The Shark

pay-as-you-go law school?

[dennis]

Oh the irony of law schools charging future lawyers hidden fees! A student from the UVA law school has an interesting idea, the pay-as-you-go law school: 

The announcement that 3Ls planning on attending their own graduation have to toss in $55 for the pleasure to do so has highlighted the Law School’s clever use of hidden fees: You enroll for what seems to be a (relatively) reasonable tuition, only to end up being charged for all kinds of things one would have assumed to have been covered by the initial $150,000 price.

Such hidden fees have been off-putting to users of other products, for example, cell phones. The popular solution? Pay-as-you-go phone plans. Why can’t a legal education be similarly consumer-savvy? Accordingly, I suggest that UVA become the world’s first pay-as-you-go law school.

I personally applaud the new graduation fee: If there’s one thing us lawyers need to learn, it’s how to take money from helpless people who are deep in debt and without any other options. We should be thanking UVA Law for teaching us the valuable lesson that when people have already put a lot of money into something, you can just keep charging them for whatever you want and they’re too financially invested to refuse! As for my ideas about a revolutionizing legal schooling, I hope you’ve enjoyed them . . . because there’s a $15 “column fee” for reading this.

...and we wonder why we are being replaced by Legalzoom.com.

Obviously a law school would never dream of offering students a discount. A gross example is Northwestern's decision to charge students in the two-year JD program for three year's worth of law school:

Less time on campus most likely won't mean a break on tuition.

While Northwestern has not yet set the costs for its two-year program, administrators have hinted that fast-track students will be paying somewhere around the $128,016 that students shell out over the course of three years to get a J.D.

"We generally charge by the degree rather than the time served," says Van Zandt. "The real savings will be the extra year of salary students make by getting out into the marketplace faster."

That's around $150,000 and up for most Northwestern Law grads working as first-year associates at top law firms.

The Time article was obviously written by a non-lawyer who doesn't read ATL.

I have not experienced any hidden fees at UMN Law School. My school smacks us with a huge tuition bill and then spends the rest of the year mitigating our horror with an aggressive regime of free muffins and pizza. This is a pretty effective tactic so far...

more rankings, more problems: us news to blame for high tuition.

[cynthia]

According to a study released by Government Accountability Office, we can all gather 'round and blame US News (and its less popular siblings) for the rapid clip of tuition increases in the last few years.

According to my much-loved Tax Prof, the study (which came out Monday) pinpoints rankings, not accreditation, for your big bills.

From the GAO:

"According to law school officials, the move to a more hands-on, resource-intensive approach to legal education and competition among schools for higher rankings appear to be the main factors driving the cost of law school, while ABA accreditation requirements appear to play a minor role."

Prior to these revelations, the Internet was awash in ABA-blame for the problems modern law schools face. Instead, unsurprisingly, it is not the gargantuan, antiquated bureaucracy that is to blame, but the trend-obsessed and more nimble law school administrations that have subjected their institutions to the whims of PR.

A page from the study says it all: 

Of course, to add to the absurdity, as ATL calls it, this last week has seen news that federal loan levels are remaining stagnant even as tuition prices inflate. Where are you all getting the money to feed the US News monster? It's certainly not coming from your state government, anyway.

save some dollars, buy a tumbler.

[dennis]

Many law students drink copious amounts of coffee like myself, but I am surprised by the amount of caffeine-lovers that do not carry tumblers.

A tumbler is not just a fashion accessory or Westlaw promotional tool. A tumbler is a very easy way to save a lot of money.

How a tumbler saves:

• You can save around $2 every day if you use your tumbler to bring your first cup of coffee to school. That’s about $120 over a 12-week semester.
• A good tumbler keeps beverages warmer, which means that you will throw out less cold coffee, and save more money.
• Most chain coffee stores offer a discount if you fill a tumbler. Sometimes the discount is only 10% off of a cup of coffee, but if you are a frequent customer the barista may charge you as little as $0.50 for a refill.
• Study at Starbucks? Some Starbucks cafes offer free refills for the duration of your stay if you use a Starbucks gift card. This is relevant to law students because it only takes 715 LexisNexis to earn a $10 starbucks giftcard. You can have Lexis cover all of your coffee expenses if you consistently research and complete the point-earning tutorials.
• Do you remember the alcohol awareness speech from high school or college? One of the hokey things they tell you to do is alternate between beer (or whatever adult beverage) and water. This alternating technique is a good way to save money on coffee as well. Try stopping at the water fountain before you grab your second drink. This will help keep you hydrated and the jogs to the bathroom will prevent you from feeling guilty about skipping the gym to study torts.

help for berkeley law's (big-hearted) big borrowers

Berkeley Law students destined for public interest or lower-paying government jobs can get a little more help paying back all those loans they've taken out.

