GULC vs. Cornell ...I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW!!!! Forum

[FlanAl]

A happy law student is a successful law student. Haha sorry. But in reality outside of DC and NYC these two schools probably are equal. So all things being equal you should probably go where you'll be happiest, which I'd guess would be where you could be close to your fiancé.

[chipchip]

I think the huge difference between the two is the LRAPs. GULC's is plugged into IBR and you pay next to nothing. BUT your loans basically don't get paid off and you have to rely on the forgiveness after 10yrs (I don't even think the interest gets paid down under GULC's plan). Cornell's has you on a 10 year repayment plan but it actually pays down your loans, so if you are done with PI after 5 years you'll have paid off half your loans. You end up paying a lot more per month w/Cornell's but you aren't forced to stay PI for 10 years if you don't want to.

This is incorrect re: GULC (unless I'm misinterpreting your post). At GULC, if you're doing PI and make less than $75,000, the school will fully cover your loan repayments (reimbursing you). You'll pay more as your income increases above that threshold. See: http://www.law.georgetown.edu/finaid/lr ... ligibility

At Cornell, the school will contribute the balance of what you have to pay based on a particular calculation (also based primarily on income). See: http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/admiss ... vision.pdf

GULC's LRAP is widely recognized as one of the best.

[FlanAl]

GULC's is great in that you don't have to pay anything, but it is plugged into IBR. At 75k you're paying in 7.5k a year with IBR and GULC covers that, this is great. But if you leave PI for private after 5 years you've only paid off like 40k of your loans. At cornell you might have to contribute 40k over the 5 years which isn't as good as GULC's contribute nothing, but at the end of five years you will have actually paid off half of your loans.

If you are plugged into PI and can do it for 10 years GULC obviously wins hands down. But if you get fired or there are budget cuts etc. actually having a good chunk of the loans paid off is a good thing. I don't know where the thread is but there was a big debate about this when a lot of schools started switching to IBR.