Law School Financial Model Forum

[pissantvache]

Hi All,

I've done some work creating a fairly simple financial model for law school debt repayment. Everyone is always wondering about how much of a premium one should put on financial awards at more highly ranked schools vs. less highly ranked schools, but there's rarely a structured way to evaluate just what effect those awards will have on debt repayment timelines. This model is designed to help do that.

A couple of quick points:
The model is clearly biglaw-aligned, and is limited in a number of very significant ways (don't worry, I'm working on a more flexible one now).
If you build in that you'll be going to the East Bufu College of Law, you should be sure to create salary cases that reflect the likeliest outcomes. don't put in that you'll get 160,000 your first year with a 100,000 bonus.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions (either in the thread or by PM). Also feel free to throw out suggestions on how to improve

Edit (4/4): discovered some minor errors in formulas in the 2003 version; have updated accordingly. Previous links no longer work.

Excel 2007 (prettier): http://www.mediafire.com/file/byz2ni33z ... %20v2.xlsx
Excel 2003 (meh): http://www.mediafire.com/file/knjml3gzj ... 3%20v2.xls

[vexion]

I'm happy to provide a 2003-compatible version upon request.

Please provide a 2003-compatible version.

[pissantvache]

2003 compatible here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/qcqtzzmj2 ... 202003.xls

(unfortunately, some of the tables might not work due to levels of nesting, so to figure out when loans will be done you might have to go to the p&l sheet...

[Kretzy]

Really helpful, thanks a lot!!

[Panther7]

you just produced the most useful information on TLS to date.

[romothesavior]

I'm sure its useful, but too many numbers in one place makes my brain do an R2D2-esque meltdown. "WaaaaaOOOOOOO!"

But seriously, good work. I'll try and take a better look at this sometime.

[OneSixtySix]

Um can we T.L.S knight the OP?

This is phenomenal. Thank you.

[pissantvache]

Thanks guys. Do you have any suggestions on how to improve this? It makes sense to me, but that's because I wrote it in a format that I'm relatively familiar with. I just want to make it as useful as possible...

Thanks,
pissantvache

[dood]

...

[GatorBait09]

Amazing resource. I hope you don't mind me sharing this with friends.

As far as helpful criticism, the only thing I think that greatly limits it is the assumption that all of these variables remain the same year after year (i.e. my rent one year may be different the next year, the % I decide to save one year may be enormously different from the next, etc.). But I'm sure you know that already and I wouldn't bother trying to complicate this tool that much more anyways...unless you love that sort of thing.

Awesome though, simply awesome. I can definitely see this helping people plan their financial futures (and thus saving a lot of money and headaches if they stick to a plan).

[ConMan345]

Wow, amazing.

[pissantvache]

Amazing resource. I hope you don't mind me sharing this with friends.

As far as helpful criticism, the only thing I think that greatly limits it is the assumption that all of these variables remain the same year after year (i.e. my rent one year may be different the next year, the % I decide to save one year may be enormously different from the next, etc.). But I'm sure you know that already and I wouldn't bother trying to complicate this tool that much more anyways...unless you love that sort of thing.

Awesome though, simply awesome. I can definitely see this helping people plan their financial futures (and thus saving a lot of money and headaches if they stick to a plan).

Thanks for the comments. Feel free to share it with your friends--it's already public!

In regards to your comment, I actually am working on building in functionality to allow for changes to rent, but as I'm sure you can imagine, creating extra variables complicates the whole thing significantly. (But don't worry; I'll get there eventually).

Thank you all for your comments. If you have any other special requests or other suggestions, please feel free to post or PM--I want to make this as valuable a tool as I can.

pissantvache.

[rodewan]

great job! this spreadsheet just made my life!

[nucat]

Bump.

This is awesome. Thanks for setting it up.

[Olive]

Wow. Thank you!

[pissantvache]

Thanks for the continuing comments guys. Just a quick update: I've noticed some mistakes in the way the 2003-compatible file works, so I've corrected them in the updated version, at this link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/knjml3gzj ... 3%20v2.xls. This update corrects the problems in the 'year finished with loans' cell and enables the information in the data tables to the right to update correctly.

Similarly, I've updated a minor error in the 2007 version (doesn't affect any calculations), attached here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/byz2ni33z ... %20v2.xlsx.

As always, please feel free to let me know of any other deficiencies you'd like to see fixed in future models.

Thanks,
pissantvache

[ConMan345]

Bump for incredible usefulness.

[parker09]

Woah, awesome! Thanks for providing those financially-inept of us with a user-friendly way to understand what six-figure debt really means.

[traficante]

Maybe you should post this in the TLS content competition forum?

Great resource, thanks for it.

[YCrevolution]

..

[SuperFreak]

bumpin!

[AsylumPB]

Great job! Thank you!

[coffeecake]

Thank you so much for this invaluable tool! I will look over it more carefully later today and post any recommendations, although at this point it looks like you've covered everything.