Harvard Law c/o 2020 Applicants (2016-2017) Forum

[Pozzo]

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[canafsa]

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[dddddd90]

Personally, I have no intention of paying off my loans in less than 10 years. Eat, work, sleep, make student loan payments, rinse and repeat. It's just a part of life y'all

I'm glad you admit this. I think acceptance of 10 or so years of debt is a really important awareness to bring in if you're looking at total debt financing at a t14. This "2 or 3 years" talk is really insane.

[dddddd90]

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[unrelated]

Where are people pulling these 300,000+ numbers from? No one who graduates law school is in that much debt, even if they pay ticket and don't have a penny walking in. Hell, with summer work placements, most debts aren't much above 200,000, even in New York. Objective numbers? Bullshit.

The CLS admit packet says price estimate is about $91k per year. That's $273k average estimate for the three years. Chicago put it at $89k per year IIRC in their admit book. So maybe I was being a bit liberal with my $300k estimate and it's closer to $275k...

[dddddd90]

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[dddddd90]

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[bloomsday]

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[dddddd90]

Where are people pulling these 300,000+ numbers from? No one who graduates law school is in that much debt, even if they pay ticket and don't have a penny walking in. Hell, with summer work placements, most debts aren't much above 200,000, even in New York. Objective numbers? Bullshit.

Law school transparency gives total debt financed numbers (now we could nuance the discussion if we wanted to talk about paying as you go from 2L SA jobs, but this is a fairly unrealistic goal as well). And plenty of people graduate with this debt. 48% of HLS students receive no need aid and not all of those students have parents helping them, ergo plenty graduate with the 320K debt load.

[Rigo]

Where are people pulling these 300,000+ numbers from? No one who graduates law school is in that much debt, even if they pay ticket and don't have a penny walking in. Hell, with summer work placements, most debts aren't much above 200,000, even in New York. Objective numbers? Bullshit.

Interest is a bitch.

[Pozzo]

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[Future Ex-Engineer]

Where are people pulling these 300,000+ numbers from? No one who graduates law school is in that much debt, even if they pay ticket and don't have a penny walking in. Hell, with summer work placements, most debts aren't much above 200,000, even in New York. Objective numbers? Bullshit.

I mean HLS tuition is essentially 60k/year. So with no help, that's $180k *just for tuition*. COL in Cambridge/Boston is easily 40/yr unless you want to live like a hobo (yeah, you could probably drop that to 30 if you lived pretty frugally - no eating out, no coffee, no television, no going out to bars, etc). So over 3 years that's another $90-120k.

From there, the *only* placement you can 100% bank on is a 2L SA (you might get one after 1L, but definitely not guaranteed), where you'll make about 35-40k. After taxes that is $25,500.

So, totally everything up, we see $180k tuition + $90-120k CoL - $25,500 (2L SA) = approx $250-270k. And that is all without interest. >7% interest on 250k is an absolute bitch.

That's close enough in my book to say 300k. And then that is assuming you have a biglaw SA. If you do some sort of PI placement or something, you're looking at far less made during the summer.

I will give you that the $300k is maybe slightly an overshoot for the average bear, but when it comes to money/debt, I'd say it's almost always better to assume the worst and then be pleasantly surprised when things are better than predicted rather than the other way around.

[dddddd90]

Where are people pulling these 300,000+ numbers from? No one who graduates law school is in that much debt, even if they pay ticket and don't have a penny walking in. Hell, with summer work placements, most debts aren't much above 200,000, even in New York. Objective numbers? Bullshit.

I mean HLS tuition is essentially 60k/year. So with no help, that's $180k *just for tuition*. COL in Cambridge/Boston is easily 40/yr unless you want to live like a hobo (yeah, you could probably drop that to 30 if you lived pretty frugally - no eating out, no coffee, no television, no going out to bars, etc). So over 3 years that's another $90-120k.

From there, the *only* placement you can 100% bank on is a 2L SA (you might get one after 1L, but definitely not guaranteed), where you'll make about 35-40k. After taxes that is $25,500.

So, totally everything up, we see $180k tuition + $90-120k CoL - $25,500 (2L SA) = approx $250-270k. And that is all without interest. >7% interest on 250k is an absolute bitch.