The law school announced it has removed the $100,000 cap on debt that its loan repayment assistance program will help with. Beginning in January, the program will provide up to 10 years of support on all qualifying student loan debt to alums earning less than $65,000 working in public interest or government jobs. Some assistance is available to those earning above that amount.

Dennis Tominaga, assistant dean of financial aid, told The Shark that the school was able to make the changes because of the new loan repayment option offered by the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which in July allowed enrollment in its Income-Based Repayment plan.

Private loans don’t qualify for the IBR or public loan forgiveness plans, but Tominaga said the school will offer help with those payments for students who graduate by 2012.

At least one alum is breathing easier. Rebecca Hart, who graduated from Berkeley Law in 2007, says the new option will make it easier to work as a legal fellow at the Center for Reproductive Rights. The new program should cover several hundred dollars of loan payments she's currently making. “That means those several hundred a month will be freed up for rent and living expenses in New York, which is really the epicenter of the work I do,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to be at the center if not for the LRAP program.”

—  Petra Pasternak

what's your human capital?

[julie anne]

What if your LSAT score, undergraduate grades, college and major - besides determining what schools you get into - also influence whether private loan companies give you money for law school?

While it's not at the stage to be used for law school loans just yet, People Capital's ultimate goal is to do just that for undergraduate students using its Human Capital Calculator.

You plug in your high school, high school grades, undergraduate school, undergraduate grades, major and whether you plan to go to graduate school into a calculator, and it spits out your projected earnings potential over the 10 years after graduation.

The calculator is still in beta, but the company's goal is to ultimately provide a tool that lenders can use to determine the credit risk of applicants.

According to the math of the calculator, if you went to a froufrou prep school, aced your AP classes, attended an Ivy League for undergrad and plan on going to law school, chances are you'll be raking in the cash after graduation, will be able to pay back whatever is loaned, and will consequently be a better candidate for a big loan.

If you went to public school all your life, went to a state school for college, plan on working right after graduation and don't have any plans to sell your soul in the future, you may not be so lucky.

Here's the reasoning of the company in its own words:

"When you apply for a private student loan, lenders want to assess the risk they would take by making the loan to you, so they can know what amount they should lend and at what interest rates. Lenders use a set of standardized and verifiable attributes as a means of differentiating among student borrowers.

The most common form of credit score is the 'FICO score'. FICO scores are based upon such attributes as the number of credit cards you have, outstanding balances, payment history and bankruptcy. Based on this form of methodology, students (or young adults in general) will fare poorly, as they do not have a long (or even medium) positive history of payments. As a result, they will generally receive low FICO scores and, thus, will look like very risky propositions. This is where the Human Capital Score comes in.

The starting premise for the Human Capital Score is that there is a way to assess the relative riskiness of students by looking in part at a different set of standardized and verifiable attributes. These attributes help predict their future income, and hence their ability to pay back loans. These relevant attributes are items such as school, major, GPA, and standardized test score. The Human Capital Score uses these as inputs to create a score."

Check it out here.

share your inspiration and get $10,000 for law school.

[julie anne]

Looking for other ways to fund your law school education, but can't make it on the Gameshow Network anytime soon?

Why not take a video camera, your sense of humor (or, if you're already a law student, what's left of it) and your story of what inspired you to go to law school and film a video for Access Group's "My Inspiration" contest.

If you win the competition, you get $10,000 to pay for law school expenses.

Here's a bit more about the competition from the press release:

"Access Group, a nonprofit graduate loan specialist, is asking law students throughout the country to think about what motivated them to pursue a legal career and create a short video showing the world the source of their enthusiasm. ... Submissions can include inspirational moments ranging from arguments won on the school playground or high school debate team to dealing with environmental challenges and more.

... Entrants can submit their videos through July 15, 2009. Then, a panel of judges will review the submissions and select ten finalists from all eligible entries received. The finalists' videos will be posted on YouTube and voted on by friends, family and the general public. The $10,000 scholarship for law school will be awarded to the entry receiving the most votes; voting begins on YouTube on August 3, 2009 with the scholarship winner announced by September 1, 2009. Up to five additional honorable mention scholarships of $1,500 each may also be awarded by a panel of judges.

The contest is open to U.S. residents 18 years of age or older who are law students (enrolled or matriculated as of August 1, 2009) and candidates for law degrees (JD or LLM) at American Bar Association provisionally approved and fully approved law schools in the United States (including the 50 states, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico)."

