Personal Finance
A plain guide to money in law school: loans and the changes coming in 2026, budgeting for rent and groceries, buying and reselling your books, what to do with a summer paycheck, how to afford an unpaid summer, and which purchases are worth it.
Law school is expensive, and how you handle money during these three years follows you for a long time after. The good news is that the whole thing comes down to a few simple ideas: know what your education really costs, spend less than the money you are given to live on, and borrow as little as you can. Everything else on this page builds on those three.
Know your real cost
Your cost of attendance is more than tuition. It includes housing, food, books, transportation, and fees, and it is the number your aid is built around.
Live below your refund
After aid pays tuition, the leftover is disbursed to you for living costs. Treat that as a ceiling, not a target, and keep whatever you do not spend.
Borrow the minimum
Loan money is not free money. Every dollar you borrow grows with interest, so the less you take now, the less you owe later.
How the money actually flows
From cost of attendance to your bank account
Your school sets a cost of attendance. This is a yearly budget for tuition and fees plus an allowance for housing, food, books, and transportation. For many law students the total lands somewhere around fifty to ninety thousand dollars a year, depending on the school and the city.
Your aid is applied to tuition first. Scholarships, grants, and loans go toward tuition and required fees before anything else.
The leftover is refunded to you. Whatever aid is left after tuition is disbursed to you, usually at the start of each term, to cover rent, groceries, and the rest of your living costs.
You make it last. That refund has to stretch across the whole term. Spending less than it gives you, and returning the unused part of a loan, is one of the easiest ways to cut what you eventually owe.
The one sentence that matters most
Loan money spends like income, but it is the most expensive kind of money you will ever touch as a student, because it follows you for years and grows the whole time. If you treat your refund as a budget to beat rather than a paycheck to spend, you will graduate with less debt than almost everyone around you, and that single habit is worth more than any investing trick.
Most law students borrow, and the rules for borrowing are changing in a big way right now. This section covers how federal loans work, the changes arriving in 2026 that you have to plan around, and the programs that make public interest careers affordable. Because this area is moving fast, treat every number here as a starting point and confirm it with your financial aid office.
Important: the rules change on July 1, 2026
Under a 2025 federal law, the Grad PLUS loan program is ending for new borrowers starting July 1, 2026. After that date, professional students, which includes law students, can borrow federal Direct Unsubsidized loans up to fifty thousand dollars a year, with a two hundred thousand dollar cap for law school and a lifetime federal cap of around two hundred fifty-seven thousand dollars. Students already borrowing Grad PLUS can generally keep using it to finish their current program for a limited time. If you are a new borrower after that date and your costs run higher than the new caps, you may face a gap to fill with savings, scholarships, or private loans, which carry fewer protections. Check your exact situation with your financial aid office.
The basics
How federal law school loans work
- Start with the FAFSA. The federal aid application is what makes you eligible for federal loans, and your school uses it to certify how much you can borrow.
- Direct Unsubsidized loans are the first federal option. As of the 2025 to 2026 year, graduate and professional students can borrow up to twenty thousand five hundred dollars a year in this loan, at a fixed rate that is reset each July.
- Grad PLUS loans have covered the rest up to your full cost of attendance, at a higher rate of around nine percent for 2025 to 2026 plus an origination fee, and they require a basic credit check. This is the program ending for new borrowers in July 2026.
- Interest and grace. Federal student loans for graduate students are unsubsidized, so interest builds while you are in school. You generally do not have to start paying until six months after you graduate or drop below half-time, but the balance grows in the meantime.
- Private loans are a last resort. They can fill a gap, but they usually have fewer protections, no access to federal forgiveness, and often require a cosigner, so compare offers carefully before signing.
Free money first
Scholarships, grants, and how to owe less
Before you borrow a dollar, chase every dollar you do not have to repay. Scholarships and grants are the cheapest money there is, because the cost is your time spent applying, not years of interest.
- Most law scholarships come straight from the law school itself, on the basis of merit, need, or both, so ask the admissions and financial aid offices what you qualify for and whether your award can be reconsidered.
- Look outside the school too. Local bar associations, civic and religious groups, and identity-based organizations all offer smaller scholarships that add up and face less competition.
- If you have a strong offer from another school, it is sometimes possible to negotiate your aid. A polite, specific request backed by a competing offer can work.
- Borrow only what you truly need. Taking the full cost of attendance when you do not need it is the most common and most expensive mistake students make.
Public interest math
PSLF and loan repayment assistance
If you want a lower-paid public interest or government job, two programs are what make that financially possible, and they are worth understanding before you ever borrow.
- Public Service Loan Forgiveness can cancel your remaining federal loan balance after about ten years of qualifying payments while you work full time for the government or a nonprofit. It applies to federal loans only, which is one more reason to be careful with private debt.
