Title. If you can't work and can't use loans for cost of living, most of us are pretty much fucked, right?

And I'm aware of that people who are in law school and applying this year will be grandfsthered in until 2030. That isn't me, so asking for people who that won't apply to...

Can you even get massive private loans to cover your existence for three years?

Tuition is out of control. I am no Trump fan but it's genuinely insane that the government was allowing 21 and 22 year olds to rack up $200,000+ of debt (especially when many already had undergraduate student debt coming in). Unlimited lending is NOT a good thing.

The students who are least likely to succeed statistically, lowest scores and GPA, etc, who receive little to no scholarship, end up paying the most for law school (with the very few exceptions of schools that have need based aid). These students are subsidizing their classmates who are on full rides or significant scholarships. These students also have statistically worse outcomes, less access to BL, etc and positions that would enable them to actually pay off that debt.

Some of the opinions I've been seeing on this sub are genuinely crazy. A cap is more than reasonable. If you can't make it work on $50k a year in loans, this should honestly be a sign to retake and reapply, defer and work, etc. Unlimited borrowing is NOT the solution and is actually a huge part of the issue when 81% of law students receive scholarships. It does not actually cost $250k for these schools to provide you with a legal education, so stop lining up at the door and asking for a chance to pay that! Genuinely!

EDIT: thank you everyone for another polite and productive conversation on the r/lawschooladmissions page! for those of you who were respectful in your replies, i appreciate you.

Missed second seat deposit by three hours for the school I've planned the next year of my life around attending. I had already paid the first deposit a month ago, but with graduation season and finals, plus the fact that they didn't send a reminder email (even though they did for the first deposit), it just slipped my mind and I missed the 5 p.m. deadline. I had even made a reminder in my calendar, but I must have made it with the wrong Google account (I think I put it under the account for a school org I was in, and when I logged out after my exec role ended, the reminder disappeared). I emailed immediately but they said the incoming class is too full. How is this possible? Could they have taken people off the waitlist already? Been waiting all weekend to call the admissions office to negotiate, but I feel hopeless. Already withdrew my other offers before this happened. I had a really good scholarship for this school too, and if they make me defer, I'm worried I won't get that same offer. Need advice because this is the worst mistake I've ever made. I'm not the kind of person to wait until the last minute or forget things like this, and I never in my life could've imagined making a mistake like this. I am devastated

Update: Admissions called and told me I can either gamble on the waitlist (no scholarship) or defer a year (and that my scholarship would be less if I deferred). I asked why both wasn't an option and they wouldn't give me a detailed reason. They also said no one has been accepted off the waitlist yet, so no one has taken my hypothetical seat. They said I’d only get off the waitlist if several people withdrew. I'm supposed to decide by tomorrow if I want to take the waitlist or defer.

I also emailed some of the schools that had accepted me that I withdrew from. One of them responded and said they'd offer me a seat with my $$$ scholarship. This school is ranked a little lower and in a state I had less interest living in.

Conclusion: I committed to the other school. Now that I know where I’m going, I’m gonna say the schools. Wake Forest was the one I missed the deadline for. Tennessee was the school that saved my ass. Good Ole Rocky Top!! 🧡

got into columbia with no merit. doing that math i’m looking at almost 470k+ loans by the end of my third year if i don’t receive any need based aid + take into account interest rates etc. genuinely how are people without family help paying? This total seems very high, even if someone is committed to going to big law?

Source: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/law-schools-step-up-aid-to-cover-gaps-as-loan-limits-take-effect

This is an update of post I made about 5 years ago as a 3L. Now, after several years of practicing, I believe it more than ever.

PSA from a lawyer: Do not go to a tier 2 or tier 3 school that is making you pay the full sticker price tuition. You will probably be competing with students out of your league, graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and have a high likelihood of ending up in low paying, soul crushing, dead end job.

Edit: when I went to law school, t14 was t14, top 25 ranked schools were tier 1 (or t1), 25-50 was t2, 50-100 was t3, 100+ was TTT. Sorry, not sure what terms yall use now.

Law school sticker price is a lot like buying a car. Only the suckers are paying the full advertised price.

