Financing Your Legal Education
If you plan your undergraduate education carefully, take the right courses, get good grades, do well on the LSAT, and get accepted to a law school, the next hurdle is "How are you going to pay for law school?" Law school tuition can range from as little as $3,918 a year to as much as $33,503 a year and up, with living expenses adding thousands more per year. This does not mean that you need to apply to the least expensive schools or that you have to give up your goal, but that you have to begin to think about financing your law school education even before you know which law school you will be attending
- be aware of the differences in tuition for various schools and their policies for in-state versus out-of-state tuition for residents and nonresidents.
- begin to look into the various applications and services that you will need as you apply for financial aid
Most of the 180-200 ABA-approved law schools require the use of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) www.fafsa.ed.gov Note that if your income is verified by the previous year's W-2 form, you will need to wait until you receive your W-2 form to complete the forms. The Federal Student Aid Programs, with which the FAFSA is filed, collects and analyzes the financial information you provide and sends that information to the financial aid officers at the law schools you designate. Based on that information, the financial aid committee can then determine the amount of assistance you will need in order to pursue a degree at their school.
Do not avoid applying to a particular law school just because the tuition seems high. With careful planning, you can arrange a financial aid package of grants and loans to combine with personal savings and part-time earnings to pay for your schooling and living expenses. Financial aid for law school is not available through your undergraduate institution, but only through the schools to which you are applying. For this reason, we recommend early application, since financial aid deadlines are always early. Requests for financial aid do not affect prospects for admission.
Note: most law schools now check students' credit rating.
For more information, see www.finaid.org and www.accessgrp.org