- Loan repayment assistance programs, often called LRAPs, are offered by many law schools. They help repay the loans of graduates who take qualifying lower-paid public interest jobs, sometimes covering most or all of your payments for a number of years.
- These two are designed to work together. Many schools expect you to enroll in an income-driven federal repayment plan and pursue forgiveness, with the school covering your payments along the way.
- If public interest is your goal, ask each school about its LRAP details early, because the generosity of these programs varies a lot and can matter more than the sticker price.
Do
- File the FAFSA early every year.
- Exhaust scholarships and grants before loans.
- Borrow the smallest amount you can live on.
- Read your loan terms, including the interest rate and fees.
- Confirm the current rules with your financial aid office.
Avoid
- Taking the full refund just because it is offered.
- Reaching for private loans before federal options.
- Ignoring how the 2026 changes affect your plan.
- Assuming you will out-earn any amount of debt later.
- Forgetting that interest grows while you study.
A budget is just a plan for money you already have, and in law school most of that money is your aid refund. The point is not to track every penny forever, it is to know roughly what comes in each month, what has to go out, and how much room is left. Get that picture once, and the rest takes care of itself.
Where the money goes
The categories that actually matter
- Rent. This is your biggest lever by far. A roommate, a slightly longer commute, or a cheaper neighborhood saves more than every coffee you could ever skip, so spend your energy here first.
- Utilities and internet. Electricity, gas, water, and a home internet plan. Splitting a place means splitting these too.
- Groceries. Cooking at home is dramatically cheaper than eating out, and learning a handful of cheap, repeatable meals is one of the highest-return habits in law school.
- Transportation and gas. A transit pass, gas, parking, and the real cost of a car if you have one. Living near campus or a bus line can replace a car payment entirely.
- Phone and subscriptions. Family plans and student discounts cut these. Audit your subscriptions once a semester and drop what you forgot you had.
- A small cushion. Build in a little for the things that always come up, like a copay, a flight home, or a broken laptop charger, so one surprise does not blow up the month.
Try it
A quick monthly budget
Put in what you have to spend each month, usually your aid refund divided by the months it has to cover, and your rough expenses. The number at the bottom is what is left over, or what you are short. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
Fill in the fields to see where you stand.
The placeholder numbers are only an example, and real costs vary a lot by city. Use your own.
If the number at the bottom is negative
Do not panic, and do not just borrow more to cover it. Start with the biggest categories, because that is where real change lives. Rent and transportation move the needle far more than cutting small treats, and fixing those once fixes every future month. Borrowing a little extra feels easy now, but it is the most expensive way to balance a budget.
Law school books are genuinely expensive. A single new casebook often runs well over two hundred dollars, and a full year of new books can pass a thousand. The good news is that almost no one needs to pay full price, and a little patience at the start of each term saves a lot.
New, used, or rented
How to buy your books for less
- Wait until the first class. Professors often clarify which book and which edition you actually need, and sometimes you can share or borrow for the first week. Buying early is how people end up with the wrong edition.
- Renting is usually the cheapest up front, often saving a third to half off new, but you have to return the book and you cannot resell it. It is a good fit for a class you know you will never revisit.
- Used is the sweet spot for most students. You save a meaningful amount, you can mark it up, and you can sell it again at the end, which often makes it cheaper than renting once you factor in the resale.
- New makes sense only when there is no used copy yet, or when the book comes with a required access code, so treat it as the last option rather than the default.
- Older editions are often nearly identical and far cheaper, but check with the professor first, since page numbers and a few cases can change, and some classes need a specific statutory supplement.
- Use a price comparison tool like BookScouter to check buyback and resale prices across sellers at once, and check your school's student swap groups, where upper-year students sell directly for the best prices.
Get your money back
How to resell your used books
- When you buy a normal print casebook, you own it, which means you are free to resell it when the class ends. That resale is what makes buying used so cheap in the long run.
- Be careful with bundled digital casebooks that ask you to return the print copy at the end of the term. Those are designed to undercut resale, so if keeping and reselling matters to you, buy the standard print version.
- Sell to next year's students directly when you can, through your school's class pages and swap groups. You will almost always get more than a buyback site offers.
- For everything else, use buyback and resale options like BookScouter, online marketplaces, and campus buyback, and compare them in a minute rather than taking the first offer.
- Sell promptly. A new edition can drop the value of your copy overnight, so list your books soon after the class ends rather than letting them sit on a shelf.
Study aids
Which supplements are worth buying
Supplements are the optional study guides that explain a subject in plainer language than your casebook. They can be a real help in a hard class, but you do not need one for every course, and you should rarely pay full price.
- The Examples and Explanations series is the most popular study aid for a reason. It walks through a subject with short hypotheticals and answers, and it works alongside any casebook.
