Get Loans or Pay Cash Money Forum

[Marionberry]

If you have decent enough credit, are there commercials loans that are usually a better deal than GradPLUS?

keep in mind that georgetown's new lrap no longer covers commercial loans.

but yes.

Is this because commercial loans don't qualify for federal IBR? I'm having a difficult time figuring all this out.

[fatduck]

If you have decent enough credit, are there commercials loans that are usually a better deal than GradPLUS?

keep in mind that georgetown's new lrap no longer covers commercial loans.

but yes.

Is this because commercial loans don't qualify for federal IBR? I'm having a difficult time figuring all this out.

yes, georgetown's new LRAP is IBR-based (i.e. they pay your IBR payment for you) so you gotta do fedloans.

honestly, if you are considering going into an LRAP-eligible job after graduation, i think you'd be making a huge mistake not to take a substantial portion of your COA in loans, subsidized or not. you can use a calculator like this one: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=114751 to figure out how much you're going to pay in interest over the course of law school, and think about how long you want to work in public service.

even if you aren't planning on doing the 10-year forgiveness plan, georgetown's LRAP is pretty damn generous. at $75k or less salary you get 100% of your IBR payments repaid, and you can use your cash reserves to pay down principal on top of that. you're probably not going to be making more than $75k right out of school in a PI/govt job, and keep in mind that you still get prorated benefits beyond $75k (not sure what the hard cap is). you're looking at basically a free $7k or so a year, plus the possibility of 10-year forgiveness.

i would look at your COA and figure out how much you're gonna shell out in interest while you're in school, and compare that to how much free money you expect you might take from LRAP, and adjust your COA (via cash "down payment") so that the numbers make sense for your goals.

you should also call georgetown's finaid office anonymously and ask about LRAP eligibility. as far as i can tell the only thing that matters is your AGI but only they will know for sure.