LRAP and Loan Repayment Programs Forum

[linkx13]

On the public interest law path, so this topic is important to me.

Any idea how the current economic climate may hurt these programs? I´m thinking Georgetown (which has a good one), but even somewhere like NYU may have to make some changes.

[twenty]

The big thing you have to understand with LRAP is that the school is really not playing with its own money, it's playing with the DoED's money. Let's pretend the highest LRAP (UPenn) has to pay the highest amount right off the bat, and the user never becomes ineligible (based on 80k/yr + LRAP award). At that point, the most the school will be paying is about 75,760. Now that's the absolute maximum, most schools/salaries/etc. are going to be substantially lower than that.

So ultimately, a school like Georgetown is competing, at sticker, with a regional school with a terrible LRAP program, but a decent scholarship (i.e, UTexas.) If a student picks GULC over UT because of its far superior LRAP program, the gains far, far outweigh the losses.

What will really hurt the schools' LRAP programs is if the feds suddenly pull the PAYE/PSLF blanket out from underneath everyone. The schools will then be placed in the difficult position of having to fund a whole bunch of students out of pocket, or else get a lot of really terrible press.

Also, I'd be more worried about GULC's LRAP than NYU's. NYU has enough people willing to pay sticker, as well as a far greater proportion interested in doing biglaw that the school financially should be able to justify their LRAP program a lot longer than GULC.

[NYstate]

LRAP in many schools are paid for by the student loans of the incoming class. Financial climate won't affect it. Schools like NYU and others have their own sources of funds.
http://abovethelaw.com/2013/08/law-scho ... taxpayers/

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkb ... nts-bills/

[midwest17]

LRAP in many schools are paid for by the student loans of the incoming class. Financial climate won't affect it.

This doesn't really make sense. At the end of the day, it's all just one big pot of money. If they're in bad financial straights, even if their tuition revenue doesn't suffer, they may pull tuition money out of LRAP and put it somewhere else.

[JCougar]

To qualify for these programs, you have to get a public interest job in the first place. These are few and far between. Most federal government agency hiring programs have been mothballed due to the budget crisis, and the ones that haven't been are about just as selective as Biglaw, if not more. I'd be willing to give up one major extremity to find a PI job right now that qualifies me for 10-year IBR, but there's simply none available. The agency I'd like to work for hasn't hired so much as a janitor for the last three years due to budget constraints.

To top it off, most private PI hiring has tailed off as funding has decreased due to the economy. And if you want to work for something like The Southern Poverty Law Center or ACLU, you better get into a T10 school. GeorgeTTTown won't cut it unless you have very good grades.

This idea that law schools are selling--that PI/LRAP is a "fall back" plan for people who don't make the Biglaw cut and anyone who wants it can get it--is nothing but a bald-faced lie.

[sidhesadie]

Make sure you check into the school's LRAP requirements REALLY carefully too. Mine has some ridiculous ones, I don't remember the exact details now but the gist of it was they count spouse's income, and if the household income was over something ridiculously low, like $40k a year, you don't qualify. (I am pulling that number out of air because I don't remember the exact number, I just remember thinking, Oh, that's why only like 3 people a year 'take advantage' of this program. LOL) Obvs if you're single the spouse thing won't matter...for NOW. But you have to re qualify every year...so...