Experiences with paying sticker for lower-half of T14? Forum

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Tiago Splitter

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Re: Experiences with paying sticker for lower-half of T14?

Post by Tiago Splitter » Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:14 pm

anyriotgirl wrote:
Tiago Splitter wrote:
aboutmydaylight wrote: No one is paying an average tax rate of 36% on a 160k a year salary. Not even close.
Yeah they are. Don't ignore FICA/FUTA or state and local taxes.
I think daylight's point is that 36% is a pretty low estimate for a 160k salary in NYC (not the other way around).
Unfortunately the estimate is just about dead on.

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pedestrian

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Re: Experiences with paying sticker for lower-half of T14?

Post by pedestrian » Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:35 pm

patogordo wrote:
anyriotgirl wrote:Right, but my point is if you end up taking out say $200k in loans originally, do PAYE paying $300-$500 a month for 20 years, by the time you get to the forgiveness, your tax bill is back to the original $200k and then you end up on a payment plan with the IRS with much higher payments and way fewer options for deferment, forbearance or reduced payments. But I guess at that point there's always bankruptcy. :|
that's 20 years from now, though. the pv of that tax bill isn't anywhere near $200k.
Also, PAYE limits the capitalization of interest.
While you have a partial financial hardship, interest that accrues but is not covered by your loan payments will not be capitalized, even if interest accrues during a deferment or forbearance. Unpaid interest capitalizes if you are determined to no longer have a partial financial hardship, but the total amount of interest that capitalizes while you are repaying your loans under the Pay As You Earn plan is limited to 10% of your original principal balance when you begin paying under Pay As You Earn. http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/un ... advantages

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BaberhamLincoln

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Re: Experiences with paying sticker for lower-half of T14?

Post by BaberhamLincoln » Fri May 16, 2014 2:02 pm

Bringing some activity back to this thread.

I'm facing Loyola Chicago with $$$ or NU with nothing (if I get off the WL which I think I can do if I really try on this retake of the LSAT -- obvi I am going to try...)

So this is relevant to me again!
I'm leaning to say it's worth it to go to NU.

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Re: Experiences with paying sticker for lower-half of T14?

Post by M458 » Fri May 16, 2014 6:56 pm

leigh912198972 wrote:Bringing some activity back to this thread.

I'm facing Loyola Chicago with $$$ or NU with nothing (if I get off the WL which I think I can do if I really try on this retake of the LSAT -- obvi I am going to try...)

So this is relevant to me again!
I'm leaning to say it's worth it to go to NU.
I don't think law school would make sense for you (economically at least) if these remain your only two options.

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rayiner

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Re: Experiences with paying sticker for lower-half of T14?

Post by rayiner » Fri May 16, 2014 10:31 pm

I took sticker debt at NU and don't regret it, though that's probably colored by having done very well, having done it at a time when sticker was $240k rather than $300k, being really bad with money, and being a super-splitter that maxed out his options (175+/sub-3.0). I also ended up liking being a lawyer much more than I thought I would, which was lucky because big law was worse than my already low expectations.

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Kafkaesquire

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Re: Experiences with paying sticker for lower-half of T14?

Post by Kafkaesquire » Sat May 17, 2014 11:55 am

OfThriceandTen wrote:
GeneralFile(s) wrote:
OfThriceandTen wrote:I'm in possibly the best situation one can be in at a lower-t14, excluding family riches that could have saved me from this setup to begin with, and I am petrified of my loans. They give me fairly frequent anxiety/wake me up in cold sweats, anticipating getting no offered or laid off before I can pay off any significant amount. If I had it to do over again, I just wouldn't. This amount of money is obscene, and one of the most surprising things was realizing how many of my classmates are receiving significant aid, either from the school, the army, or their parents. It feels pretty isolating at times.
So even with a biglaw offer, you wish you had not gone to law school? Were you very committed to wanting be a lawyer when you started school? Were you working in a different career before starting school that you wish you had stayed in? Do you think that your fear of your loans is rational now that you have the big law offer?
There are two (other, besides the worry of getting no offered/laid off) things that bother me about my loans. The first is that I am sickened that I will become like every other young associate and hate working for a firm and think that the work will take over my life and impede any chances of happiness. But I have some experience with what big law firms do, and that's why I decided to come to law school. I'm excited to one day work on interesting deals. But I know that day won't be in the first few years at a firm, so I'm dreading those.

Largely I wish I had the flexibility to do what I wanted with my career without thinking of the giant 150k pound gorilla on my back. Even assuming you are lucky enough to get to pick and get offers in the career of your choosing, what the debt actually does in this situation is indebt you to whatever career you choose as a 2L, whether it be PI and 10 years of LRAP or biglaw for however long it takes you personally to feed the debt in full. It has nothing to do with whether or not I wanted to be a lawyer before law school (I did, and I knew what that meant generally), or whether I want to be a lawyer now (despite it all, I still do). It's the feeling of having very little control when you thought the offer would cure whatever ailed you.

I don't have the answers for you. I wish I could have gotten a scholarship here. If you can raise your LSAT to be in a better scholarship position, that is by far the best thing you can do for your future self.
Isn't it possible that your future self will look back and say, "Well, maybe if I hadn't had all that debt, I wouldn't have gotten all that Big Law experience, experience which opened up the doors to what I am doing and loving now."

In other words, couldn't being forced to suffer through Big Law be a blessing in disguise for your future self? I'm thinking of the doors it would open to a job you would love that maybe you wouldn't have had access to without the Big Law experience.

ETA a disclaimer: I'm a 0L.

t14Law

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Re: Experiences with paying sticker for lower-half of T14?

Post by t14Law » Wed Jan 25, 2023 7:03 pm

So I'm curious, nearly 10 years later.… Are you all OK with the fact that you had to pay huge student loans and if you were to do it all over again what would you do?!?

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