Question about financial aid for law school

[Anonymous]

We're an older couple who have saved diligently and worked past many people's target retirement age in order to pay for our children's college.

Our youngest child is leaving for college in 2 years just as my husband turns 71.

Our oldest will graduate college and after a gap year wants to attend law school. We've told him that he'll have to pay for any grad school himself through loans. He'll have a pretty small income in his gap year, and will be applying as an independent but fairly broke 23 year old young man.

Is it true that our assets and income would be factored into the older one's application for need-based financial aid to law school?

That's what it looks like from my looking over the admissions pages of his law school wish list. Which seems pretty unfair. Even though we'll have a lifetime of savings stored up to get us through retirement, 4% of our net worth isn't going to afford us a lavish retirement. We can't dilute it to pay for another round of expensive education. And would rather not sell our home.

Thanks for advice!

[Anonymous]

Yes it’s true, and need-based aid for law school is almost nonexistent. He will need merit aid.

[Anonymous]

He'll likely have a 3.8 and 170 LSAT. Is that enough for merit aid?

[Anonymous]

I got a scholarship to go to a T14 school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got a scholarship to go to a T14 school.

Would you share your stats please?

[Anonymous]

My DC just finished their first year of law school. Like you, we covered college, but they needed to find a way to pay for graduate school. DC's law school required our financial information in order for DC to be considered for institutional grants/scholarships (even though we were not underwriting their education nor housing, etc). If DC wanted only loans, our financial information was not needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC just finished their first year of law school. Like you, we covered college, but they needed to find a way to pay for graduate school. DC's law school required our financial information in order for DC to be considered for institutional grants/scholarships (even though we were not underwriting their education nor housing, etc). If DC wanted only loans, our financial information was not needed.

So did your DC qualify? Did you have to report income for the most recent two years? Our income will be pretty high in our last year of working, but drop significantly in our first year of retirement. It may look like we have more to contribute than we will.

Any specific insights appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He'll likely have a 3.8 and 170 LSAT. Is that enough for merit aid?

I believe people are using Law School Data these days to track admissions. You can plug in numbers and see admissions and scholarship results.

When I was applying it was Law School Numbers that everyone used but not sure if that’s still a thing. Maybe someone who applied more recently can chime in.

[Anonymous]

DC did qualify for a law school scholarship (and loans covered the remainder). There was a place for DC to note that they were 100% responsible for their expenses.

We only had to provide our data for the first year. DC's scholarship is not going to change over the 3 years, unlike the loans which must be applied for annually.

[Anonymous]

He should be able to get good merit aid from T2 and T3 schools. My DC got very generous merit aid from a top 20 with a 3.8 and 174. Waitlisted at all T10 so deciding between two schools just a few rankings apart for a $210,000 difference was an easy decision. Also offered full tuition plus stipend from a T3- he’ll have lots of choices if he doesn’t limit himself to a handful of schools.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for these replies. Helpful!

[Anonymous]

He should consider moving somewhere with an instate option he’d be happy with and using that gap year to establish residency or consider taking two gap years if that will establish residency (takes that long in some states).

You cannot claim him as a dependent in any way on your tax return (even for the other dependent credit) and he will need to file his own separate return.

I was able to establish residency in VA after one year and get in state tuition for law school.

[Anonymous]

I don't remember parental income being considered at all when I applied back in the late 90s. Am I remembering this incorrectly? My parents did not pay any of the tuition.

[Anonymous]

I went to law school in my 30s. One school counted my retirement savings against me and another insisted on considering my parents’ income.

But I did get a merit scholarship, plus loan repayment assistance after graduation and eventually public service forgiveness.

[Anonymous]

Your kid should be responsible for his law school tuition. With his stats he will get some merit aid, and he will probably get it into some top law schools too. Top law school graduates often can pay off student loans through high paying employment, or else loan repayment or forgiveness programs. There will be tradeoffs with either taking more merit aid at a lower ranking school, or else paying more for a top school. He can make that decision for himself.