- Buy supplements used, and older editions are usually fine, since the law in a foundational course does not change much year to year.
- Check the law library first. Many keep current supplements on reserve, so you can use them for free before deciding whether to buy your own.
- Be honest about which classes you actually need help in. One or two good supplements for your hardest subjects beats a shelf of guides you never open.
Use your aid for books, but spend less than it gives you
Your cost of attendance includes a books allowance, and your refund is meant to cover them, so you are not borrowing extra to buy what a class requires. The move is to spend less than that allowance by buying used and reselling, and to keep the difference. Many schools will also let you add the cost of a computer to your budget once, with a receipt, so ask before you pay for a laptop out of pocket.
Your summers are where law school finances swing the most. One summer might bring a large paycheck from a firm, and another might be unpaid work at a court or a nonprofit. Both take a little planning, in opposite directions. For how to land these jobs and how to fund an unpaid one, see the summer internships guide.
The paid summer
What to do with a 2L summer associate paycheck
A summer associate position at a large firm pays a lot, often around forty to fifty thousand dollars across the summer at market rates, which can be more money than you have ever had at once. It is also a one-time window, so a little discipline here pays off for years. A sensible order looks like this.
Set aside taxes and check your withholding. A high weekly paycheck is taxed as if you earned that much all year, so a big chunk comes out. Do not spend as if the gross is yours, and look at whether you are over-withheld.
Build an emergency fund. Get to a starter cushion of around a thousand dollars first, then work toward a few months of basic expenses. This is what keeps a surprise from becoming new debt.
Consider a Roth IRA. Because you have earned income and a relatively low yearly total, a summer job is often a rare chance to fund a Roth, where the money can grow tax-free for decades. The annual limit is a few thousand dollars, and starting young is the whole advantage.
Pay down your most expensive debt. Any high-interest balances, like credit cards or private loans that are already accruing, are worth knocking down. Your federal loans are usually still in their grace period, so they are a lower priority than a high-rate balance.
Set aside for the year ahead. Hold back money for the costs that are coming, like your final year, bar exam fees, a bar study summer with little income, and moving for your first job.
The unpaid summer
How to afford a court or public interest internship
Many of the best 1L jobs, like a judicial internship or a public interest placement, do not pay. That does not mean you have to work for free, because there is a whole system built to fund exactly this kind of summer. The trick is to look for the money at the same time you look for the job, not after.
- Start with your school's summer public interest funding. Most law schools offer a grant or fellowship for students who take unpaid public sector work, and it is usually the largest and most reliable source.
- Look at outside fellowships and stipends, including organizations like Equal Justice Works and issue-specific funds, which support summer public interest work.
- Check for work-study, bar association scholarships, and affinity group funding, which are smaller but add up and often face less competition.
- Ask the organization itself whether any stipend is available, since some larger nonprofits and unions do pay, and the worst answer is no.
- Budget tight for the summer. A sublet, roommates, cooking, and cheap transit can shrink a low-pay summer to something a grant actually covers. Borrowing to work for free should be the last resort, not the plan.
Two summers, one mindset
Whether the check is large or nonexistent, the goal is the same: do not let the summer set you back. In a paid summer that means banking most of it instead of inflating your lifestyle. In an unpaid one it means lining up a grant so you can take the better experience without going deeper into debt. The students who handle both well are usually the ones who planned a few months ahead.
A lot of law school spending feels required when it is really optional. Here is an honest take on what tends to earn its cost and what usually does not. None of this is a rule, since your situation is yours, but it is a good default to argue with.
Usually worth it
- A reliable laptop you can work on for three years.
- One or two used supplements for your hardest classes.
- The free tools your school already pays for, like Westlaw, Lexis, and CALI.
- Health insurance, so one illness does not become a financial crisis.
- A couple of solid interview pieces, covered in the dress code guide.
- A quiet, workable study setup, whether that is a desk at home or just a good routine at the library.
Usually not worth it
- Buying every casebook new when used copies exist.
- Paying for commercial bar prep early, since many employers cover a course later.
- Paid research databases or study sites your school already provides.
- Premium everything, from the apartment to the gadgets, on borrowed money.
- Eating out as a default instead of an occasional treat.
- A nicer car you do not actually need to get to class.
The test for any purchase
Before a bigger buy, ask two questions. Will this still matter to me in a year, and am I paying for it with money I had to borrow? Something that lasts and improves your work, like a dependable laptop, is usually worth it even on a budget. Something that is gone in a week and paid for with loan money is almost never worth what it truly costs once interest is counted. When in doubt, wait a few days, because most wants quietly fade and most needs do not.
© 2026 Surviving Law School · General information only, not financial, tax, or legal advice. Loan rules change often, so confirm current details with your financial aid office.