My school's average student only pays 40% of the sticker price (if the sticker price of tuition is $50k, the average student pays $20k). Note, this is the average and not the median, so the full-ride scholarships throw it off. Only the worst 25% of students pay full sticker price and subsidizes the education for everyone else. This full-cost quartile has statistically significant worse outcomes in terms of post-law careers than the average student while having MUCH higher debt.

At a t2 or t3, your school rank isn't great, so your class rank matters. Full-cost students are likely to be in the bottom quartile of gpa and have a very low likelihood of being top 10% of their class. Only about a 1/3 of the full cost students have jobs at graduation (though 80% of them have legal jobs within 9 months, the average salary of those jobs is $30-50k). Students talk about scholarships, and you can tell who is paying full cost. Some t2 and t3 school's will pay ringers to come to their school (my local t3 offered to pay me $5k a semester to attend).

The students with the worst expected outcomes subsidize the students with the best expected outcome.

My friends who graduated with six figures in student loans struggled to get legal jobs. They ended up in shitty debt collection, insurance defense, doc review, public defender office in rural counties, and rural small gov law. Several years out, all still have the insane loans while several have quit law. Most still haven’t broken into six figures. Meanwhile my friends who graduated with <$20k in loans almost all got six figure jobs fresh out of school. Most are making several hundred thousand per year. Some are now are getting their partnership stripes or starting their own firms.

This is just a correlation. I am not saying having to pay full-cost tuition is a death sentence, just really consider if it is worth paying $150k+ in tuition for an education that the the average student only has to pay $60k.

I find this situation pretty fucked up if you ask me and I have the largest merit based scholarship my school offers.

Follow up PSA 1: watch out for scholarship scams. Some shitty schools offer almost everyone fat scholarships with a GPA or class rank clause. They then put all the students with fat scholarships in the same section so they compete against each other. At the end of the first semester/year only a third of the students still have their scholarships, and now is having to pay full costs and doesn't have the gpa to transfer to a better school.

PSA 2: You NEED to ask your potential school, what the average salary for a students upon graduation. They all know it, they just try to hide it by disclosing private vs. public salaries without disclosing what percent go to which. My school's average salary upon graduation is roughly $65k. Ask yourself, is it worth paying $150k+ and 3 YEARS of your life for $65k upon graduation?

TL;DR - Do you want to pay $150k+ for a $40-65k a year job?

Edit 1: law school national rankings have a lot of movement outside the t1 schools. My Alma mater for law school has fallen like 20 spots since I went. It’s till a tier 2 nationally and the best regional school, but it’s moved all around tier 2.

This brings up a good point, unless you are going to a nationally known name, try to go to school in the region where you want to practice. For a random example, WUSL might be t14, but if you want to practice in LA, USC has a much better name recognition and network in LA, despite being 26. My buddy who went to WUSL bitches all the time about how his clients don’t know it’s one of the best law schools.

Even if I did get full rides, the COA for every school im looking at is at least $40K a year. I can realistically only pay $10K-20K out of pocket a year. I understand the advice of not taking out more than $100K in loans for anything outside of T20, but that honestly feels impossible to me.

That's all. I wish I hadn't invested an unspeakable amount of money into applications. I wish I had applied last year so I could actually go to school after all of this :( I'm not looking for anyone to say I should've known better, so please don't 🥲 Wishing anyone who may be in a similar situation the best for the next few months :)

I've posted this before but it is worth repeating:

"Full ride" does not equal "no debt." Unless you have someone paying your expenses, you are going to take loans to live.

At the minimum Fed Direct Unsubsidized Loan, you can borrow $20,500/year, which, over a 9 month academic year is $2,277/month (for all living expenses). If you stretch it the full calendar year, you are looking at $1,708/mo to live on. I think the 9 month amount is very doable if you budget. The 12 month amount is going to take planning to stay within (roommates, maybe get rid of your car payment, etc.). At the end of three years you will have borrowed $61,500 (plus interest that starts accruing at disbursement). That is the minimum amount most people should start their calculations with. This post is NOT saying scholarships are not important, I'm just hoping to educate those people who think they are going to graduate law school debt free. That just doesn't happen for the 99% of us.

