Admission to law school is often a difficult process which requires careful thought and preparation. Law school applicants have to be well-prepared emotionally, mentally, and financially to pursue law studies. Law school education is usually expensive in terms of tuition fees and accommodation expenses. Ordinary graduate students who want to go to law school may not afford the high costs involved in getting a law education. Fortunately for low and middle-income level graduate students, there are several institutions that offer financial assistance such as law school loans.
Graduate students who want to pursue law studies can get Federal Stafford law school loans. Federal Stafford law school loans are provided by the Federal Student Aid, a branch of the US Department of Education.(1) Federal Stafford loans can be obtained through two programs, namely the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program and the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program.(2) In the Direct Loan program, qualified students can directly get loans from the federal government through affiliated schools. Loans under this program include Direct Stafford Loans, Direct PLUS Loans, and Direct Consolidation Plans. In the FFEL program, qualified students get loans that are federally guaranteed from private lending institutions. FFEL loans include the following: FFEL Stafford Loans, FFEL PLUS Loans, and FFEL Consolidation Loans.(3)
Law school loans can also be obtained from various private financial assistance institutions. The Access Group, a nonprofit organization established by the loan school community, is a leading provider of private loans for needy law students. Aside from Federal Stafford, Federal Consolidation Loans, and Federal PLUS loans, the Access Group also offers the Bar Examination Loan and the Law Access Loan.
Sallie Mae, another leading provider of student loans, handles about 30% of all educational loans in the US. Sallie Mae offers the LAWLOANS program which covers all the financial costs of law education. The LAWLOANS program combines federal law school loans like Stafford and Graduate PLUS with private student loans.
Aside from these private financial assistance institutions, several law schools have loan repayment programs to help students who are having difficulties paying law school loans. Stanford Law School’s loan repayment program has a calculator on its website that allows students to determine the exact amount of their loan payments. (4) Other prominent schools with law school loans repayment programs include Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, and Fordham Law School.
(1) http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Federal_Student_Aid
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Federal_Student_Aid#Student_Aid
(4) http://www.law.stanford.edu/program/tuition/assistance/