How the Heck Do You Pay Back Sticker? Forum

[Peyton]

I recently saw a TLS survey asking the percentage of sticker people paid. What I recall was less than 20% of the 150 people who participated paid sticker. I didn’t partake because the poll had closed but if I could have voted mine would have only a third of sticker. Admittedly, I choose a school that provided a steep discount versus one (higher ranked) that was around 75% of sticker. Point is, as I recall, most acceptances I received included a discount. Is this not true for nearly everyone?

[ph5354a]

I recently saw a TLS survey asking the percentage of sticker people paid. What I recall was less than 20% of the 150 people who participated paid sticker. I didn’t partake because the poll had closed but if I could have voted mine would have only a third of sticker. Admittedly, I choose a school that provided a steep discount versus one (higher ranked) that was around 75% of sticker. Point is, as I recall, most acceptances I received included a discount. Is this not true for nearly everyone?

I'm not really sure what your point is, but depending on what schools someone applied to, yes, it most likely is true for most people. For most people they also got into at least one much better school at sticker, except for those with Hams/Rubes and need-based money at HYS too. Depending on which school that is, and what the student's goals are it may be a perfectly rational decision to pay sticker at the higher ranked school.

[untar614]

I recently saw a TLS survey asking the percentage of sticker people paid. What I recall was less than 20% of the 150 people who participated paid sticker. I didn’t partake because the poll had closed but if I could have voted mine would have only a third of sticker. Admittedly, I choose a school that provided a steep discount versus one (higher ranked) that was around 75% of sticker. Point is, as I recall, most acceptances I received included a discount. Is this not true for nearly everyone?

I don't know about most acceptances that you get - I'm pretty sure most of us who got into T14 schools with money could have applied to a bunch of much lower ranked schools and gotten in with significant scholarships if we so desired, but probably didn't apply to many. But I'm fairly certain most people that end up attending any given school do so at sticker. When I was at Northwestern, a student told me only about a third of the class had scholarships.

[sinfiery]

Do you mean PSLF jobs? There's quite a lot of stuff around the employment forum about the difficulty of obtaining PLSF jobs. Fedgov = pretty difficult (mostly because hiring keeps getting cut); you need very good grades (though not necessarily from a top school) and good experience . State (PD/DA)/legal aid = not as difficult, though it depends on the state (and its economy), and you usually need to gun for this kind of job from the beginning of law school; many PD/DA employers don't look at grades but only hire their own interns, that kind of thing. Something like international human rights/ACLU = very very difficult.

(Jobs that qualify are listed here: http://www.studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loan ... employment. It's pretty broad.)

Yes, thanks for that! I was curious if there were any PI jobs to rely upon.
I wonder if ones first year grades are low, they can gun for a PD gig and serve the public for 10 years. It really isn't a bad deal and better than PAYE.

I recently saw a TLS survey asking the percentage of sticker people paid. What I recall was less than 20% of the 150 people who participated paid sticker. I didn’t partake because the poll had closed but if I could have voted mine would have only a third of sticker. Admittedly, I choose a school that provided a steep discount versus one (higher ranked) that was around 75% of sticker. Point is, as I recall, most acceptances I received included a discount. Is this not true for nearly everyone?

There is actual data for each school on how much of sticker each student pays and most are above half with the vast majority within 75% of sticker from what I remember.

[fallingup]

There is actual data for each school on how much of sticker each student pays and most are above half with the vast majority within 75% of sticker from what I remember.

Is that really true? From the Duke Law website: "The extraordinary generosity of our alumni allows us to offer scholarships to approximately 75% of our students. Most scholarships are based on a combination of merit and financial need. In addition, some scholarships are offered based on merit alone, including our full-tuition Mordecai Scholarship. " I would imagine Duke is similar to its peer schools (Northwestern, Michigan, Cornell, Georgetown, etc.) in the amount of merit aid it awards...

[sinfiery]

Dukes.better than most, but yeah...likely close to at least 60% of students pay at least 70% of sticker




Vs Penn

[A. Nony Mouse]

There is actual data for each school on how much of sticker each student pays and most are above half with the vast majority within 75% of sticker from what I remember.

Is that really true? From the Duke Law website: "The extraordinary generosity of our alumni allows us to offer scholarships to approximately 75% of our students. Most scholarships are based on a combination of merit and financial need. In addition, some scholarships are offered based on merit alone, including our full-tuition Mordecai Scholarship. " I would imagine Duke is similar to its peer schools (Northwestern, Michigan, Cornell, Georgetown, etc.) in the amount of merit aid it awards...

That doesn't say how big the scholarship is...75% of students could get $5K off and that statement would still be true (I know that's not actually the case, just using it for an example).

[DoveBodyWash]

There is actual data for each school on how much of sticker each student pays and most are above half with the vast majority within 75% of sticker from what I remember.