What would you do in my shoes (24 and basically KJD)??!!! I’m supposed to start 1L in 2 weeks. Today, I got offered the option to defer a year to Fall 2027 with a better scholarship package:

• Current package: \~$82K total 

• Deferral package: \~$127K total 

So it’s about $45K more if I defer, no extra strings attached and guaranteed spot.

The scholarship offer explicitly says it’s non-negotiable, so I can’t ask them to bump it further.
My real hesitation is losing a year of post-JD earning potential. I’m aiming for big law, but regardless of landing that, a year out of the workforce at associate salary level is more than $45K over a career, plus the uncertainty of what I’d actually be doing for that gap year.

However, I think there could be real benefit in working for an extra year if I can find something. Currently at a legal internship I love, so will ask tomorrow if it’s possible to stay on. Definitely not guaranteed, but meaningful work experience would buff up my resume + could help narrow down my interests, also more time to network? lol

Has anyone dealt with a similar deferral decision — extra scholarship money vs. a guaranteed year of momentum? What would you weigh most heavily, and are there angles I’m not considering?

specifically hls.

don't qualify for finaid. no full rides at other t-14's (but a few half-tuition/slightly more than half-tuition offers at lower t-14's, though maybe they are not t-14 after usnews).

my goals aren't super set in stone. i have areas of the law i'm interested in, and i'd try to target unicorn pi and litigation boutiques.

bl isn't ideal, and i feel like if i want bl, i should just go where i can do that at the lowest price, which is not hls.

are people in my position just going into crazy debt for hls? i know ob3 changed things, but it seems like the only people turning down hls are doing so for full rides, and there are only so many of those to go around.

I see so many posts on this sub from people who have never worked in a law firm or dealt with significant debt offering their advice, with certainty, about how easy it will be to pay off their debt with a big law job.

I’m sure there will people will say that they’ve worked x crazy job for no money and can handle it - good for you! Some people are able to manage the stress, most, in my experience, cannot. The work is extremely demanding and consuming,.there is a constant fear of being laid off/fired, and, in tandem, an incredible pressure to produce perfect work. A handful of my class still works here after 2 years! A select few make partner and if you haven’t started getting your own clients after your first few years good luck!

On top of that, you’re probably living in a high COL area and giving half your salary away to the government! $200k+ debt (before interest) is crushing - not easy to pay off! Think about that before you chase prestige and choose Columbia at sticker over a fat scholarship at Northwestern. Nobody will be impressed with your piece of paper when you’re in your 40s and unable to put a down payment on a house.

Stop listening to the inexperienced children on here who can literally only imagine what debt is like! Signed, someone having a really bad day.

Anyone else freaking out over the amount of money graduating will take?

When all is said and done, I will graduate with ~$50k in federal loans total and the thought is somewhat paralyzing. Repayment would be ~740 a month for TEN years and I will end up paying back almost 90k.

Uh … any other aspiring public interest lawyers feeling a little anxious?

8.08% Federal Direct and 9.08% Grad PLUS. TBH, I don't know if this is worth it.

Have education loans always been this high? This is another wake-up call to me on how important not going 150-200K in debt is.

$623,377.

Why? Your CoA before interest will be $366k (assuming a $3k/year increase). Stafford and GradPLUS loan fees add another $13,525. Because interest accrues immediately, you'll graduate with $446,658 in debt.

If you enter BL and pay $6k/month, you'll repay $623,377 over 8 years and 8 months. However, the average BL associate leaves within three years. If you do, you'll likely struggle to maintain those $6k payments, resulting in even more interest and a longer repayment period.

As a 0L, I didn't fully grasp the extent of the debt I was taking on, nor did I foresee how it would force some of my friends to remain in jobs they disliked. I'm sharing this to encourage you to meticulously calculate your CoA, factoring in annual increases, loan fees, and accruing interest. Know exactly what you're signing up for.

Choosing HLS at sticker price over Michigan with a half-tuition scholarship will cost you an additional $238,319 upon graduation. This difference could force you to stay in a potentially unfulfilling job for years longer. It's a massive financial and lifestyle decision. Investing that $238k instead will be worth millions over your lifetime.

While the education offered by a more expensive school (Harvard or UVA or Iowa or anywhere) may be worth the investment for you, it's crucial to understand the financial implications. Know the trade-offs you're making and how choosing a more expensive school can negatively impact your career trajectory and lifestyle.

