For The Graduates in Debt Forum

[lawgeekgrl]

Hi there!

I am in the process of choosing a school. At this point, it seems that the most realistic outcome for me will be significant debt after graduation. Although I am not happy about the prospect of borrowing a lot of money to go to school, I have asked myself many times over whether I'd be okay with it. And I am, for the most part. The other, much smaller part made me reach out to those of you who have already been where I am now. To those who made a conscious decision to invest in their education, because this is what you wanted to do, or because you wanted to go to your dream school or nothing. I'd like to hear your comments as to whether you'd do it again, how you're coping with it, and if it's doable.

Please, if you don't fall into one of these categories of graduates, or have nothing significant to say, then stay out of it.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to reply.

[padawanphil]

Hi there!

I am in the process of choosing a school. At this point, it seems that the most realistic outcome for me will be significant debt after graduation. Although I am not happy about the prospect of borrowing a lot of money to go to school, I have asked myself many times over whether I'd be okay with it. And I am, for the most part. The other, much smaller part made me reach out to those of you who have already been where I am now. To those who made a conscious decision to invest in their education, because this is what you wanted to do, or because you wanted to go to your dream school or nothing. I'd like to hear your comments as to whether you'd do it again, how you're coping with it, and if it's doable.

Please, if you don't fall into one of these categories of graduates, or have nothing significant to say, then stay out of it.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to reply.

But that's the beauty of TLS

[lawgeekgrl]

Hi there!

I am in the process of choosing a school. At this point, it seems that the most realistic outcome for me will be significant debt after graduation. Although I am not happy about the prospect of borrowing a lot of money to go to school, I have asked myself many times over whether I'd be okay with it. And I am, for the most part. The other, much smaller part made me reach out to those of you who have already been where I am now. To those who made a conscious decision to invest in their education, because this is what you wanted to do, or because you wanted to go to your dream school or nothing. I'd like to hear your comments as to whether you'd do it again, how you're coping with it, and if it's doable.

Please, if you don't fall into one of these categories of graduates, or have nothing significant to say, then stay out of it.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to reply.

But that's the beauty of TLS

You made me smile there.

I don't mind that much if people do it, I just really want some serious answers for once- since this is such a big deal and all.

[rad lulz]

1. Take a particular school
2. Look at the NLJ250 data for that school
3. Add AIII clerkship %

If you take out hefty loans to go to that particular school (say over 100k), this is approximately the percent chance you will be happy, from a financial standpoint, with your investment (maybe with a little wiggle room for non-NLJ250 high-paying firms and good PI).

[lawgeekgrl]

1. Take a particular school
2. Look at the NLJ250 data for that school
3. Add AIII clerkship %

If you take out hefty loans to go to that particular school (say over 100k), this is approximately the percent chance you will be happy, from a financial standpoint, with your investment (maybe with a little wiggle room for non-NLJ250 high-paying firms and good PI).

Thank you. This is something I actually hadn't taken into consideration. I do have a follow-up question though, what about if one of the schools doesn't have employment numbers yet (see: UCI)?

[dingbat]

what type of job do you want to get? Basically, your choice is either Biglaw, making $100k-$160k per year, or everything else, where you'll be making $40-$60k per year.

If the answer is biglaw, then the only thing that matters is "what are the odds of getting that kind of job from the school that I plan to go to?"
If the odds are good, then go to that school, even if you need to borrow a lot of money. If the odds are not so good, you really don't want to take out large loans and hope for the best

If you don't want biglaw, then you need to consider whether the costs of a particular school are worth it. My advise would be to go to the best school that will give you a scholarship, because graduating debt-free is a much bigger deal than most of the people on this board (who haven't yet entered the real world) realize.

There are schools with good LRAPs (loan repayment assistance programs), however, the downside is that these are limited by A) what kind of work you do; and B) how much you make; LRAPs are a good thing and under the right circumstances make high cost of tuition worth it, but it's not the great cure-all it's made out to be on this board.
If you intend to make use of an LRAP, research the stipulations and consider if you are willing to be bound by this for the duration.

[dingbat]

1. Take a particular school
2. Look at the NLJ250 data for that school
3. Add AIII clerkship %

If you take out hefty loans to go to that particular school (say over 100k), this is approximately the percent chance you will be happy, from a financial standpoint, with your investment (maybe with a little wiggle room for non-NLJ250 high-paying firms and good PI).

Thank you. This is something I actually hadn't taken into consideration. I do have a follow-up question though, what about if one of the schools doesn't have employment numbers yet (see: UCI)?

There are many threads about UCI; those will present many opinions on UCI which may or may not be correct.
However, it is a new law school, which means that it is a gamble. Are you willing to bet your future on it?

[rad lulz]

.

[Gail]

Law school is going to be what you make of it.

I don't think that you should go to UCI at sticker price.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Don't borrow a lot of money unless you're going to a top school. "Investing in education" is nice, but you can't eat education. And anyway, the education you get at a slightly higher ranked school isn't going to be substantially different from a cheaper one. And outside the top schools, borrowing a lot of money is very likely to put you in a very uncomfortable financial situation for a very long time. That's just the way it is.

[lawgeekgrl]

Thank you everyone!

I really appreciate all of you for taking the time to provide some feedback. I also gotta say that I'm impressed by the lack of silly commentary.

With that, I'm headed to my dream school (unless something extraordinary happens).

Hopefully I'll be able to report back in four years and tell prospective students how it worked out.

Here's to living life to the fullest!