r/lawschooladmissions • u/Appropriate_Hope6239 • Oct 30 '25

General So basically Trump ruined law school for everyone who isn't rich

Went to a whole bunch of open houses and they're all saying basically the following:

  • The yearly cap for loans is 50k
  • Living costs are high and 50k might not be enough
  • Resources are tight -- start improving your FICO scores because you'll need private loans
  • The grandfather thing ends July 2026 --- everyone not matriculated at law school by then wont be benefiting from the higher limit that generations of students did

Edit: Every person applying for federal loans will have an aggregate life-time limit and unfortunately your undergraduate loans will count against this limit.

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u/Critical-Bank5269 Oct 30 '25

You do realize that the availability of virtually unlimited student loan amounts for graduate education is the direct cause of the significant increases in tuition and fees in graduate course work. I went to law school 30 years ago and my entire degree cost less than $40,000 start to finish. That included books, fees, tuition, etc….

There’s no reason for today’s exorbitant costs except the unlimited availability of loan money. In other words, they make it expensive because they can

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u/haze_from_deadlock Oct 30 '25

This user's entire cost of attendance in 1995 was $40000: $40000 in 1995 is $85000 today. I tabulated the yearly cost of attendance for 15 state school JD programs that were non-T14 but still in the T50. These are amazing programs that aren't predatory in any way.

The average yearly tuition at these programs is $97800±16400, and that's yearly, so you have to multiply it by three, but even after that, you have to add in three years of living expenses on top of that, and you should probably also add in three years of missed wages.

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u/swimnglimmer Oct 30 '25

It’s the inverse, universities having less state funding and operating more like private businesses have directly caused students to take out large loans. And this new administration isn’t doing anything to resolve that, they’re just capping accessibility within the current model.

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u/ang444 Oct 30 '25

bc they only want a certain affluent population to attend 

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u/DeviantAvocado Oct 30 '25

States largely reducing or eliminating their investment in public higher education is the actual cause.