Top Law Schools

I am weighing my options and curious what the TLS crowd is thinking for themselves?

Including UG debt?

Law School Only...the scale only goes to 200K!

Fortunately my wife will be able to cover the overwhelming majority of COL, so given my current scholarship options I'm thinking only around 50 to 60K if I can pay down a tad of it with 2L summer earnings.

Oh good!

Another one of these threads.

annapavlova wrote:Oh good!

Another one of these threads.

Glad I could help

I'm expecting 70K or so. Some of this depends if I get in state tuition rates after the first year in the state school I'll be going to. If I do get in state tuition that figure is closer to 50K. I have no undergrad debt so I am willing to go into more debt than 70K if necessary but I am not willing to go into six figure debt.

GI Bill + Yellow Ribbon Scholarship + wife working + renting out my home in Honolulu while I move the family to law school somewhere on the continent + working summers and winter break = zero debt (maybe)

Chose 75k in the poll, but it will likely be somewhere between 50 and 75.

$0


thanks mom & dad

Took full scholarship offer to minimize debt. 50k or less COL.

kissy wrote:$0


thanks mom & dad

Very nice. My parents will likely help me pay off the debt once I get out of school if I really have a difficult time.

230 if I don't get any any paid firm jobs.

$0

My employer pays for all of it.

$220k by my nearest guess. At any rate, a lot.

I got lucky in the my parents have always been saving for me and my brother's education. Anything short of a Ph.D. I don't have to pay for.

75k because of cost of living. can't really avoid it unless you're still attached to the teet.

I'm surprised by how many responded with $150K or less for the poll. Tuition is obviously high at most schools, but the COL is also insanely high. Unless people are opting for more lower-priced options, have a lot of $$$ saved up, are getting some good scholarships, etc., I have to imagine debt would creep closer to $200k in many cases. I guess not as much around here, though, which is great to see.

wadeny wrote:I'm surprised by how many responded with $150K or less for the poll. Tuition is obviously high at most schools, but the COL is also insanely high. Unless people are opting for more lower-priced options, have a lot of $$$ saved up, are getting some good scholarships, etc., I have to imagine debt would creep closer to $200k in many cases. I guess not as much around here, though, which is great to see.

I was expecting about $200,000, but then I got a nice offer today that will lower it to about $130,000, and I figure I could take a little off that number since I already have insurance, and I have awesome parents that will help with groceries and such, so maybe $120,000 total. Something like that.

No more than 75k (unless I go to BU....). If I got a firm job 2L (I could do it for a summer without feeling like I'd sold my soul) and made 15-30k that year, then I could get out of IUB with 10-25k in debt. W&M I'm guessing 35-50k. W&L about 40k. Worst case, I could still make 3 or 4k during the summers with a PI fellowship.

I know that going to the best school you get (at sticker) is the TLS advice, but I like less than triple-digit debt prospects.

84Sunbird2000 wrote:No more than 75k (unless I go to BU....). If I got a firm job 2L (I could do it for a summer without feeling like I'd sold my soul) and made 15-30k that year, then I could get out of IUB with 10-25k in debt. W&M I'm guessing 35-50k. W&L about 40k. Worst case, I could still make 3 or 4k during the summers with a PI fellowship.

I know that going to the best school you get (at sticker) is the TLS advice, but I like less than triple-digit debt prospects.

If you aren't planning on going into biglaw and want to go into public interest/gov. work, why on earth would you use 2L summer $ to pay down your loans?

wadeny wrote:I'm surprised by how many responded with $150K or less for the poll. Tuition is obviously high at most schools, but the COL is also insanely high. Unless people are opting for more lower-priced options, have a lot of $$$ saved up, are getting some good scholarships, etc., I have to imagine debt would creep closer to $200k in many cases. I guess not as much around here, though, which is great to see.

Two years ago when i first started thinking about law school, I would not have had concerns about 200k in debt. Luckily, I got nice scholarships from lower ranked schools. A lower ranked school with better scholarships is a better choice for me. I would have been very stressed out knowing that I was going that far into debt for school. 50k is no more than a nice car.

A'nold wrote:

84Sunbird2000 wrote:No more than 75k (unless I go to BU....). If I got a firm job 2L (I could do it for a summer without feeling like I'd sold my soul) and made 15-30k that year, then I could get out of IUB with 10-25k in debt. W&M I'm guessing 35-50k. W&L about 40k. Worst case, I could still make 3 or 4k during the summers with a PI fellowship.

I know that going to the best school you get (at sticker) is the TLS advice, but I like less than triple-digit debt prospects.

If you aren't planning on going into biglaw and want to go into public interest/gov. work, why on earth would you use 2L summer $ to pay down your loans?

Because I have a wide range of interests, and I can't guarantee myself that I'll be in PI/Gov't for 10 consecutive years. By then I might be living in Sweden or in Faro, Yukon....who knows. PI/Gov't a hope/plan, but I really don't know what I'm going to be doing in 2023, and I think that's probably true of most people.

I am mentally prepared to handle $2000 a month in repayments on top of the $500 a month I will be paying for UG debt. So $150k is my target. Unless I receive a named scholarship or two

It would be about 50K at most out of BU, and over 200K at Chicago. Debt scares me...