBR is almost always superior for maxing out your take-home income, with the caveats I'll list.

[showNprove]

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[doyleoil]

For UVA, the LRAP is for 10 years, but don't a lot of people take out loans on longer repayment plans? If I take out GradPlus loans with, say, a 20 year repayment plan, would that mean I would have to pay the last ten years on my own? Or would I be able to/have to restructure that down to ten years to be completely covered?

you need to check with uva about that - i think some kind of restructuring is possible under some of the plans (at least i recall seeing extra info about it in several of the schools' literature), but i also know that a lot of the policies are very explicit that lrap will either cover payments under a 10-year plan or actual payments, whichever is less - long story short if you do some kind of consolidation loan after you graduate, and you plan to use lrap, i'm guessing you probably need to set it up as a 10-year repayment to receive the full benefit of almost any lrap

[jujubean]

I know it's been said, but this thread is amazing! Thanks so much for sharing all of your research with everyone doyleoil.

[dingman08]

Wow Doyleoil, thanks for starting this thread, amazingly useful!! if only one of these schools would accept me, then i'm set...

[Skadden Stairs]

This probably isn't useful to anyone but me, but...
a Senate LA makes around $50,000-70,000
a House LA makes around $35,000-65,000 (shit Cantor's LAs don't even break $40,000)
a House LD makes around $65,000-90,000
a House Leg counsel makes around $55,000
and most of the lawyers for the house and senate judiciaries are $80,000-the low 6 figures

I'm trying to configure my LRAP around the only LRAP-qualifying employment I'd consider.

[doyleoil]

^^ interesting you say that lex - for me, i wasn't so much targetting a type of employment - but definitely embedded in all of this is my attempt to see what lrap's (and what starting gross income levels) will give me a take-home amount that i'm comfortable with - there's a baseline i'm not too interested in going below (especially since i hate ramen)

[Skadden Stairs]

Yeah, the only LRAP-qualifying work I'd consider would be on the Hill, especially since such work seems to be much more enjoyable in your twenties. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to have enough gold stars upon graduation to be Ron Klain...

[alleycat3]

Okay, I tried one. But someone should make sure my math is right!

Northwestern (Public Service Fellowship Program)

A) Pertinent data about LRAP’s:
a) attorneys or managers in any government or non-profit agency
b) Loans are made at the beginning of a one-year period and forgiven if qualifying employment and all conditions are met for that same one-year period. Graduates may participate in the program for up to ten years.
c) The amount of assistance is based on the gross income and the amount of indebtedness. The calculations adjust the participant’s income downward to reflect undergrad loans and a dependant allowance of $5,000 per child.
d) Income Level (AGI) / % of Income Applicant is Expected to Contribute (per year)
$0-$30,000 / 0%
$30,001-$40,000 / 6%
$40,001-$50,000 / 7%
$50,001-$60,000 / 8%
e) Yearly cap presently $13,000.
f) COA not mentioned.
g) The types of loans covered at not mentioned on the website.
h) Yes, see (c).

B) Hypotheticals (What is my take-home income under this plan?)
a) 60,000 salary
i. Expected law school loan contribution
1. 60,000 - 5,000 = 55,000
2. 8% of 55,000 = 4,400
3. 4,400 expected contribution

ii. Take-home income
1. 60,000 * .3 = 18,000
2. 60 – 5 – 18 – 4.4 = $32,600
3. Take-home income $32,600

Unless you have kids or a lot of undergrad debt, it looks like you will phase out of NU’s LRAP program pretty quickly (the hypothetical of a $75,000 salary, for example, would not get refunded in doyle's situation, so I stopped at $60,000). Yikes. I didn't see anything about assets counting toward your income level or not. I'm going to visit in April and I will ask for more information and update this post if I learn anything useful.

[ullysully]

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[fluffy]

This website lists all law schools with LRAPs (sorry, to hijack your TOP law schools thread, doyle) but I think it will be helpful for most people who land here. Some of the links are dead, FYI, but not all.

--LinkRemoved--

[doyleoil]

This website lists all law schools with LRAPs (sorry, to hijack your TOP law schools thread, doyle) but I think it will be helpful for most people who land here. Some of the links are dead, FYI, but not all.

--LinkRemoved--

nice catch - this is good stuff - thanks!

(also, put alleycat's data on northwestern up in the first post - thanks for that also!)

[sluggo]

Doyle,

Excellent thread, well done. This needs to be stickied asap.