That's close enough in my book to say 300k. And then that is assuming you have a biglaw SA. If you do some sort of PI placement or something, you're looking at far less made during the summer.

I will give you that the $300k is maybe slightly an overshoot for the average bear, but when it comes to money/debt, I'd say it's almost always better to assume the worst and then be pleasantly surprised when things are better than predicted rather than the other way around.

270K with 7% interest looks something like 300K bruh. And don't forget your origination fees.

[Future Ex-Engineer]

Where are people pulling these 300,000+ numbers from? No one who graduates law school is in that much debt, even if they pay ticket and don't have a penny walking in. Hell, with summer work placements, most debts aren't much above 200,000, even in New York. Objective numbers? Bullshit.

I mean HLS tuition is essentially 60k/year. So with no help, that's $180k *just for tuition*. COL in Cambridge/Boston is easily 40/yr unless you want to live like a hobo (yeah, you could probably drop that to 30 if you lived pretty frugally - no eating out, no coffee, no television, no going out to bars, etc). So over 3 years that's another $90-120k.

From there, the *only* placement you can 100% bank on is a 2L SA (you might get one after 1L, but definitely not guaranteed), where you'll make about 35-40k. After taxes that is $25,500.

So, totally everything up, we see $180k tuition + $90-120k CoL - $25,500 (2L SA) = approx $250-270k. And that is all without interest. >7% interest on 250k is an absolute bitch.

That's close enough in my book to say 300k. And then that is assuming you have a biglaw SA. If you do some sort of PI placement or something, you're looking at far less made during the summer.

I will give you that the $300k is maybe slightly an overshoot for the average bear, but when it comes to money/debt, I'd say it's almost always better to assume the worst and then be pleasantly surprised when things are better than predicted rather than the other way around.

270K with 7% interest looks something like 300K bruh

That's my point. 300k is *not* a ridiculous estimate, but it is a ridiculous amount of money.

[canafsa]

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[Future Ex-Engineer]

Not buying it. Almost everyone is going to be working over the summers. Summer associates make well over 30,000. You're all imagining the absolute worst-case scenario. It doesn't reflect reality for 90% of students.

I literally even factored that in. $30k =/= $30k after taxes. Also the idea that someone who is debt financing multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars will use *all* of their earnings towards paying that debt down while still in school is laughable at best. That's not how people operate, especially people with low financial awareness.

[unrelated]

Not buying it. Almost everyone is going to be working over the summers. Summer associates make well over 30,000. You're all imagining the absolute worst-case scenario. It doesn't reflect reality for 90% of students.

Do you not eat and pay rent over the summer..?

[Anon.y.mousse.]

Not buying it. Almost everyone is going to be working over the summers. Summer associates make well over 30,000. You're all imagining the absolute worst-case scenario. It doesn't reflect reality for 90% of students.

I want to clerk and then go into DOJ/fed work after that. Strong possibility I will do two unpaid PI/gov focused summers. I'm sure I'm not the only one considering that plan since a lot of gov/PI jobs want to see dedication to that type of work to be competitive after hiring. You can keep "not buying it," but the numbers being thrown around are reality for a lot of people.

[sfn91]

Not buying it. Almost everyone is going to be working over the summers. Summer associates make well over 30,000. You're all imagining the absolute worst-case scenario. It doesn't reflect reality for 90% of students.

I literally even factored that in. $30k =/= $30k after taxes. Also the idea that someone who is debt financing multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars will use *all* of their earnings towards paying that debt down while still in school is laughable at best. That's not how people operate, especially people with low financial awareness.

+ summer living expenses

[bloomsday]

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[Pozzo]

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[addie1412]

COL in Cambridge/Boston is easily 40/yr

My Duke scholly is looking better and better tbh. COL = $0.00 living at home.

[CenterFringe]

Not buying it. Almost everyone is going to be working over the summers. Summer associates make well over 30,000. You're all imagining the absolute worst-case scenario. It doesn't reflect reality for 90% of students.

I literally even factored that in. $30k =/= $30k after taxes. Also the idea that someone who is debt financing multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars will use *all* of their earnings towards paying that debt down while still in school is laughable at best. That's not how people operate, especially people with low financial awareness.

You shouldn't be paying much or anything in taxes, as education expenses are deductible. Not that it changes the total calculus *that* much.

[Pozzo]

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[Pozzo]

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