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Good morning, everyone. My name is Gina Soliz, and I'm the Director of Financial Aid, wishing
you a very warm welcome to the Visitor Program. We think these are good opportunities for
you to learn a lot about the school, get a sense of what it's like here, and then certainly
get some information. I think that financial aid might be a little bit of a boring topic,
or a frightening topic, so I'll try to make it a little bit more understandable and relaxed
and sort of answer any questions that might come up. So, basically I always like to start
these programs off by giving you a little exercise to think about. You're making a big
financial decision. This is a big investment in your time, a big investment in your money.
So I want you to think really hard about your money. This exercise that I have is sort of
a fun weekend exercise that you can do some day. What I want you to do is I want you to
go to the ATM, and this is the only time you'll ever hear the financial aid office telling
you it's okay to withdraw money out of the ATM. I'm not telling you to spend it, necessarily,
but you can withdraw it. And for the people that are admitted students who are currently
working, you get the big bonus withdrawal. You get to withdraw $40 out of the ATM. For
those of you who are still students, you're living on a tighter budget, so you only get
to withdraw $20. I'm sorry about that. And then what I want you to do is I want you to
take all of your credit cards, all of your plastic, even that ATM card... Take all of
that out of your wallet, put all of that plastic in a metal bowl, fill the metal bowl with
water, and then put that metal bowl in the freezer. You are literally putting your credit
on ice. It's frozen, you don't have access to it, all you have is that $20 or that $40
in your wallet. And then think about the different financial decisions that you're making. If
you have a group of friends who are going out to a fancy restaurant, well, maybe that's
not an option for you any more. Or if you say, gosh, instead of doing that, let's have
movie night at my house, and by the way, you bring the food and drinks. So, basically,
it's just sort of a silly little exercise. Really, when you literally have a limited
amount of resources in your wallet, what kind of different decisions do you make? And that's
essentially what law school is. We set a cost of attendance, we have a budget, we think
it's a reasonable amount for the living expenses, the cost of living in Central New York, but
we really want you to think long and hard about the money that you're borrowing. I'm
going to tell you some details about loans in just a moment. And just think about having
limited resources and making different decisions. There's this old saying: LIve like a student
while you're a student, so you can live like a lawyer while you're a lawyer. So that definitely
applies to you as you think about the student loans that you'll be repaying. So, my little
quiz: Why did I choose a metal bowl for this exercise? Why is your credit on ice in a metal
bowl in the freezer? You can't put metal in the microwave. So if you're dying to go out
to the mall, or go out with your friends, you have to wait for that to defrost. It's
going to sit on the counter and you can't put it in the microwave to melt it faster.
So that's just my little exercise. So the next time you go to the ATM, or go out, or
say yes to an invitation from friends and family, maybe you can think about that little
exercise and maybe make some different decisions. Before you come to law school, we want you
to think about not making any big purchases, searching for outside scholarships, just really
thinking about your finances. We actually have a new section on our website called Orange
U Savvy. Isn't that a cute little name? [laughter] So, Orange U Savvy is a financial literacy
site for law students. It's not password protected, so you can go out and look at that. You can
also link to our outside scholarship section of our website. So, once you've exhausted
the resources, the grants or the scholarships that we're able to offer you here, go out
and search. There could be a bar association or a community group, another place that might
have a little bit of money. It might be a writing competition, or maybe it's just you
find something that you're the perfect candidate because it's your home town, or it's for someone
who is planning to practice the type of law that you think you're interested in. So, definitely
seek outside scholarships. But the next part of this -- a lot of you have applied for financial
aid, a lot of you have heard from us -- so once you know what your grants and scholarships
are, the next part of this is loans. So, I want to talk to you, just very briefly, about
the student loan program. There are two types of federal direct loans, and we think that
the federal loans are a little bit better of a deal than private loans, simply because
there's some really good repayment terms, and some options that aren't available in
the private loan program for borrowers of the federal loans. So, the two types loans,
Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan, unsubsidized means the government is not paying the interest
for you while you're in school, so interest is accruing. It has a 6.8% interest rate,
and it has a cap of $20,500. So, the government sets the limit. If you file a FAFSA, it will
tell you what your eligibility is. It will be 20,500. The other type of loan is basically
there to fill the gap. So, if you know what our cost of attendance is, and you subtract
out what your grant is and what your unsubsidized loan is, the remainder can be filled, unless
you have rich Aunt Sally, who's going to be helping you, the rest of it can be filled
with the Federal Direct Graduate Plus Loan. Now, the graduate plus loan is a credit-based
loan, so when you apply for it, there's going to be a credit authorization that happens.
So that's a little bit different from the unsubsidized loan. Grad Plus, you apply for
it, you choose the amount that you want to borrow. So, unlike the cap of the unsubsidized
loan, every person has a different maximum eligibility. The school's cost of attendance,
minus your other financial aid. It has the fixed 7.9% interest rate, and it's also unsubsidized.
So that means, again, that interest is accruing while you're in school. Now, you're not required
to make payments on either of those loans while you're in school, but if you're able
to afford to do that, then that will cost you less in the long run, because once you
go into repayment, hopefully that's upon graduation, you'll be certain of starting out at that
principal, that original amount that you've borrowed, if you can afford to make interest
payments. And you can change your mind as you go along, so if you want to give it a
shot, and then clearly as you go through law school, the more years you have under your
belt, the more you'll be borrowing, the more your quarterly interest payment will be, so
if it gets to be an unmanageable amount, you can work with your servicer and make a different
decision. So, I have a little cheat sheet, a little piece of paper here, because I want
to put this into real numbers for you. $20,500 unsubsidized loan: If you're here for three
years, you'll borrow $61,500 if you take advantage of that maximum every year. Standard repayment
is 10 years. If you put that into a repayment calculator, $61,5000, 6.8% interest rate over
ten years, the repayment amount every month will be $700 a month. Just about, I rounded
it. You're also borrowing graduate plus loan, potentially, so I put a figure out there.