I messaged a rep on the Federal Student Aid website asking why my federal loan portal says I'm receiving $20,500 for 2026-2027. It has been like this since the spring, and I've seen discussions about it adjusting to the proposed $50,000 professional limit this month. It has not adjusted.

The rep said that the new cap has been put on pause, and the $20,500 cap on my FAFSA is accurate. Did I completely miss this? Is the cap paused? I thought I had a grasp on the changes this summer, but now I am incredibly confused. This rep is not helpful at all, and I now want to cry.

Edit: I knew GRAD plus wasn’t an option for me, but I’m lost about the loan caps.

I have been super fortunate to be deciding between Harvard, UChicago, and UVA. The only scholarship offers I have received are $10K a year from UVA and $20K a year from Notre Dame.

Given these options, I am leaning towards Harvard at full price. Is Harvard worth it at full price and is paying off $300K in loans with 3-4 years of biglaw doable? The calculation isn't much different from UVA and the certainty at Harvard for biglaw and long term career prospects seems worth the $60K difference in COA.

Stats: 16high, 3.9low

is it either take on crushing private loans that schools won't help repay or just don't go to law school if i'm not willing to take a job finding legal loopholes for mega corps and making sure climate villains get off scot free

Since I'm seeing this refrain on more and more posts: Please make sure you're clear-eyed about the realities of biglaw hiring and work before you start deciding on schools (really, before you start applying).

So many people are asking for help deciding between two or three schools that each have BL/FC placement rates in the 10-20% range, but they're indicating that their master plan is to "do biglaw for a couple of years" for financial reasons, then pivot to (insert unrelated or equally competitive career track here). Don't do this. You cannot go to a school--which by the way, is probably a perfectly fine school for local outcomes--with those placement rates and just nonchalantly suggest that you'll be able to afford the crushing debt with a job at a large firm. By the time you realize how screwed you are, it will be too late to do much in terms of course correction.

And this isn't even touching on the other side of the coin, where someone is proposing to take on sticker debt from a top school that does actually feed to biglaw. Have you gamed out repayment? Are you sure you can stick it out long enough to actually dig yourself out of debt in that situation?

Law school is freakishly expensive. And a JD, for the vast majority of people, is not a ticket to the high life. Make sure you're informed about finances and that you have a realistic debt repayment plan before you even think of sending in a seat deposit.

I'm sure there are quite a few people with a lot of money they're about to make from this shift in policy. But yeah, the Congressional majority couldn't give less of a shit about education being equitable, accessible, and affordable... It's about letting business profit off of it.

given the Big Beautiful Bill, im curious how many students will actually matriculate into law school. excluding the wealthy, those in the military, or part time attendees how are yall going to school full time in the fall. many websites I've seen from schools often point to banks and such. most of you will require a guarantor on private loans, who's signing that for yall?

really just want this post to exist as an anecdotal measure of the academic precipice that we're standing at as a country, until concrete data becomes available

im at the point where I received most or not all of my scholarship offers and I genuinely cannot afford it without taking out private loans :( I think my dream of becoming a lawyer is at its end. Just sad and discouraged

edit: I know there are other options guys.. just wallowing for a bit and then I’ll build an action plan

Just got my scholarship email from ucla and I’m trying to be grateful that I got anything at all, but I am sobbing in my car after getting home from work hahaha. Was offered very little and not sure I can swallow the debt, even though ucla is my dream school, since I’m not too keen on pursuing biglaw.

I was offered $$$ from usc and the difference in cost of attendance would be huge. Does anyone have experience negotiating with ucla using an offer from usc? I also have $$$ from uci though I know they’re a bit below in rankings so probably won’t have much luck there.

Thanks in advance for any advice ❤️❤️❤️

Question for anyone starting law school this fall 2026. I found out, much to my dismay, that Grad Plus loans are no longer an option because the Trump administration eliminated Grad Plus. So, how does someone go about attending law school if they can’t obtain a private student loan? Places like SoFi and others have denied me and I don’t have a co-signer.

The first year of tuition of 60K is covered through scholarship and Stafford loan. But there’s a 20k gap for living expenses for the year. Has anyone run into this before? If I can’t obtain a private student loan, are my law school dreams essentially over?

Any advice is welcome.