<p>So, we all know that law schools are expensive, and that grants/fellowships/scholarships are limited, and most students end up relying heavily on loans. Furthermore, this means that the most ambitious of us, aiming for the best law schools are also aiming for the highest debt. Is there another way? Many universities offer coordinated JD/PhD programs for students with academic interest in subjects like history, economics and philosophy of law. My question is, if you're a student in such a program, does this mean that you can get funding in the same way that PhD students normally do, for research and teaching? Can you use such a program to, in addition to getting a world-class interdisciplinary education, avoid debt? Or do you just drive up the cost of your education, by adding on years of study, and possibly tuition and fees in you affiliated department?</p>
<p>Most JD/PhD programs I have looked at (which are exclusively philosophy) involve being admitted independently to both a law school, and graduate school of arts and sciences. As you've probably guessed, you will not have to pay a cent for the philosophy PhD, but you'll inevitably have to foot the law school bill.</p>
<p>I think that it would be the latter - more debt, more years of living like a student when you could be at least earning real money.</p>
<p>If you get into HYS (and pretty much only those three), you won't have to worry about the debt - so long as you do something law-related, they will pay a portion of your loans if you fall in the income thresholds. If those schools are completely out of your reach, look down a tier and go at night. I think that Georgetown has a night school; also, George Washington almost certainly does, and George Mason does as well. Those are all very good schools; your degree would take you far. Moving down a notch, Brooklyn, Cardozo, and American all have night programmes.</p>
<p>I'm doing a jd/masters program and got funded for the master's part but not the law part (in semesters where i'll take classes in both, i'll have to pay law school tuition, but can get funding up to the cost of the grad program's tuition to help pay for it). this seems like a pretty typical setup for many dual degrees between a more professional area (like law, business, medicine) and more academic one (economics, philosophy, area studies, etc).</p>