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Scholarships
Turkishcoffee
Alum Member
Is it better to go to a 2nd tier school that's giving you full scholarship tor to an ivy league that's paying maybe a sixth of your tuition?
Comments
This totally depends on your personal goals.
Agree this is totally on you and your goals. For example, as a guy who will sit for the bar at age 50 and will at most work ~20 years in the legal profession (in public interest), full ride scholarships (and graduating with zero student loans) are very appealing to me. If I were K-JD, I suspect that I would feel very differently and be willing to assume more debt.
Bottom line, only you can really answer the question.
I think you'd need really narrow goals (e.g. just want a JD) to pick a TT over the five schools the OP mentioned.
The schools mentioned all have solid loan forgiveness programs.
I have one offer in hand that will result in me having $0.00 in student loans the day I graduate from law school. In my calculus, that trumps any student loan forgiveness program, which may or may not still be there. Also, my total current family (wife+me) income makes me ineligible for most loan forgiveness programs. So, again, each person has to answer this question for themselves using their own inputs.
Agreed with the above that it's absolutely a personal decision. And going to a "2nd tier" school, however that is defined, doesn't necessarily mean that you just want a JD and that's that. There are also times where it is smart to pick a regional school if you know you want to stay in a specific area. For example, in the Northwest there are lots of stories out there of T14 grads having a tough time securing a job here and grads from the local schools doing much better, despite being significantly lower ranked. It's a very insular market.
I personally am very skeptical of making plans solely based on loan forgiveness. Besides the fact that it's at minimum a 10 year commitment, I would bet that it goes away or is capped in the next few years, and there will be some people that get left high and dry.
So all that said, I am averse to putting all my eggs in one basket. As someone who has absolutely no desire to go into biglaw and doesn't trust that loan forgiveness will be a reliable thing, I have set a goal for myself to keep loans under $100k, for tuition and living expenses combined. I'm also an older student and hope to go into PI or government. So, I personally wouldn't go to any school that only gives me 1/6 of tuition.
But, if you're a K-JD who has all the time and energy in the world for paying off debt and wants to go into biglaw, then yeah maybe the ivy is the right choice for you. There are a ton of factors to consider.
I only looked up one of the schools OP mentioned (Harvard).
They do average your income with your spouse, but for families they also take into account the cost of having a family. I have no idea what your finances are like so yes there is a possibility that it doesn't work out for you.
And they don't require you to take part in FPSLFP so you don't have to be in it for a certain number of years and you don't need to worry about what happens with the federal program.
No doubt your route leaves you more certain about how much you'll be paying for law school. But graduating from most of the schools OP mentioned leaves you with fantastic options in the future. I think it's a bit like buying insurance. Graduating from a TT limits your flexibility in the future.
Same point I mentioned earlier. Be sure to check the schools loan forgiveness before you assume you're tied to FPSLFP or any other federal program.
I'd also like to add that most people who go to BigLaw end up leaving after a couple years. It'd be hard to justify 250k of debt for 2 years of high-paying work. I'd also add that a person who can get accepted at HYS or Penn could get a pretty fat scholarship at a Vandy or UTA and still get into BigLaw fairly easily. The idea that the ivy league is essential for BigLaw is deeply flawed, BigLaw draws from the top 25% of most schools in the top 30.
I think 0Ls don't understand how prestigious certain firms are. You aren't going to land a job at Cravath from most of the T14.
And it isn't just about big law. If you're interested in academia or prestigious clerkship, you should go to an elite school.
I'll take your word that whoever Cravath is, they are a big deal and their library is full of many leather-bound books. However, here in the world of St Louis indigent family and immigration law, they have never been opposing counsel to any of the lawyers at the clinic I volunteer at.
Yes, but the major motivation for Big Law is money and 1st-3rd year associate salaries at Cravath, or any of the top 20 vault law firms is roughly the same as the lower ranked (but still Big Law) firms. So if you only plan on spending a couple years in Big Law, what you're getting for your 250k investment is 3 years of work with no better pay at a firm that has more prestige. I guess if the prestige is worth 250k then it's worth it.
Obviously academia is an exception to the rule. I am referring to financial gain here, not necessarily opportunity or experiential preference. Clerkships and the like are granted at far greater rates at the T6 schools, but schools like Duke and UMich still have comparable placement into clerkships and they aren't colloquially referred to as "ivy league".
I think that depends on the type of person you are. In my experience law students at top schools are more insecure than the average person. If the elite firms were to pay less than other big firms, I still think they'd be attracting the top students. Personally, I'll go ANYWHERE that is willing to pay me that $190k. But I have classmates that are super stressed because they aren't at HYS and they want very competitive jobs.
Also when I meant elite clerkships, I meant super elite ones. If you look at SCOTUS clerks, the majority are from two schools.
The stuff I brought up wasn't meant to be dispositive. A lot of it doesn't apply to the users I quoted. But I wanted to put it on the table for 0ls that will read this in the future. If your happiness derives from the prestige of your job, you should hold out for a top law school.
@10000019 I agree with all of these points here^
Except for maybe the money element. A big part of the prestige is wrapped up in the paycheck
Sure. But I still think it's naive to make any plan that relies on these programs existing as they currently are for an extended period of time. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but I can easily envision scenarios where things change and the forgiveness you counted on isn't available. I want to be ok with my loans independently of what anyone else provides. I see forgiveness as a bonus, not something you should make your financial plans reliant on.