Is that really true? From the Duke Law website: "The extraordinary generosity of our alumni allows us to offer scholarships to approximately 75% of our students. Most scholarships are based on a combination of merit and financial need. In addition, some scholarships are offered based on merit alone, including our full-tuition Mordecai Scholarship. " I would imagine Duke is similar to its peer schools (Northwestern, Michigan, Cornell, Georgetown, etc.) in the amount of merit aid it awards...

That doesn't say how big the scholarship is...75% of students could get $5K off and that statement would still be true (I know that's not actually the case, just using it for an example).

+1

Scholly distribution is key here..I know WUSTL gives some kids like 120k and others like 15k. They all count as having received scholly. So just getting an award isn't the issue, it's whether or not that award makes any significant difference to COA... It'd be ridiculously easy for a school to just throw tiny awards at every incoming 1L and claim 100% scholly distribution, but that doesn't mean those kids got a meaningful discount. I would argue that getting a 5k scholly (cough cough American) is basically the same as paying sticker.

[ph5354a]

Not to sound ungrateful, but even paying 75%-85% of sticker ($30k-50k total scholly) is pretty damn close to sticker. In the long run, when it comes to your monthly loan payments and how long it will take to pay off your loans, that level of scholarship won't make a meaningful difference. I refer to my $40k scholarship as "something to take the edge off."

[Peyton]

If the TLS Duke tuition figure is correct, the total Duke COA (without any discount) is $133K. Granted, not chump change but certainly way less than the $250K debt figure often bandied about by TLSers.

[ph5354a]

If the TLS Duke tuition figure is correct, the total Duke COA (without any discount) is $133K. Granted, not chump change but certainly way less than the $250K debt figure often bandied about by TLSers.

Which figure are you looking at for this? It sounds like it doesn't include tuition increases or COL.

[DoveBodyWash]

Not to sound ungrateful, but even paying 75%-85% of sticker ($30k-50k total scholly) is pretty damn close to sticker. In the long run, when it comes to your monthly loan payments and how long it will take to pay off your loans, that level of scholarship won't make a meaningful difference. I refer to my $40k scholarship as "something to take the edge off."

Agreed. It also doesn't help that the scholly is spread out over three years. Sometimes it'd be more helpful to have all of it used on 1L or something, since that could reduce how much interest accrues by graduation. But it seems like TLS doesn't consider a scholly to be meaningful until it approaches 100k+ depending on COL..Anything under 100k is "take sticker at T14 or retake"

[NYstate]

If the TLS Duke tuition figure is correct, the total Duke COA (without any discount) is $133K. Granted, not chump change but certainly way less than the $250K debt figure often bandied about by TLSers.

Which figure are you looking at for this? It sounds like it doesn't include tuition increases or COL.

Those TLS articles are outdated. Don't rely on them.
The COA for Duke just for next year is $75,000. Which gets you to $225,000 without a single increase.

http://law.duke.edu/admis/tuition/

[untar614]

As long as the top schools continue to be predominantly in areas which aren't cheap to live in, even six figure scholarships won't make debt super low (without well-paying SA's at least). Let's hurry up and make UT a T13 school so we can all go live in a warm, inexpensive place while still going to a top school.

[Tiago Splitter]

If the TLS Duke tuition figure is correct, the total Duke COA (without any discount) is $133K. Granted, not chump change but certainly way less than the $250K debt figure often bandied about by TLSers.

Which figure are you looking at for this? It sounds like it doesn't include tuition increases or COL.

He just went to the Duke TLS profile, which was last updated in 2009, and multiplied the listed tuition by 3.

[Elston Gunn]

No. IBR requires you to declare forgiven debt as taxable income. Dat tax bomb.

how much are we talking about here? I think someone mentioned before if you have 25 years to save up and prepare for it, it shouldn't be impossible...

Well, the entire amount of debt that is forgiven is income. So you'd owe your outstanding balance times your tax rate. Hard to say what tax brackets will be in 25 years but conservatively figuring 35%, if you borrow $250,000 and your IBR payments are too small to cover interest payments, you may end up with, say, $300,000 in income at 35% = $105,000 owed in taxes in the year you get forgiveness.

I don't know about you, but to me that seems like a hell of a lot to pay the government for the privilege of making $50k a year.

DF claims there is a bill that has gotten out of committee in the House with bipartisan support that would eliminate the tax bomb. I can't find it though.

[DoveBodyWash]

DF claims there is a bill that has gotten out of committee in the House with bipartisan support that would eliminate the tax bomb. I can't find it though.

I think it's just part of the new budget, not its own bill

[jbagelboy]

I recently saw a TLS survey asking the percentage of sticker people paid. What I recall was less than 20% of the 150 people who participated paid sticker. I didn’t partake because the poll had closed but if I could have voted mine would have only a third of sticker. Admittedly, I choose a school that provided a steep discount versus one (higher ranked) that was around 75% of sticker. Point is, as I recall, most acceptances I received included a discount. Is this not true for nearly everyone?