Imagine if you borrowed $20,000 a year. Three years, $60,000 total, standard repayment ten
years, fixed 7.9% interest rate. Put that into the repayment calculator: $725 a month.
And you need to add those two things together, so now you're over $1400 a month. And that
seems scary. And even if the dean were still here in the audience, I would still give you
these numbers [laughter], and hope that you don't go running out the door. Because there's
no reason to go running out the door. Because first of all, I know what you're going to
do first off. You're going to think about your cost of attendance, you're going to think
about your resources. You're going to borrow and live like a student so you can keep that
debt down, so maybe you won't have to borrow this much. But the second thing that you can
do is you can take advantage of other repayment options. So, for example, there's an extended
repayment. So instead of just a ten year term, you repay over 25 years. That's going to reduce
the monthly amount that you owe. Clearly if you take any debt and you repay it over a
longer period of time, you'll pay more over the life of the loan, but there's no penalty
for early payment. So again, 25 year payment, same dollar amount, $400 a month for the unsubsidized
loan, $450, roughly, for the grad plus. So that takes that $1400 a month payment and
at least it brings it down closer to $850. So that's good news. The other good news is
there's income-driven plans. So instead of just based on what you borrow, it instead
would be based on your family size and your household income. And so there's a calculation
that takes place, to say we want to make sure that all of you get to choose the law school
that you want to attend, borrow what you need to, to get by, to pay the tuition bill, to
have reasonable expenses, for your personal expenses, covered by these student loans if
you need to go that route, and then take the job that you want to take. So, income based
repayment, or pay as you earn, those plans are available, and again, based on your household
income. I gave two examples on my slip of paper here. Imagine if you were earning $40,000.
Which I know doesn't sound like very much, but there very well could be some non-profits
or maybe even some government positions out there that that's the salary range. The repayment
amount goes down to $291 a month. So that's a far cry from the $1400 a month that I talked
in the first example. So again, income-based repayment, pay as you earn, make something
more manageable based on your situation, what you're earning, what you're doing. Student
loans are scary. We want to diffuse that scariness and answer your questions. We don't want you
to wait until your third year to come in and have a one-on-one appointment with us where
we go over what all of the repayment plans are. These are just average figures or generic
figures that I've picked out of my hat. We want you to pay attention to what you borrow
annually, and then come and meet with us, and we'll put those into repayment calculators
with you, so that you're not afraid at the end of your legal career. So, very very quickly:
This is the time, once you make your decision, your final decision on where to attend, this
is the time of year to fill out promissory notes. Even though you've already file the
FAFSA and we may have told you what your eligibility is, the next step is to actually say yes,
I want to borrow this loan. So you have a financial aid to do list on MySlice, and you'll
be directed to the Federal Direct website called studentloans.gov. On that website,
you can apply for the loans. For first-time grad plus borrowers, there's also entrance
counseling, so sort of a little online quiz where we want you to read about your rights
and responsibilities as a student loan borrower. Then the next thing that's going to happen
in June, is that anyone who has matriculated, our bursars office, which is our billing office,
will send out billing statements for the fall, and you'll see any financial aid, including
those student loans that you've applied for, as anticipated credit on that bill. So there's
a potential that if you have all of your aid in order, that you won't owe anything more
when that bill comes due in July. And then come August, right around orientation, just
before school begins, we'll disburse all of your financial aid, so grants, scholarship,
loans, will be disbursed or credited to that bill, and then if you've borrowed to help
pay not only for your billable expenses like tuition and fees, if you've also borrowed
to help pay for your living expenses, that credit balance will be available to you, so
you'll basically get a refund from the bursar, and then you'll need to stretch that out for
the fall semester, make that last, budget for yourself. And then the same thing happens
again in January. So, when the spring bill is due and the aid credits, you'll get a refund
again in the spring semester for your living expenses. Did I even take a breathe that whole
time as I said in a nutshell what is happening? [laughter] I have time maybe for two or three
questions. Like I said, the dean cut into my time just a little bit [laughter] so, may
I help answer any questions right now? Yes? -- You said on the unsubsidized federal loans
there's a cap on the income? -- No, there's a cap on the amount that you
can borrow... Right, so $20,500 is the max that someone can borrow. I've either bored
you or scared you or... Not sure what other acronyms or words I could use. Alright, well
so, we have this session planned hand-in-hand, so where I talk about money and borrowing
and possibly even income-based repayment, our next speaker is Kim Wolf Price, who talks
about jobs, which I guess is your ultimate goal for going to law school.
-- I think so. -- I should also just mention, before Kim
speaks, is that if you do have any personal questions one-on-one, that wouldn't have been
appropriate to ask in the crowd, at the end of the day today we do have time that you're
invited to come to the Financial Aid office. Oh, and I forgot to introduce Shelley and
Emily, I'm sorry! So, I brought with me today -- I'm so sorry! Emily Massenio is our Financial
Aid Coordinator. When you come into the office, she's there. She's the one that's been helping
track your documents, and if you have questions about what's on the financial aid to do list,
Emily's the person who has been helping you with that. Shelley Lee is our assistant director,
and she's really a great loan repayment expert, and meets regularly with students, and instead
of needing a kleenex box, sometimes I hear people laughing when they're in Shelley's
office. [laughter] So that's a good thing. Alright, so thank you so much for your time.
I'll turn the program over. [applause]