Loan Forgiveness Program - Public Interest Forum

[Xnegd]

Has anyone here gone into the public sector and used their school's Loan Forgiveness Program? My friend just graduated from Harvard, and he's working to help rebuild New Orleans for a while, and Harvard is completely forgiving his loan. I am unbelievably amazed and jealous.

I'm not Harvard bound, and will very likely end up at a T30 (probably Davis, and possibly Hastings, Iowa, Indiana, or UNC). Also I'll have all my loans for my MBA to deal with as well.

Can anyone account for if these schools have pretty good Loan Forgiveness programs? I looked through all of their sites, and e-mailed them so I have an idea…but it's all info I received from them. From what I could see a few provide interest free loans for select careers under $60,000 (Hastings at $70,000), and they then forgive a portion of that loan. It looks like most of them have ten year pay-off plan. I'm trying to think about that timeframe in context, but I can't stop comparing it to my friend whose is all finished after a year or two. Ten years seams like a very long time to be in one place.

Are these programs usually pretty good, or are they difficult to be accepted into and the job prospects far and few in-between? The ones I saw said Clerking doesn't count as Public Interest, which I had assumed it would.

[03121202698008]

Has anyone here gone into the public sector and used their school's Loan Forgiveness Program? My friend just graduated from Harvard, and he's working to help rebuild New Orleans for a while, and Harvard is completely forgiving his loan. I am unbelievably amazed and jealous.

I'm not Harvard bound, and will very likely end up at a T30 (probably Davis, and possibly Hastings, Iowa, Indiana, or UNC). Also I'll have all my loans for my MBA to deal with as well.

Can anyone account for if these schools have pretty good Loan Forgiveness programs? I looked through all of their sites, and e-mailed them so I have an idea…but it's all info I received from them. From what I could see a few provide interest free loans for select careers under $60,000 (Hastings at $70,000), and they then forgive a portion of that loan. It looks like most of them have ten year pay-off plan. I'm trying to think about that timeframe in context, but I can't stop comparing it to my friend whose is all finished after a year or two. Ten years seams like a very long time to be in one place.

Are these programs usually pretty good, or are they difficult to be accepted into and the job prospects far and few in-between? The ones I saw said Clerking doesn't count as Public Interest, which I had assumed it would.

I don't know about those schools specifically but from what I do know about LRAP/forgiveness the better ones tend to be in the better schools (T14). Michigan's is pretty easy to be accepted into as far as I know (you don't really get accepted...just verify you are doing public service) though is LRAP not straight-out forgiveness.

[malfurion]

Check out these pages if you haven't already. They have lots of good info that you would be interested in.

http://www.ibrinfo.org/what.vp.html
http://www.top-law-schools.com/income-b ... ation.html
http://www.top-law-schools.com/tls-guide-to-lrap.html

Here's a basic summary. If you end up working in public interest or government, IBR will keep your payments down to a reasonable level and the associated PSLF will forgive the remaining balance of your loans after 10 years of such employment. This is a government program that doesn't have anything to do with the law school itself. The top schools and some of the slightly lower-ranked schools have additional programs called LRAP (or something similar, each school is different) that will go above and beyond what IBR does by covering part or all of your monthly payments; this is typically scaled based on your salary with a cap above which you don't get any benefits. They do this by giving you a temporary loan that you use to make the monthly payments on your real loan, and then they forgive the temporary loan each year when you prove you are still working in PI/gov and what your salary is. Some of these programs are really great - for example, Georgetown has one of the best LRAP programs - if you work in PI/gov and make less than $75K per year, you don't have to pay a single penny under their current guidelines.

You mentioned clerkships and the reason these aren't covered is because a lot of people going into biglaw do clerkships for a year beforehand, and it would be entirely against the purpose of the programs to help pay off their loans when they are clearly not working in a PI/gov career. Every program that I've seen will extend your benefits if you do go into PI/gov after a clerkship though, i.e. they'll cover you for 10 years after your clerkship ends, not just strictly 10 years after graduation.

Oh yeah, you also mentioned Hastings. Their LRAP program (called PICAP I think) is really really good - no other school near them in the rankings comes anywhere close in their LRAP programs. From the research I've done, Hastings seems to be a very underrated school, particularly for people interested in PI/gov.

[Xnegd]

That was a lovely post! Thanks you so very much!!!!

[beef wellington]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=119817

[SamSeaborn2016]

I was noticing that many federal government positions pay more than is typically mentioned on the boards. For example, starting lawyers for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission start at GG-11, step 10: $81,204 and then jump to GG-12, step 6: $87,350 after 6 months (that includes DC locality pay). Still not nearly as much as the coveted BigLaw $160 but $90k/yr after law school is still pretty solid, even with heavy law school loan debt. Especially when you consider the loan forgiveness programs for government employees.

[beef wellington]

I was noticing that many federal government positions pay more than is typically mentioned on the boards. For example, starting lawyers for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission start at GG-11, step 10: $81,204 and then jump to GG-12, step 6: $87,350 after 6 months (that includes DC locality pay). Still not nearly as much as the coveted BigLaw $160 but $90k/yr after law school is still pretty solid, even with heavy law school loan debt. Especially when you consider the loan forgiveness programs for government employees.

Also fewer hours as I understand it.

[Unitas]

I was noticing that many federal government positions pay more than is typically mentioned on the boards. For example, starting lawyers for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission start at GG-11, step 10: $81,204 and then jump to GG-12, step 6: $87,350 after 6 months (that includes DC locality pay). Still not nearly as much as the coveted BigLaw $160 but $90k/yr after law school is still pretty solid, even with heavy law school loan debt. Especially when you consider the loan forgiveness programs for government employees.

Also fewer hours as I understand it.

Plus you can sit and watch porn all day as I understand it.

[beef wellington]

I was noticing that many federal government positions pay more than is typically mentioned on the boards. For example, starting lawyers for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission start at GG-11, step 10: $81,204 and then jump to GG-12, step 6: $87,350 after 6 months (that includes DC locality pay). Still not nearly as much as the coveted BigLaw $160 but $90k/yr after law school is still pretty solid, even with heavy law school loan debt. Especially when you consider the loan forgiveness programs for government employees.

Also fewer hours as I understand it.

Plus you can sit and watch porn all day as I understand it.

^Another perk.

[SamSeaborn2016]

I was noticing that many federal government positions pay more than is typically mentioned on the boards. For example, starting lawyers for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission start at GG-11, step 10: $81,204 and then jump to GG-12, step 6: $87,350 after 6 months (that includes DC locality pay). Still not nearly as much as the coveted BigLaw $160 but $90k/yr after law school is still pretty solid, even with heavy law school loan debt. Especially when you consider the loan forgiveness programs for government employees.

Also fewer hours as I understand it.

Plus you can sit and watch porn all day as I understand it.

Well, hell, sign me up!

[Nikrall]

I was noticing that many federal government positions pay more than is typically mentioned on the boards. For example, starting lawyers for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission start at GG-11, step 10: $81,204 and then jump to GG-12, step 6: $87,350 after 6 months (that includes DC locality pay). Still not nearly as much as the coveted BigLaw $160 but $90k/yr after law school is still pretty solid, even with heavy law school loan debt. Especially when you consider the loan forgiveness programs for government employees.

Almost all LRAP programs are capped at a certain amount. I doubt there are very many that would pay very much of your loans if you were making $90k.

[ccs224]

There's a lot of LRAP threads out here, but just want to add that if you're not in a T-14, or some similar school with a great LRAP, IBR is the way to go. Google it.