Borrowing to pay car payment while in law school? Forum

[jss1100]

Can you borrow enough to cover a car payment/insurace on top of general living expenses? Or is the only option either ditch the car or work while in law school to pay for it?

[vanwinkle]

You should be able to fit your car payment into your living expenses allocation. Do this by living somewhere cheaper, which having a car you have more flexibility to do. They do usually allocate enough to assume you need money to either live close or have transportation.

If you can't fit your car payment into your living expenses budget, then get a cheaper car.

[Vincent Vega]

Speaking of which, what exactly is covered under living expenses? Do they even check, or are there guidelines? I never have had to worry about this in UG because I have worked a lot of hours, but I won't be doing so in law school.

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Speaking of which, what exactly is covered under living expenses? Do they even check, or are there guidelines? I never have had to worry about this in UG because I have worked a lot of hours, but I won't be doing so in law school.

Depends on the school. At mine, they just took whatever you put down in the form at face value

[bahama]

No one checks.

I think there may be some rules around what you can spend federal loans on, but living expenses is a pretty broad and vague category. Your fin aid office might have some rules or guidelines, but again they are not going to be terribly specific.

[Jones, Dow]

if you can swing it, you might want to pay for a cheap car in full once you get your chunk of money. It's never good to pay interest with money that is accruing interest (hopefully that made sense) but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

[avacado111]

y would you want to go into more debt?

[vanwinkle]

Speaking of which, what exactly is covered under living expenses? Do they even check, or are there guidelines? I never have had to worry about this in UG because I have worked a lot of hours, but I won't be doing so in law school.

I talked to financial aid officers at three different schools and all of them told me they calculated a fixed amount of living expenses based on average COL for the area. You can find out what this will be for the school you'll be attending from someone in their financial aid department. It's usually recalculated year to year based on how costs change.

[Vincent Vega]

I'm not looking to screw the system or anything, but I have a few thousand in credit card debt that I would like to get rid of with a lump sum from education loans instead of keeping nicking away at them. I don't want to do so if it's illegal or considered really unethical, though.

[Leeroy Jenkins]

I'm not looking to screw the system or anything, but I have a few thousand in credit card debt that I would like to get rid of with a lump sum from education loans instead of keeping nicking away at them. I don't want to do so if it's illegal or considered really unethical, though.

My school's living expenses included a spot for CC payments

[SamSeaborn2016]

Nearly any school I can think of has a set "cost of attendance" they allocate for their students. If you can fit consumer debt payments into your allocated budget, more power to ya. That said, if you are able to use the money to pay off much higher interest rate credit cards, it might be a good idea but make sure you have enough to cover living expenses. Note: schools can adjust the pre-set budget for specific needs such as dependents/child-care and unusual medical expenses but you will have to provide documentation.

[Nom Sawyer]

Schools don't check your loans at all... They just line everybody up the first day and dump your loan money into your hands for the next year. Like this:

[Vincent Vega]

Thanks for the info. Completely honestly, my CC debt was down to about $500 at the end of the summer, but has risen to about $4000 due mostly to the following: Kaplan LSAT class ($1000), law school apps ($700), LSAT and LSDAS reg ($200), traveling to visit law schools (~$500), and living expenses, while earning a part-time income. If I don't get into Michigan ED, I will probably be working this summer and I might be able to make enough to pay off this CC debt. Hopefully.

[ruleser]

I'll be borrowing to cover car payments, in essence it's like delaying your payment, so when you get out of LS you have just one payment instead of if you needed to buy a car then and pay on that while also paying your student loans - this way they are combined into one.

Still better to get a cheap beater upper and not have a payment though.

[makingwaves]

Can you borrow enough to cover a car payment/insurace on top of general living expenses? Or is the only option either ditch the car or work while in law school to pay for it?

I personally am planning on fitting my car payment and my car insurance into my budget. I am however assuming that my insurance will go down a few hundred dollars between now and then (i'm still young). In the meantime I am working on paying a small portion of principle off the end of the loan every time I get a paycheck and will refinance with the smaller amount when I come closer to law school in order to lower the payment.

My two cents would be to just tack it on to the budget if possible, i'd much rather do that then work during law school...