Definitely not true for everyone. While most people will receive a scholarship at some school, outside of TLS conventional wisdom for law school still often dictates that you attend the best USNWR school you get into, which means many more kids choose the sticker option.

TLS is an incredibly skewed and debt-wary sample. Roughly 50% of law students at top schools are NOT receiving any form of scholarship assistance. This varies from less than 50% receiving at Penn, Cornell, CLS, to upwards of 60% receiving aid at other schools.

However, this does NOT MEAN that 50% of students are incurring sticker level DEBT. A lot of the kids attending "at sticker" are doing so on daddy's dime, and you'll find a bunch of very wealthy kids at these prestigious schools who aren't concerned in the least about the cost of tuition. There's no way to collect debt-specific data other than averages, but I'd bet only 25% or less of students at T14 schools are actually loaning out $250K to pay for law school.

[jbagelboy]

I recently saw a TLS survey asking the percentage of sticker people paid. What I recall was less than 20% of the 150 people who participated paid sticker. I didn’t partake because the poll had closed but if I could have voted mine would have only a third of sticker. Admittedly, I choose a school that provided a steep discount versus one (higher ranked) that was around 75% of sticker. Point is, as I recall, most acceptances I received included a discount. Is this not true for nearly everyone?

I don't know about most acceptances that you get - I'm pretty sure most of us who got into T14 schools with money could have applied to a bunch of much lower ranked schools and gotten in with significant scholarships if we so desired, but probably didn't apply to many. But I'm fairly certain most people that end up attending any given school do so at sticker. When I was at Northwestern, a student told me only about a third of the class had scholarships.

this is what I am saying

[Rahviveh]

Most people may be paying sticker or close to sticker, but a much smaller fraction are actually borrowing sticker, which is the only thing relevant for this thread.

[y2zipper]

The issue ITE is that a t14 at sticker is still a better option than a lower-ranked school where there's a significant chance of never being a lawyer, period. There's just no middle ground anymore. Roughly 30% of people at schools just outside the t14, like UCLA and Minnesota and BC/BU, still don't ever become lawyers.

From there, cost of living alone puts you 61,500 in the hole plus interest if you can stay under the stafford limit, which means that even if you're paying 10K a year for tuition you're talking 90k in debt before any interest is calculated. And that's for a 70% shot at becoming a lawyer at best.

You could still make the case that Penn at sticker is better than UCLA at 100k in debt with interest based on employment figures and likely outcomes. My calcs are rough but reflect the point well enough.

[Kurst]

DF claims there is a bill that has gotten out of committee in the House with bipartisan support that would eliminate the tax bomb. I can't find it though.

H.R. 1330 eliminates the tax bomb, but it is still in committee.

SEC. 9. EXCLUDING LOANS FORGIVEN UNDER CERTAIN REPAYMENT PROGRAMS FROM GROSS INCOME.

1. Income-Contingent Repayment- Section 455(e)(2) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1087e(e)(2)) is amended--
   1. in the subsection heading, by inserting `and Forgiveness' after `Repayment'; and
   2. by adding at the end the following: `The amount of the principal and interest on a borrower's loans forgiven pursuant to income contingent repayment shall not be included in the gross income of the borrower for purposes of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.'.
2. Pay as You Earn Repayment- The amount of the principal and interest on a borrower's loans forgiven pursuant to the income-contingent repayment plan (based on the President's `Pay As You Earn' repayment initiative) implemented in parts 674, 682, and 685 of title 34, Code of Federal Regulations, as amended by the final regulations published by the Department of Education in the Federal Register on November 1, 2012 (77 Fed. Reg. 66088 et seq.), shall not be included in the gross income of the borrower for purposes of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986."

Obama's 2014 budget proposal also includes language to eliminate the tax bomb.

Provide exclusion from income for student loan forgiveness for students in certain income-based or income-contingent repayment programs who have completed payment obligations

[Rahviveh]

The issue ITE is that a t14 at sticker is still a better option than a lower-ranked school where there's a significant chance of never being a lawyer, period. There's just no middle ground anymore. Roughly 30% of people at schools just outside the t14, like UCLA and Minnesota and BC/BU, still don't ever become lawyers..

This could change very quickly in the next couple years. Less applicants = less graduates. That's assuming, of course, that the demand for lawyers stays relatively constant.

[Peyton]

Most people may be paying sticker or close to sticker, but a much smaller fraction are actually borrowing sticker need clarity plz.

Maybe it is because I do know anyone paying sticker (including a few T-14 acquaintances) is why I have not bought into that belief.

On your above quote, I do not understand the "actually borrowing part".... requesting a little clarity. Thx.

[ph5354a]

Most people may be paying sticker or close to sticker, but a much smaller fraction are actually borrowing sticker need clarity plz.

On your above quote, I do not understand the "actually borrowing part".... requesting a little clarity. Thx.

It means that they either have savings or parental contributions, so that someone pays the school the sticker price each year, but they aren't taking that amount out in loans.