How I Pay For Law School

Happy Wednesday friends, hope everyone is having a good last week of July! As we prepare to enter another school year, the emails about scholarships, loans and financial aid have begun and as I reviewed my finances for the year last night I figured today is the perfect time to share just how I pay for my law school education.

Everyone knows that grad school, and law school in particular is EXPENSIVE and most students have to take out some sort of student loans in addition to scholarships to be able to attend so I wanted to break down the common options and then tell you exactly how I do it.

The first thing I want to note is that private vs. public law school tuitions vary drastically so keep that in mind! I also was very grateful that my parents financed my undergraduate education through Florida Pre Paid and my Florida Bright Futures Scholarship and I went to a public, state university – and I graduated in 3.5 years with several AP credits under my belt. All that to say that I had some money left over for my first semester of law school that helped, if only a little.

The first step when talking about education and money is our friend FAFSA. We did it every year in undergrad and its SO important to do every year in grad school too, its how the government determines how much you can and need to borrow, so check out FAFSA here and be sure to update it annually every fall!

Lets talk student loans options:

• There are federal student loans, typically these have a lower interest rate and are usually much more attainable – I can’t stress it enough, do your research, here is the federal student aid website to give you a head start
  • Borrowing money from the federal government to attend school that must be repaid with interest
    • There are a few options available to graduate students:
      • Direct Unsubsidized Loans 
        • Eligibility is not based on financial need, anyone can get these
      • Direct PLUS Loans 
        • Loans made to graduate or professional students to help pay for education expenses not covered by other financial aid
        • Eligibility is not based on financial need, but a credit check is required

• There is also federal Grants
  • Which do not have be repaid, if you can get one of these, definitely try to!
  • Some include Pell Grants and Military Service Grants
• There’s also federal Work Study Programs
• Then there’s Private Loans
  • Borrowing money from private institutions and organizations that also must be paid back with interest after a designated period of time
    • These may have higher interest rates

Another way to get money for school is Scholarships! No borrowing money required, who doesn’t love free money!

There are Private Scholarships, Institutional Scholarships and Institutional Work-Study programs, so be sure to check out those options as well! I highly recommend maximizing these options before looking into loans if you are eligible for them!

There’s so many options and ways to borrow money from different sources and make combinations best on your needs and level of comfort so don’t take this at face value, but it’s a good starting point.

Now lets talk about what I do:

I go to a public, state university for law school, in a different state than my place of residence so I am an out-of state student. This means my tuition is higher, about double than a Tennessee resident’s tuition to UTK College of Law.

I am very grateful that I was awarded an In-State Tuition Scholarship upon admission. So instead of my tuition and fees being about $57,516 (Out-of-State) it’s about $38,842.

So with In-State tuition being $38,842 now lets calculate my two scholarships. I have the In-State discount which is $9,222 and then an additional $7,500 a year minority student scholarship. So I now owe $22,120.

Here is where private scholarships, grants and loans come in.

I unfortunately did not receive any private scholarships or grants going into my 1L year and even in my 2L year. Yes keep applying for them during the year! But in my 2L year I won a $500 scholarship from the College of law so that will be applied to my financial aid and how much I borrow this year. And I wasn’t eligible for any grants so we’ll skip that.

As for loans I have a combination of Federal Direct Unsubsidized loans and private loans. I borrow the full amount I can from the federal government, $20,500 a year and have three times now, once per school year (1L, 2L and now 3L year). That covers part of the $22,120 left over after scholarships that I still have to pay. The remainder is covered by private loans, which thankfully isn’t much!

So now let’s talk living expenses.

Since I moved away for school, I have to pay rent, utilities, gas, groceries and fun all on my own and I’m not working full time during the school year (or at all as a 1L) so I need to borrow money to be able to afford live at school and thats where private loans come in.

I borrowed one private loan going into my 1L year, about $12,500 and another $12,500 going into my 2L year. Thankfully I have enough saved up from working and my student loan disbursements from the previous years to not need to borrow for my 3L year from a private bank or company. I have a little nest egg and will be trying to make my savings and disbursements last as long as possible without borrowing for my fall semester and will reevaluate for my spring semester.

I thankfully worked part time my entire 2L year and full time my 1L and 2L summers so what’s left in my savings is how I will live. Plus I will be working part time 3L year and I also earn a $1,000 stipend as a Head Barbri Representative this school year which will help!

Another thing I do that will really help when repayment starts next year 😬 is every month I put money into paying off my debt while I’m in school. I pay the $25 minimum on interest and sometimes the principal so I can keep my balance current. You can choose different options or defer completely until after graduation, it’s up to you and your finances! I use American Education Services to manage my loans and I have taken out 2 Custom Choice Loans, the first with Suntrust (prior to their merger with BB&T) and the second with Citizens Bank. Do your research on the best private loans for you if you decide to go that route, I used Credible and lots of Google searches on my options.

I will be sure to keep you posted on how my attempt to be frugal goes and of course throughout the school year and into Bar Prep. I hope this discussion and breakdown was helpful, and if you need assistance be sure to reach out and ask for it! There are so many resources these days and for that we are SO lucky: from trusted financial aid advisors at your school to parents and even other blogs and Youtube channels that talk about law school, budgeting and finances, even podcasts!

Best of luck to you this school year, I know you all will do great! Thank you for reading!

xo Kayla