I was hoping that I could get a scholarship for law school if I do well my undergrad, and if I go into big law I figured that I could pay it off. It’s a long road though
Binghamton University
Binghamton gave my no financial aid, but it’s a state school so it’s no issue. Room and board is the reason I’m going to end up paying $27k, but with my scholarships it ends up being around $20k.
Temple University gave me $5k. It’s out of state so I’d have to take out loans. I pretty much crossed this school out.
Spelman only gave me $2.2k and tuition is around $50k. But scholarships bring it down to around $46k
Syracuse gave me in total $35k. $17,500 for each semester. Tutition is $67k so I’d have to pay around $32k, but since I have to report my scholarships they are going to reduce my aid
I have raked up around $6000 in outside money
A vote for Binghamton, save money for law school.
Go to Binghamton
Binghamton is a fantastic option…what is the net cost of attendance there?
How much does each cost?
(tuition, fees, room, board) - (grants, scholarships) = …
A) Spelman
B) Syracuse
C) Binghamton
Did you get Honors college at Bing?
The issue is that you can try to see if Spelman would reconsider their offer to match Syracuse’s, but it’d still be too expensive apparently?
Binghamton gave my no financial aid, but it’s a state school so it’s no issue. I didn’t make the honors college either. Room and board is the reason I’m going to end up paying $27k, but with my scholarships it ends up being around $20k.
Spelman only gave me $2.2k and tuition is around $50k. But scholarships bring it down to around $46k
Syracuse gave me in total $35k. $17,500 for each semester. Tutition is $67k so I’d have to pay around $32k
Nothing wrong with Binghamton!!! It’s an excellent school; do well there and you’ll be fine for law school admissions. Law schools “recruit” at Spelman because there’s a concentrated pool of well-qualified URM applicants there; but a URM applicant with a high GPA coming out of Binghamton will be just as well positioned. You don’t want to be saddled with debt before you even start law school. Not worth it when you have an undergrad education on offer at Bing that’s of comparable quality to your private options.
sorry, the privates are just unaffordable for you. Go to Bing and save money for LS. Get a bunch of A’s, ace the LSAT and get merit money from the T14.
Fact 1: as @bluebayou said, the name of your undergraduate doesn’t matter; LSAT & GPA do.
Fact 2: you are unlikely to get a full scholarship for law school. The student I know with the best scholarship had a very strong LSAT & GPA, 2 years in top law firm, and is a URM at a T14 school with a hefty scholarship. Her out of pocket is about $35K/year.
Debt is worse than bad. It can weigh you down for decades, limiting your choices over and over again. I get the appeal of Spelman- it is a great school. But there’s no point pining for a Lexus when you have a Toyota budget. Binghamton is a solidly built, reliable vehicle that will get you where you want to go. Think of it as your starter package, and once you have that law degree you can start saving for the Lexus (once you pay down enough of the law school debt to be able to afford a new car- you will be grateful for your reliable Toyota more often than you would believe).
Go Bearcats!!
Are you in state or out of state for Binghamton? I really can’t stress this enough - the legal market is saturated, and law school is really expensive. You don’t need undergrad loans on top of law school loans to pay back. You very well could be paying into retirement if you fall upon some hard times. Keep your undergrad costs as low as you can.
Getting a scholarship for law school means getting it from a lower ranking law school. In most cases, this means worse post-graduation job prospects, since law employment is strongly related to ranking of your law school (even though law school admissions is mostly indifferent to the ranking of your undergraduate school).
http://schools.lawschoolnumbers.com/
https://www.lstreports.com/schools/
It looks like your only affordable choice for undergraduate is Binghamton.
Less to no debt is best. No school is a golden ticket to anywhere. Don’t get hang up on a name, especially if you are going into more debt for graduate school.
I’m in-state
If I were in your shoes I’d go to Binghamton without a doubt.
Before people start responding, can you tell us how much in loans you will need to take out for each school?
Binghamton. Do well there. Don’t look back, only forward!
Syracuse-$15,000 loan
Spelman-$22,000 loan
Binghamton- No loan