As of today, only six videos were posted to Access Group's YouTube page, so you may have a good shot.

You can find complete contest rules, an entry form and additional information are available online at Access Group.

whoopsy, i owe $400k to sallie mae!

[petra]

Can you say "a mountain of student debt?"

One former Hastings law student has made it into the New York Times, picture and all, for $400,000 in student loans earned over 26 years. 

The paper describes the lifetime of misfortunes that helped steer Robert Bowman, who’s 47, toward that astronomical sum.

His road to becoming a lawyer involved a childhood spent in foster homes, two tragic accidents and years of rehab, Hastings law school and international travel. He passed the New York bar exam in February 2008 on his fourth try.

While the committee of New York lawyers that reviews bar admission applications found his tenaciousness awesome, a group of state appellate judges didn’t agree.

They denied Bowman entry into law practice in the spring. “Applicant has not presently established the character and general fitness requisite for an attorney and counselor-at-law,” the NYT quotes them.

Bowman is now preparing to sue his way to practice, which, we’re guessing, won’t help lower that debt load. Any guesses on when he'll make his very first payment?

Petra is a Cal Law reporter.

harvard law offers hand to veterans.

[cynthia foster]

This story's a heartening one: Harvard Law, in conjunction with the Department of Veterans Affairs, is offering full scholarships (covering fees and tuition) to 12 post-9/11 armed forces veterans.

The school is one of the first to seize on the opportunity to send post-9/11 armed forces vets to school through the U.S. government's Yellow Ribbon Program. The Program matches contributions individual schools make to scholarship funds, and was made possible at Harvard by recent Acting Dean Howell Jackson's fundraising efforts.

don't count on those loan forgiveness programs.

[julie anne]

Law school tuition for one year? $37,950

Room and board in Orange County, Calif.? $15,300

Personal expenses? $5,277

Books and supplies? $1,560

One year of law school, including living expenses? $63,000

Getting a quality legal education? Upwards of $140,000

You were expecting me to write “priceless” to last one, right? Ha. I’m not going to trivialize the cost of a law school education by turning it into a MasterCard commercial.

The truth is, law school costs money. Lots and lots of money.  Scrooge McDuck pools and pools of money.

I knew that while applying to law school, but it was still a bit of a shock when I got my financial aid award letter from the Chapman University School of Law.  At first I thought that maybe there was a decimal point missing somewhere, but no. The first year of school will in fact cost about the same as a really nice car, and tuition and living expenses for all three years would cost about the same as a house in some parts of California.

Given the cost of a legal education, it’s no surprise that many students who had their hearts set on public interest work go into high paying jobs in Big Law.

Still there are a few who opt to continue with their public interest plans, banking on federal or state programs that promise to forgive a portion of their debt if they choose public service fields.

According to a New York Times article published last week, about 7,500 teachers, nurses and public interest lawyers benefited from Kentucky’s loan forgiveness program since 2003, at a cost of $77 million.

But just how reliable are these programs?

In another article also published last week, the Times found that while federal programs are safe, many states’ loan forgiveness programs are tied to the state budget.

As a result, the Times says, states sometimes see stories like that of Adam and Katie Thomas:

“… teachers of special needs children, the Thomases had a combined $85,000 in student loans. Partway through the payback period on those loans, however, the forgiveness program in their state cut its annual subsidy from 20 percent of the couple’s total loan balance to just 1 percent. That pushed them so close to the edge financially that they decided to sell their home and move in with Ms. Thomas’s parents.”

Yipes.

If you consider that the average law student graduates with about $80,000 in debt, and the average public interest lawyer makes about $36,000, a career in public interest can turn students saddled with thousands of dollars in debt off.

I’m not certain of the type of law I want to practice once out of law school, but I am certain that I and other law school students want public interest law to be a viable and financially sound option when we do graduate.

Forget about the car industry, President Obama. Where’s the graduate student bailout? At the very least, those interested in serving the public interest should have the continued financial incentive to pursue that interest without fear that the programs they rely on will be cut back or canceled several years down the line.

Find more information on federal student loan forgiveness here.

Berkeley Law comes out with its list of helpful whatnots for students and alums in a financial pickle this year

[petra pasternak]

Berkeley Law may not be the first school to roll out help for its financially strapped students and grads, but it is thorough.

Last Friday, Dean Chris Edley sent a memo to Boalties describing a bunch of measures the school is working on to alleviate some of the pressures that students and recent grads have been straining under.

Though the help may be more meaningful to younger students, there’s a bit of something for people in various stages of their careers.

Details, and link to the memo, after the jump.