Debt weighs on law students’ minds
By Michael Lee
March 4, 2004 9:00 p.m.
Many law students on financial aid loans are confident that one
day they will be able to shed their debts.
Given a reasonable amount of time in which to repay, and their
increased prospects for a steady income, usually the major headache
is filling out the forms each year.
But the students who worry most are those committed to pursuing
a public interest career ““ with non-profit agencies or in
government service.
One such student is first-year Andrea Laquetta, 29, one of 25
first-year students in the UCLA School of Law’s full-time
Public Interest Law Program.
Before applying to law school, she worked seven years for a
non-profit organization in Boston, soliciting investments to
revitalize low-income communities. She decided to attend law school
so she could pursue the same work with new expertise.
It was a tough choice.
She used up her entire savings to relocate from Massachusetts to
California. Being entirely dependent on financial aid for her three
years’ tuition and living expenses, she expects to graduate
with a debt of more than $100,000.
If she hadn’t qualified for a number of scholarships
during the year, it would have been even more.
But in the end, she chose UCLA because it was the best route to
her public service goals.
“I know that I could make a lot of money doing something
else, but I think there would be an emotional cost,” she
said.
Asked whether she believes she’ll ever be free of the
debt, Laquetta replied frankly.
“No, I don’t envision buying a house, I don’t
envision creating wealth in my lifetime,” she said.
“But I’m much more hopeful of my ability to secure
my own resources and be able to do the kind of work that I want to
do, than to trade,” she said.
This kind of dedication is what helps relieve a lot of regular
law students’ money worries, according to Veronica Wilson,
the law school’s financial aid director.
“They’re not uncomfortable with the level of debt
they’ll have to amass to reach their goal … because the
debt is actually driven by the goal.”
In fact, this high level of personal fiscal responsibility
““ one big difference from undergraduates on financial aid
““ can be a heady experience.
Some law students are already adults accustomed to handling
their own affairs; but for others, Wilson says, “it’s
the first time in their lives they’ve been handed an $8,000
check and told to manage it for the next year.”
Often students welcome this new responsibility, and Wilson does
her best to encourage them.
“Sometimes I have mothers calling me and demanding
accounting of their child’s expenses,” she said.
“I tell them, “˜your son is an adult and his records are
confidential.'”
Second-year Michelle Kim, who owes about $8,000 for this year,
is not at all worried. Between her modest savings and experience
earning a living after college, she feels free to pick her future
career, she said.
Wilson concedes, however, that some harder choices will have to
be made if tuition is increased under Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget ““ not just about
students’ choice of post-graduate careers but also their law
school careers.
Zachary Shepard, who leads a law student group lobbying against
the budget proposal, said the law school has usually been able to
set aside a portion of tuition fees to fund financial aid.
But with the proposed budget cutting University of California
professional schools’ funding by 25 percent, the law school
will have to raise tuition by as much as 40 percent, and send the
surplus directly to the UC, without reserving any for financial
aid.
The tuition hikes mean that an incoming non-California law
student next year faces around $30,000 in fees.
“That’s more than Harvard or Yale,” Shepard
said.
Wilson is already aware of at least 60 students last semester
who were turned down for private loan aid ““ which is based
solely on credit ratings ““ 12 of whom would have been forced
to drop out if they had not found other sources of aid.
“This is the first time that ever happened,” she
said.
Public Interest Law Program Director Kathy Mayorkas was
concerned that the Public Interest Law Program might have to alter
its approach.
Previously, students have been counseled to do whatever they
wanted to further their careers in public interest. Now, they may
have to be told to look for a well-paying job for at least one
summer, just to lessen some of their debt.
Ultimately, Mayorkas is afraid that, because of the budget cuts,
fewer prospective law students will apply to the program, and fewer
regular law students will be encouraged to explore public service
careers.
Laquetta conceded as much, saying that when she was deciding
where to attend law school, her calculations didn’t include
tuition hikes.
“I don’t regret coming here at all, but if I had to
do it all over again, I might have made a different choice,”
she said.
