It is absolutely true.
In Top law schools, you can keep your scholarship just by maintaining satisfactory academic progress .
Further down the pecking order, keeping your scholarship is based in gpa and ranking. In law school your entire grade for the term is based on the final (nothing else). For all finals there is blind gradeing so professors do not know whose papers they are grading
@PurpleTitan is also correct that at some law schools, all of the scholarship students are placed in the same section, having to battle it out to keep their scholarship
More great info; thank you @sybbie719 @suzy100 @kelsmom And could there be a more ironic name for the bill you described than the “prosper act”??? Thanks for the heads up on that!
If that bill passes, how will anyone ever be able to pay for medical school?
It won’t let me edit right now. There might be some additional eligibility for medical loans, but I don’t know that off the top of my head.
@gallentjill They won’t. Even though I admittedly know almost nothing about this subject, I feel relatively comfortable speculating here that one might expect those new private loans to have usury-level interest rates. Am I alarmist in thinking that a cohort (or two or three) of potential doctors, physical therapists, speech pathologists, genetic counselors, research scientists, etc etc etc may have no choice but to but to pursue other professions, and that ultimately we will all suffer for it? Or maybe I am just misunderstanding the implications of the bill? Time to do some research! (@Kelsmom, I didn’t see your reply before I posted)
I’m a speech pathologist…and my grad program was fully funded with tuition remission and stipend.
Law and medical students…and frankly OT students seldom see theses awards.
OP, I hope that my messages haven’t conveyed a dislike for lawyers or the converse, trying to keep other people from my turf. Neither is true. I truly believe that law can be a noble profession and I think that the majority of Americans are underserved by lawyers. But my specific line of work gives me a lot of exposure to the travails of lawyers who are struggling to pay back student loans and even to find jobs. So I strongly encourage anyone considering law school to go into the process with their eyes wide open to the challenges facing the profession these days.
For any kind of graduate or professional school, I think it helps to explore things such as the following before enrolling: difficulty of the licensing (including bar) exams; whether it makes sense to go to school in the state where the person wants to practice or get a job; and whether it makes sense to go to a more expensive school if the prestige of the school will make it easier to get a job after graduation.
Good luck to your children and you!
@thumper1 I don’t know how long you’ve been out of school yourself, but do you know if it still common for SLP grad programs to be funded? If so, why do you think they are while OT programs are not? I know they are very different fields but it also seems they have much in common, and I could also see SLP being a good career fit for the kid.
@rosered55 Thanks for your follow-up. I took nothing negative from your posts 
I’m pretty savvy about the legal profession, and I know that there are a lot of attorneys who are deeply in debt and under-employed. Then I have a few Big Law friends who no longer have financial issues, but are dissatisfied and stressed out in plenty of other ways. So Potential Law Kid has no choice but to go down this road with eyes wide open. But she’s at least a year away from applying and a lot can happen between now and then; I’m just trying to wrap my head around the whole $$$ issue so I’m prepared if and when the time comes.
@Bubblewrap666
I have worked with a number of aspiring speech pathologists in the last few years who have gotten at least partial funding for grad school programs. Many SLP grad school programs still DO have teaching assistantship, fellowship or scholarship programs. They were very lucky to get th finding they got.
I want to be clear…I never said MOST SLP grads are funded partially or fully. In my grad program, back in the Stone Age, I was the one of three funded students out of a field if about 40 in my cohort. I don’t think this %age of funding has changed.
In my experience, this type of funding is far more difficult to come by for PT and OT grad programs. Not impossible, but less likely. This is recent information based on students I know who went through these programs in the last few years.
@carolinamom2boys care to chime in?
There is a safety net for federal student loans: IBR.
If you can’t pay, the government offers generous repayment plans based on one’s income. The remaining balance of the loan is wiped out after a certain number of years (you might be taxed on the write-off, however).
@WildestDream
Yes…with IBR, the balance left (with interest) is wiped out after a certain number of years BUT you pay taxes on that wiped out balance…so it’s not like it’s a free ride.
^ I think I disclaimed that in the parentheses. Paying tax on whatever is left is still going to be much less than the entire loan that has interest accruing.