However, there are many varieties of financial aid which can mitigate the extent of law school debt. When it comes time to take out loans, students also have a variety of avenues to pursue in determining the most affordable and reasonable loans available.
The Best Route?
Assuming that you do not have the cash to pay for school outright (as is most often the case), you should follow this hierarchy in pursuing the best options for funding your education:
1. Scholarships
a. Merit-based
b. Need-based
2. Government loans or HELB3. Private Loans
Scholarships
In general, scholarships should be your first stop when looking into financing your legal education. They are the most student-friendly means of financing an education because they are essentially “free money”; any amount of aid you are awarded via a scholarship is yours to keep. Unlike loans, scholarships are not paid back. There are two primary types of scholarships given to law students: merit-based scholarships and need-based financial aid.
Merit-Based Scholarships
Most law schools offer a significant amount of merit-based scholarships to select admitted students who boast particularly impressive applications. These scholarships are “need-blind”, based solely on an applicant’s previous achievements, and are potentially significant in scope – ranging from a few thousand dollars to the cost of full tuition. For these reasons, merit-based scholarships – when made available – are perhaps the simplest and most preferable way of chipping away at the cost of a legal education.
Need-Based Scholarships
Need-based scholarships are granted by law schools to candidates who have demonstrated greater financial need than their peers. Like merit-based scholarships, money received in a need-based scholarship never has to be repaid; it is merely a tuition reduction for the recipient. Each school determines its need-based aid recipients on a case-by-case basis; candidates coming from lower income homes and lower socio-economic backgrounds, however, are the intended recipients for such aid.
While all admitted students are eligible to apply for need-based financial aid, it is not easy to procure these grants; most applications are not successful. That said, the amount of money a school allocates for financial aid (and the number of candidates who receive rewards) varies widely by school; some institutions are more generous with their need-based grants than others.
Kenya Government Loans
Once your hopes for merit and need-based financial have been exhausted, you will have to proceed to the next-best source of funding for law school: Government or state loans for students.The Government of Kenya has a programme to fund students through the higher education loans board.(HELB)
Unlike merit-aid and need-based aid, government loans are not “free” money – they most certainly have to be paid back. The big advantage of government student loans, however, is that they boast much lower interest rates than private loans.Helb in this case does not charge any interest. These government-backed loans also employ much more student-friendly repayment policies. For these reasons, a student should exhaust all avenues for government/state student loans before considering private bank loans.To apply for the HELB loan you can download the application form on their website.
Private Loans
So you didn’t get any financial aid.You’ve exhausted the helb loan and arent eligible for other scholarships. Yet, you still need more money to pay for law school. You last resort should be private loans.
Private loans are available from banks, credit unions, and some corporations that deal solely with student loans. They are usually for-profit enterprises meaning they will generally have higher interest rates, less friendly repayment conditions, and sometimes hefty origination fees. If, however, these are your only means of finance and you have to take one out, the best advice is to shop around. Go to several banks and student-lenders to compare rates.
Your best bet is actually likely to be a credit union since they are not for-profit enterprises and often have more friendly rates. Don’t belong to a credit union? See if you can join one (this is good advice not just when financing law school but later on down the road when you’re applying for a mortgage as well; credit unions are great.)
Beyond comparing lots of options, make sure you read everything. Know the conditions of the loan back-and-forth, including all the origination fees, the interest rate (of course), the term of the loan (how long you have to pay it back), the period of interest accrual (i.e. can you defer interest until you graduate), and what options you might have to re-negotiate terms/rates at a later date (you may not have any).
When investigating private loan options, shop around and be an intelligent consumer. Don’t be afraid to put your foot down or walk away from a loan if the conditions are too unfavorable, and don’t feel pressured by the bank/lender trying to sell you. This is a serious decision and there is a large amount of money at stake.
For further reading see:Your school’s financial aid website