Hi, I was recently accepted to law school at UH, and am very interested to attend school there next fall. However, I am 23 now and have worked for the last year and a half... thus, my tax return shows that I earned a decent amount of money in 2004. I fear this will greatly reduce the amount of aid I will qualify for. Clearly, were I to become a fulltime law student, I would no longer have this job, and my income would shrink to almost none. I was curious as to how those of you who are lawyers or are in law school now were able to finance your education. I realize grants and loans will probably cover most of the costs for tuition and books, etc., but how did you finance the other items, such as personal expenses, rent, car payments, car insurance, etc... (especially if you are not independently wealthy, do not have parents to foot the bill and cannot forsee earning a substantial amount of income from some sort of parttime job while being committed as a fulltime student) Also, according to the dates listed by many schools, you have to give them your committment before your final financial aid package may even be sent out to you. How are you supposed to know if you can commit to something if it may not even be financially viable?! Thanks for any help, Pete PS - Any opinions in general of UHLC by current students/alumni would be helpful, too! (I am interested in IP law, specifically.)
my brother is a first year at UH and really likes it. the profs are great and all his friends i've met have been a good group. good luck!! btw, i'll be taking the lsat in june and hopefully will be there soon too.
I thought that everybody pretty much gets the same 18500 stafford loan a year as everybody else. I'm in the same boat as you, though I've worked for 3 years. Congrats on getting into U of H. Did you early-apply? I'm still waiting, due to my last minute decision to take the LSAT and apply. BTW, I have friends who are alumni at U of H. They think the education is great, but the job placement sucks. They swear that U of H spends all its money on admissions and recruiting instead of other things that are important. So, if you go there, keep your grades up and NETWORK NETWORK NETWORK!
Hmmm... the 18,500 seems like enough to cover a lot of the tuition and fees according to their estimates... would still just need a few hundred a month for living expenses I guess... seeing as how I'd now be considered non-resident (my parents still live in Houston, but I've lived on my own for 2 years in MO). I didn't apply early. I decided kind of last minute, too. I applied at the end of January and was surprised to hear back in about 3 weeks! Good luck at getting in!
Sam, I assume this was at a school that was in the $35K a year range. Did you have any other source of income during the time you were in school? How much of it was grants/subs loan/ unsubs, if you don't mind my asking? Thanks.
Thanks! I didn't realize you were out of state. You can get private loans, or try to negotiate with the school for in-state. I work at UT in the College of Engineering, and we throw in-state tuition around like it's nothing. I plan on trying to negotiate heavily if I have to a private school or out of state to LSU.
It was about 25-30 for tuitition, so I lived on like 10,000 a year spending money. I think my parents paid for my car insurance but other than that I didn't borrow too much from them. I had a little of money from summer jobs but not a lot, although before year 3 I made a decent amount of change over the summer. My breakdown, IIRC, was like the maximum subsidezed stafford, a perkins loan (which was tiny), a big unsubsidized stafford, and something called an alternative loan, which was basically my spending $
I am working full time and still get the 18500 a year to cover law school, tuition (private), books, etc. Good luck at UH.
Pete, if you've filled out the FAFSA which I'm sure you have, hopefully, then it'll generate an EFC. If your EFC is really high, which if you worked last year is most likely will be, then the financial aid department will probably not offer you the full 18500. However if you're offered less than the 18500 you must appeal directly to the school and not the FAFSA people to lower your EFC and thus become eligible for additional aid. I believe to be eligible for Pell grants your EFC must be 3500 or lower. The financial aid system is really f**ked up, the ABA does not allow a full time law student to work more than 20 hours a week. How do they expect people who attend a private school and shell out 30k in just tuition to pay for everything else, without working a full time job? My credit is too screwed for private loans and even with a full 18500 I'll still have to sell some body fluids or something else. The system needs an overhaul into reality.
My wife bankrolled me. She taught elementary school while I went to law school. So I only took out loans for tuition and books.
Pete, if you moved out of Texas but were a full time student for the entire time you lived out of state, for tuition purposes UH should still define you as a Texas resident. That should fly even if your income taxes, DL, etc. show you as a resident of MO.
My wife was out of law school about six years when we married.....she still had over six figures in student loans outstanding........though I don't think she lived quite as spartan as SamFisher.
You know come to think of it I think I llived on 15,000 a year and not 10,000. But yeah it was still cheap living - I ate a lot of soup and drank a lot of cheap beer.
Unfortunately, I was not a full-time student the whole time I was out of state... which was the cause of my original high EFC problem. Here's something I got from someone in the fin aid office: We can do a recalculation of your EFC based on your expected income for 2005. I would encourage you to become as debt fee as possible between now & the time you start school. The financial aid is to assist you and without personal resources, you will struggle. Financial aid only assists with tuition, fees, books, living expenses & a few personal expenses. It does not cover any consumer debt of any kind. Financial aid will start awarding the first of April to students with a complete financial aid file and will continue on a rolling bases throughout the summer. By doing a recalculation, this could cause your file to be incomplete at the first awarding. So, you may or may not have gone through awarding by the time admissions needs your commitment. Sorry I do not have a better answer. Hmm... in other words, I may be screwed, though the "recalculation" part sounds promising. And, Pole, six figs debt after six years? That's definately [sic] rediculous [sic]!
Student loans. Lots and lots of loans. Not 6 figures though, about half that. Got a couple scholarships in my later years, but first year was all loan money. I didn't own a car, which helped in keeping expenses low. Unfortunately, ran up some credit card debt too. I clerked my 3rd year of law school, and during both summers, although one summer I did an unpaid internship with a court. I'd like to say my earnings helped defray law school costs, but honestly all they really did was cover my expenses during the summer I was prepping for and taking the Bar, plus the review courses and fees. Congrats on law school. Or my consolations, depending.
