Ways to Pay Your Bills in Law School

By Alice Foley, Associate Law School Consultant

You’ve gotten the acceptance letter, you’ve gotten a scholarship that covers your law school tuition, you’re hyped to start law school. But then it hits you - how do I pay my rent? Or buy groceries? How do I afford my life?!

First things first, this is not a reason to give up the dream of attending law school full-time. You can afford to live your life, go to school, and hold a job if you want. However, there are some key strategies that will help you to successfully manage your time and money and we’re going to walk you through a few here.

First, you might start seeing “personal allowance” or “living allowance” on the financial documents from your school or your loan providers. What does this even mean? Next, did you know that you don’t actually have to take out the full amount for student loans?! We’ll talk through what amounts make sense and how to make an informed decision about how much of a loan to accept. Finally, we’re going to address some ways to cover your expenses that aren’t loans!

What does “personal allowance” even mean?!

Every law school should be listing out the total cost of attendance on their website. You’re going to see some familiar costs: “tuition”, “books”, etc. You’re also going to see something called either a “personal allowance” or “living allowance” (or something similar). The super simple, short answer is that this is what the school has estimated the cost of living is for its students during the school year. These are things like rent, groceries, and utilities… the basics of life. A lot of the personal allowance calculation is geographically dependent. The allowance for an NYC law school is going to be much higher than for a school in West Virginia.

You may also notice something missing from the total cost of attendance – “room and board”. Here’s the thing, most law schools don’t keep dedicated housing options for their students or expect that students will be spending their mealtimes in a central cafeteria. So, room and board get rolled into the calculation for the “personal allowance,” because law schools assume most of their students are going to prefer to be adults out in the world.

However, this does not mean schools don’t have any school-owned housing options. Lots of colleges and universities have housing that is only for graduate and professional school students, and often is apartment-style rather than dorm-style. Always check your options; university-owned isn’t always going to be the cheapest. Sometimes you may be able to find a better deal in privately owned housing! AND talk to the admissions team if you are interested in school-owned housing.

A very important note on the “personal allowance” – this is not always added to scholarships or grants that you receive from a law school. Lots of merit-based aid does not include the personal allowance and can only be applied to tuition. One of the key indications that the personal allowance may cover personal allowance is the mention of a stipend as well as tuition.

There is some good news though! Student loans can be taken out to cover the ENTIRE cost of attendance – both tuition AND the personal allowance.

Here’s what this looks like in real life:

You decide to take a loan for the entire cost of attendance (DO NOT DO THIS). The cost of attendance is broken down into tuition ($70,000/year) and personal allowance ($20,000/year). You can take out up to $90,000 in loans to cover the cost of attendance. This works out to be about $45,000 per semester: $35,000 for tuition and $10,000 for the personal allowance. The loan will go to your school, they will take the payment for tuition, and then you will receive a check for the remaining balance – usually at the beginning of the semester to cover your expenses. Remember these numbers, we’re going to come back to them.

How Much of Your Student Loan Should You Accept?

When you apply for student loans, they are automatically totaled up to the cost of attendance. So, from our scenario above, you’re automatically going to be offered $90,000/year. You do not have to take out the full amount! The tuition piece is non-negotiable, so you should accept the $35,000/semester for that right away. BUT when you start looking at the personal allowance, you want to do some calculating before you accept. It’s some work on the front end, but it will save you money in the long run!

For ease of calculations, let’s say that the school calculates the personal allowance for 10 months (most academic year measures are between 9-10 months). So, a personal allowance of $20,000 becomes $2,000/month. Now it’s time to look at what YOU spend each month. These are some of the typical expenditures:

·      Housing (rent or mortgage)

·      Utilities (cable/internet, water/trash, electricity, gas, etc.)

·      Other debts (credit cards, car payments, cell phone, etc.)

·      Additional recurring expenses (groceries, child support, alimony, medical bills, gym memberships, etc.)

Adding these up will give you an idea of how much money you actually need to live each month. Let’s say your rent (or mortgage) is going to be $500, all your utilities are going to be $300, and your other debts are going to total $200. All together that’s $1,000/month. If you add another $300/month for any additional recurring expenses your grand total comes to $1,300. That is not $2,000. This is good news; you don’t need to take out the full loan amount! Instead of the full $20,000 personal allowance, you only need to take out $13,000! Making a budget like this and deciding how much of your offered loans to take can save you thousands of dollars in the long run. 

But what if you make this budget and yours is more than the estimated personal allowance?! The first step is to see if there’s any room to cut back (can you live with roommates, give up the SoulCycle membership in favor of a local gym, etc.). If there are no cuts in your personal budget to make, and the personal allowance is significantly less than your budgeted amount it may be time to consider some other options. Is going to law school part-time feasible? Is there another law school that you like that may be cheaper? You can also chat with the financial aid team to talk about a budget appeal that may be able to increase your personal allowance if you have extenuating circumstances.

Additional ways to cover your expenses!

Loans and scholarships are the only way to get money while you’re in law school. Lots of law students will hold a job of some kind while they are in school. The key to having a job while in law school is to find one that is high-pay/low-hour.

Working for your school is often a great option. Law professors hire research assistants to help them with their articles and libraries will regularly hire students to work the circulation desk (why not get paid while you’re in the library??). Jobs that will allow you to do your readings while you are on the clock are great ways to make money. Tutoring or babysitting are both great options. Other options can be even more creative – find a job that comes with housing (that means no rent to pay), or a job that comes with meals (lower grocery bills), or something that gives you a paycheck and an outlet for your creativity (yoga teacher or dance instructor, maybe).

The team at Barrier Breakers® Admissions Advising is here to support you through this law school application cycle! Whether it's through discounted advising for BIPOC, first-generation, and LSAC Fee Waiver applicants, our essay review services and courses, or just downloading our free Essential Guide to Applying to Law School, we're here to help make this process easier.

As always, feel free to reach out to us at hello@barrier-breakers.org with any of your questions! You can also submit a question to be answered on our weekly Break Into Law School® Podcast, streaming wherever your favorite podcast service is.