Grad PLUS Ended July 1st. Law School Has A $100,000 Hole.

0:00As of July 1, 2026, the federal government will only lend you $150,000 of it, capped at $50,000 a year against a $200,000 lifetime ceiling for professional students. And the problem is who comes into field the gap? Private lenders. With none of the protections that come with federal loans. So that gap between the cost of law school, what you've got a borrow to pay hood, that gap doesn't disappear. It becomes private debt priced off whatever rate a co-signer's credit earns. And it's the same gap, whether your co-signer has great credit or you have none at all. And that's just one missing row in your spreadsheet missing 14 of them. And I can show you every single one cheapest first. Now there's good news buried in that list though. One factor runs in your direction in your favor instead of being against you. But we'll start with the cheap. $45 is what costs to send your file to a single law school before the school charges you in nickel.

1:03LSANX credential assembly service costs about $219 for a five year subscription. And then on top of that, you pay 45 bucks for every law school report you send. Every ABA school requires it. And so what might feel responsible like adding four more safety schools? Because why not? That's $180 in additional fees. If you apply to 15 law schools, you've spent $675 for them to email a PDF. Then there's LSAN score preview, 46 bucks if you buy it early, $87 if you wait. Score preview is the option that lets you see your score before you decide whether it counts. LSAC knows the panic buys worth almost double the planned one. So they charge you for it. But if you are a fee waiver recipient, you get it for free. Then there's the MPRI. That is $185 for a two hour ethics exam you take in the middle of law school. And then you never think about it again. It's small on its own. But of course, it adds to the long line of bills that arrive after you've already paid your law school tuition.

2:07Then there's $253 to sit for the LSANX and there's no loyalty discount for taking it again. And most people do end up retaking it. It's the same fee every single time. And there's optional service fees on top of it. And in my experience, most people who end up happy with their sole score did take it more than once. Each sitting costs the full price. So you want to budget for two of them. If you only need one, of course, you're saving $253. Then there is the character and fitness process that comes along in your three years. It's a background investigation you can't opt out of. Then bar prep costs between $1,000 and $4,000. Good news is about that point. You're too tired to shop around carefully. You might take the first option that comes along. Now for the February 2026 bar exam, the big bar prep courses were running early enrollment around $2,000. Some law firms will cover it if you've got a job lined up. If you don't have a job lined up, though, you're paying it during the exact stretch of your life with zero income and a loan balance. And then there is the bar exam itself in some states, only $250 in other states, well over $1,000.

3:12Then you've got the application, the character investigation, the prep course, the MPRE licensing runs from $2,000 up to more than $7,000, depending on where you want to practice. Now, 1% of every federal dollar you borrow never reaches you. Then you pay it back anyway. That is the origination fee on direct loans for 2026 through 2027 gets skimmed off the top of every disbursement. If you borrow $150,000 across three years, roughly $1,600 evaporates before it hits your account. You will repay that with interest for the next 30 years. Your loan money shows up after the semester starts, but your landlord wants first last and a deposit before it starts. This is what I see Rex people in August. You've got your moving truck, your security deposit furniture, a month of groceries, all of it front loaded before a single dollar of eight disperses. That's $3,000 to $6,000 in most cities comes out of savings or a credit card credit card rates.

4:18Now your school's cost of attendance is a school set number and it's also the ceiling on what you're allowed to borrow. Living expenses run about $18,000 to $24,000 a year in most cities in New York, San Francisco, Boston, DC. It's closer to $30,000, maybe $40,000 in real costs. If the school's allowance sits below what your actual life costs, that gap goes on the credit card or what comes out of whatever you saved up. Or if you work during one hour, which is the one year where your grades are the only thing everybody ever looks at. You also want to check what the allowance includes before you assume it covers you. Health insurance, for example, catches people off guard. So does a car in a city where the school assumed you wouldn't need one. And so you want to call the financial aid office and ask them to walk you through the components of that number. And they will, even though nobody, almost nobody ever asks. You also want to make sure that your cautious, your conservative, you don't budget a single dollar of summer income. You have not been offered in writing because the summer between 1L and 2L is not a reliable paycheck.

5:20There are plenty of those positions that are unpaid or funded by a stipend. The school hands out on a competitive basis. Now 8.07% is the rate on federal graduate direct loans. First is first between July 26 and July 20 June 27. And it runs the entire time that you're in school. Nothing is subsidized at this level. If you borrow $50,000 in your 1L here, that balance is growing through 1L, 2L, 3L and the whole bar summer study. Before you make a payment. So you graduate, owing meaningfully more than the total of what you actually took out. Most people in their spreadsheets just add the principle, then stop. And there is recent news on the loan front. Grad plus loans ended on July 1, 2026. And the federal ceiling for professional loans is now $50,000 a year and $200,000 for life. And the average annual cost of attendance for a private law school is $83,730. So do the math across three years.

6:21You're looking at a quarter million dollars, even though the federal government will now only borrow, let you borrow $150,000. And so there is a gap there of about $100,000 that you're going to fill in with private credit, whatever rate your co-signers file earns with none of the federal protections associated. If you started borrowing before July 20, 26, your grandfathered in for up to three more years. But if you're starting today, you're not. So whatever you would have earned from 2027 through 2030, plus the raises you've gotten in those three years, plus the employer retirement match, you didn't collect, plus the compounding on all of it for the next four decades. For most people, that number dwarfs every line I just listed stacked together. It's also the only number that will never show up in a financial aid letter because no institution on earth has a reason to put it there. So you want to do it yourself. Do the math for yourself because nobody else will take your current salary or the salary you would realistically be earning in 2027, multiplied by three and right at the bottom of the sheet that is the real price of admission.

7:26And it makes a full right of school ranked 40 places lower, look totally different than otherwise would have. Now, I'm not saying law school isn't worth it. Plenty of people do the math and decide to go anyway and they're right to. But running the numbers for yourself is not optional. And if you run it now, you'll be in a much better negotiating position than if you run it in a couple of years. Now, there is one line on the sheet that can run in your direction before you sign anything and that is scholarships law schools discount seats heavily. Almost nobody pays the sticker tuition, although schools don't advertise this, of course, the number of the discount tuition against is your LSAT score. A few more points on the LSAT is oftentimes the difference between a small award and a huge one or a full ride even at the same school. And that will outweigh every single fee I just mentioned, whether it's the law school credential assembly service fees or the LSAT fee or the score preview fee, all those are insignificant compared to getting a full ride or half off tuition even.

8:29Of course, application fees will continue to go up interest will continue to increase licensing fees will increase as well. The scholarship number is the only one that runs in your favor and it's number that you can still change. So the cheapest month of your entire legal education is the one you spend studying for the LSAT before you applied a law school, not saying studying. So on, of course, but it's the only place in this entire process where your effort translates into significant discounts on tuition to the tune of tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands of dollars. And of course, low repayments changed also new borrowers after July 1st, 2026 are looking at the repayment assistance plan. 1% to 10% of adjusted gross income minimum $10 a month and 30 years before anything is forgiven public service loan forgiveness still exists. But the default path for a new law grad is now a three decade obligation know that before you pick a school, not after.

9:31And so before you apply to law school, run the numbers, do the math, open up that spreadsheet, put all these numbers in there and decide whether you're done with the LSAT or whether it's worth retaking to get a higher score. Above the medians of the law schools to which you're applying to get that scholarship money.