One thing that's becoming clear is that the "best" LRAP will vary among individuals because of a variety of variables. I know one thing that Zag mentioned earlier was that Harvard (and it appears Yale as well) covers is academia. I think there's a substantial number of people who'd like to see how the "academic route" might benefit from LRAP. I had previously been under the assumption that you either needed to do biglaw for 2-3 years or suffer the debt while becoming an academic. It'd be interesting to a breakdown of how the LRAPs could benefit someone taking that path and I'd like to get that started. I'm not going to apply the specific numbers to the schools because people can easily choose whatever school they want and see their own payments. I'm more interested in trying to figure out what someone's salary is going to be.

Hypothetical path A:

year 1: clerk (50k)
year 2: teaching fellow (50k)
year 3: teaching fellow (50k)
year 4: beginning professor (??)

I know it's hard to estimate income as an academic because it can vary substantially from school to school, but I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on how much of a boost someone could potentially receive from going this route. We can definitely move this to another thread if its too specialized to the general discussion here, just let me know.

[alleycat3]

I found this link to an outside organization on Berekeley's LRAP page:

http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml

I stuck in $120,000 in total loans and got the following:

Loan Calculator

Loan Balance: $120,000.00
Adjusted Loan Balance: $120,000.00
Loan Interest Rate: 6.80%
Loan Fees: 0.00%
Loan Term: 10 years
Minimum Payment: $50.00

Monthly Loan Payment: $1,380.96
Number of Payments: 120

Cumulative Payments: $165,715.88
Total Interest Paid: $45,715.88

Note: The monthly loan payment was calculated at 119 payments of $1,380.96 plus a final payment of $1,381.64.

It is estimated that you will need an annual salary of at least $165,715.20 to be able to afford to repay this loan. This estimate assumes that 10% of your gross monthly income will be devoted to repaying your student loans. This corresponds to a debt-to-income ratio of 0.7. If you use 15% of your gross monthly income to repay the loan, you will need an annual salary of only $110,476.80, but you may experience some financial difficulty.This corresponds to a debt-to-income ratio of 1.1.

I freaked out for fifteen seconds but then went back and stuck $20,000 in loans into the chart. It, too, said that using 15% of my $27,000 salary would be a financial difficult. Well, obviously! 15% of $30,000 a year is a hell of a lot harder to afford to pay back than 15% of $110,000-- which seems to me imminently doable.

I know this isn't exactly LRAP related, but an interesting chart nonetheless for those of us (everyone!) worried about all these loans...

[alleycat3]

No yearly cap; $100,000 total benefit cap (This is the key drawback to Berkeley's LRAP. The $100,000 figure is not
principal alone. It includes payments Berkeley's LRAP makes for both principal and interest. Thus, on a 10-year repayment
schedule, with $20,000 in annual payments and an income at $58,000 or below, Berkeley's LRAP would phase out after 5
years, leaving you responsible to cover the remaining 5 years of payments)

I have potentially useful information on Berkeley's $100,000 cap. I'm not sure the above info is entirely correct. According to an acquaintance who just graduated from Boalt, Berkeley will set up a ten-year repayment plan based on $100,000 of debt. It's not that they would forgive $20,000 per year for the first five years and then cut you off, it's that they would determine the amount of repayments assuming you only have $100,000 of debt. I actually think this is pretty significant, but maybe I'm wrong.

The way I think of it, if I have $150,000 of debt from Berkeley (including interest) and a job paying less that $58,000, the $100,000 will be paid back over ten years. I will have to pay the extra $50,000 myself on a separate 10-year repayment plan. Personally, I would rather pay $575/month (which is the 10-year monthly repayment plan based on the link in my previous post for $50,000 of debt) for ten years than use up my LRAP in the first five years and then have to pay everything after I used up the 100k.

But let's all keep our fingers crossed that Berkeley ups its cap now that they are raising in-state tuition so much for us!

[doyleoil]

^^^ alley - that's incredibly helpful...and very significant - i'm going to edit the original post to reflect what you've said

[Skadden Stairs]

Moral of the story: I'm going to be unhappy with my QoL for 10 years whether I go to NYU, clerk, then work for a Senator or go to CLS and end up at Debevoise.

[doyleoil]

Moral of the story: I'm going to be unhappy with my QoL for 10 years whether I go to NYU, clerk, then work for a Senator or go to CLS and end up at Debevoise.

sugar daddy at nyu - networking, lex, networking