Top Law Schools

I thought it would be interesting to compile a list of the COA for each school. Just copy and paste the information directly from the website of a school. I'll start:


Vanderbilt

Tuition $44,900
Books & Supplies $1,788
Housing $9,170
Meals $3,730

Personal / miscellaneous*
$5,226
Transportation $1,810
Loan fees** $736
Total $67,360

Berkeley: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/6943.htm $74,047.50
Columbia: http://www.law.columbia.edu/jd_applican ... ns/tuition $74,000
Stanford: http://www.law.stanford.edu/program/tuition/jd/ $71,535
Northwestern: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/admissi ... getJD.html $71,285
NYU: http://www.law.nyu.edu/financialaid/bud ... /index.htm $70,866
Yale: http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/costs.htm$70,450
Harvard: http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/sfs/ ... udget.html $70,100
Cornell: http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/admiss ... penses.cfm $69,750
Penn: http://www.law.upenn.edu/prospective/jd/financing.html $68,150
Chicago: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/prospective ... aid/budget $68,010
Georgetown: http://www.law.georgetown.edu/finaid/fo ... 010-11.pdf $68,000
Virginia: http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospe ... uition.htm $67,700
Duke: http://www.law.duke.edu/admis/tuition $66,610
Michigan: --LinkRemoved-- $65,350

lol@Berkeley.

Kafka wrote:lol@Berkeley.

hahaha

Imagine going to berkeley...... lol that would suck on so many levels... wahahaha.

Mother of god....I had no idea Berkeley was so expensive. Who the hell could afford that without any scholarships.

GoBroncos22! wrote:Mother of god....I had no idea Berkeley was so expensive. Who the hell could afford that without any scholarships.

In-staters.

I think it's also interesting to see what they allow for living expenses we might consider "discretionary," things you could do more cheaply if you needed to (i.e. NOT tuition/fees/books/computer/loan fees)... Since the lowest-interest loans (GradPLUS) are based on the COA the school determines, you can also get a sense of how cheaply you'd have to live at one school v. the other that's in the same city. I find it interesting for instance that Columbia allows $2k+ more for living expenses than does NYU, especially since Columbia guarantees its students subsidized, university-owned housing in NYC, whereas NYU does not (as far as I remember).

Stanford: 24,792
Columbia: 23,572
Harvard: 21,970
NYU: 21,199
Northwestern: 21,036
Berkeley: 20,226
Chicago: 20,110
Georgetown: 19,395
Yale: 18,600
Penn: 18,513
Cornell: 17,600
Duke: 17,548
Virginia: 17,300
Michigan: 16,548

It's also interesting to see what they project your loan fees will be compared to what your loan fees would ACTUALLY be if you had to take out a GradPLUS loan to cover the whole thing at sticker (GradPLUS loans have a 4% loan origination fee). Berkeley, e.g., builds $86 in loan fees into their COA. Actual loan fees @sticker (74047.50): $2961.90.

Actually, that seems like a preposterously huge difference. Maybe this is not what a 4% loan origination fee actually means?

bedefan wrote:It's also interesting to see what they project your loan fees will be compared to what your loan fees would ACTUALLY be if you had to take out a GradPLUS loan to cover the whole thing at sticker (GradPLUS loans have a 4% loan origination fee). Berkeley, e.g., builds $86 in loan fees into their COA. Actual loan fees @sticker (74047.50): $2961.90.

Actually, that seems like a preposterously huge difference. Maybe this is not what a 4% loan origination fee actually means?

Loan fees actually only apply to certain loans... namely GradPLUS loans have a 4% fee (with 1.5% forgivable if you make your first payments on time).. however this will definitely add up to a lot of fees, easily into the thousands..

Fee's+ higher interest rates can sometimes be avoided tho if you choose private loans, altho they have your own risk.. if you want all the actual details scroll down to the GradPLUS vs Private loans section:

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=124530