Tight Credit Market Likely Won’t Affect Law School Loans

Law Students

Tight Credit Market Likely Won’t Affect Law School Loans

Posted Oct 2, 2008, 11:04 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

The tight credit market won’t affect the kind of government backed loans used by most law students, but it could but a damper on private loans that tide over recent grads as they study for the bar.

New York Law School Dean Richard Matasar told the National Law Journal that most law students rely on Graduate PLUS loans that have government backing. As a result, lenders are likely to continue to offer the loans. That’s not the case for private loans, which are harder to come by, said Matasar, who is chairman of the board of directors of education lender Access Group.

Private loans are used to fund college more often than law school, Matasar told the legal newspaper. Students who enter law school in the coming years who relied on the private loans for their undergraduate education are more likely to be saddled with high interest rates nudged upward by the credit crisis.

The economic downturn may have a positive effect on law schools, Matasar added. That’s because people turn to higher education as they wait out tough employment markets.

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Posted by Jonathan Starre - 3 months, 1 week, 1 hour, 6 minutes ago

I am a recent graduate who has hoped to consolidate my 8 loans (PLUS, Subsidized Staffords, and Unsubsidized Staffords from each year of law school). My private lender stopped issuing consolidation loans though. I wonder if Congress’ plan to increase market liquiditity will affect my ability to refinance my education loans. For now, though, its enough that I have I job in this market. Still though, I’d like to get a lower interest rate.

In the same way this nation had millions of soldiers looking for work after WWII, we have a new crisis of millions of debt-laden degree holders without jobs to pay off their loans. Attention baby-boomers: Wall Street’s problems affect more than your dwindling pensions, but also my generation’s financing of our futures.
Posted by Dan - 3 months, 6 days, 7 hours, 31 minutes ago

I’m a recent graduate who was smart and went to an affordable school. My wife and I have 4 degrees between the two of us and $80K in loans total.

PLUS loans? I don’t have any of those. A regular Stafford loan is more than the cost of my law school, what else would I need?
Posted by Aaron - 3 months, 6 days, 3 hours, 37 minutes ago

The benefit of taking only federal loans for law school is that they may all be consolidated into Federal Direct loans and eligible for loan forgiveness for public service employment under the College Cost Reduction & Access Act. Visit http://equaljusticeworks.wordpress.com/ for more info.
Posted by erin - 3 months, 4 days, 18 hours ago

i am poor and can’t afford to pay my loans. i will probably have to move back to south korea soon.

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