Please help me make my decision (poll included) Forum

[yarsten]

I think HLS opens doors second to none. Besides YS.

I laughed at this.

FWIW: I'd probably go with H --> biglaw for a few years paying as little on your loans as possible and saving as much as possible --> gov/PI + LIPP + PSLF. Going to H actually makes that a feasible path and it gives you both the geographic and career flexibility to go other routes/places if your goals change. Can't really go wrong with any of your options though. Congrats!

Thanks for your input! Could you explain more about paying as little on my loan as possible while in big law?

If you're going the gov/PI route after a few years in biglaw, then you'll be in qualifying employment for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). Therefore, your loans will be forgiven after 10 years in gov/PI anyway and there's little point in paying down a big chunk of your loans while in biglaw. Depending on the job, H's LIPP should cover your loan payments while you're in gov/PI anyway so you'll basically have almost your entire salary + whatever you saved in biglaw to live off of. If you end up staying in biglaw, you can simply use all the money you saved to pay off a huge chunk of loans at once.

I normally don't suggest this career path because gov/PI is so difficult to get that you can't really plan on getting one of those jobs at the time you enter biglaw. But since you'll have a degree from H and are geographically flexible, I think it's actually a feasible path in your case.

This plan seems reasonable- just know that there are limits to how much you can save with LIPP before your savings start to affect your LIPP payments. I think you can save 10k to start and then 8k a year after law school. So if you work in Biglaw for four years you can save:
$10k+ (4 x $8k) = $42k.
Any more than that and it becomes unprotected and will affect how much help you receive in paying your loans during your next job. You can check out the LIPP website for more details. Just an FYI.

[Teflon_Don]

Thanks for your input! Could you explain more about paying as little on my loan as possible while in big law?[/quote]If you're going the gov/PI route after a few years in biglaw, then you'll be in qualifying employment for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). Therefore, your loans will be forgiven after 10 years in gov/PI anyway and there's little point in paying down a big chunk of your loans while in biglaw. Depending on the job, H's LIPP should cover your loan payments while you're in gov/PI anyway so you'll basically have almost your entire salary + whatever you saved in biglaw to live off of. If you end up staying in biglaw, you can simply use all the money you saved to pay off a huge chunk of loans at once.

I normally don't suggest this career path because gov/PI is so difficult to get that you can't really plan on getting one of those jobs at the time you enter biglaw. But since you'll have a degree from H and are geographically flexible, I think it's actually a feasible path in your case.[/quote]

This plan seems reasonable- just know that there are limits to how much you can save with LIPP before your savings start to affect your LIPP payments. I think you can save 10k to start and then 8k a year after law school. So if you work in Biglaw for four years you can save:
$10k+ (4 x $8k) = $42k.
Any more than that and it becomes unprotected and will affect how much help you receive in paying your loans during your next job. You can check out the LIPP website for more details. Just an FYI.[/quote]

Very good to know!

[Teflon_Don]

Last update, I deposited at HLS today. Thanks for everyone's advice, it definitely helped me in making this decision!

[yarsten]

Awesome! Good luck, maybe I'll see you there.

[Dr. Dre]

Awesome! Good luck, maybe I'll see you there.