Saving for law school a losing game? (Income v. Assets) Forum

Discuss various money matters here. Loans (federal and private), scholarships, lottery winnings, or other school finance related information and queries.
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Tiago Splitter

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Re: Saving for law school a losing game? (Income v. Assets)

Post by Tiago Splitter » Fri Feb 10, 2012 3:05 pm

Brassica7 wrote: Does anyone know if you can max out the 17k in a 401k and still invest in an IRA?
Yes you can.

ABCDEFGHJK

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Re: Saving for law school a losing game? (Income v. Assets)

Post by ABCDEFGHJK » Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:36 pm

Brassica7 wrote:
Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:10 pm
I don't know about how schools calculate need based aid, but one way to lower some of the savings (other than pulling it out of the bank and hiding it in cash, which I am not recommending) is to invest it in retirement funds. If you have not yet, max out all the 401k/IRA/Roth contributions you can make. You should still be able to make back investments attributable to last year's limits, and make new ones that will count towards 2012. I don't know how much you saved, but you might be able to sock away about $34,000 this way in 401k investments. These investments will not be touched by the law schools.

Does anyone know if you can max out the 17k in a 401k and still invest in an IRA?
Are you (or others) sure that retirement funds will not be counted as part of the student's assets for contribution towards payment (even if the funds are not accessible and need to be replaced by further loans) and therefore wouldn't lead to increased need-based aid from T3 schools?

The Lsat Airbender

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Re: Saving for law school a losing game? (Income v. Assets)

Post by The Lsat Airbender » Tue Dec 15, 2020 12:36 pm

Off the top of my head, HLS only discounts 50% of retirement accounts. Read the individual schools' policies, or email them, if this is something you're worried about. Most law students come in with small or empty retirement savings (KJDs, for instance), and those that do have substantial retirement savings are usually not getting need-based aid anyway due to income etc., so it doesn't come up as much as you'd think.

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