{"id":167059,"date":"2026-11-10T09:20:56","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T17:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/11\/10\/the-next-law-school-admissions-crisis-could-be-about-loans\/"},"modified":"2026-11-10T09:20:56","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T17:20:56","slug":"the-next-law-school-admissions-crisis-could-be-about-loans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/11\/10\/the-next-law-school-admissions-crisis-could-be-about-loans\/","title":{"rendered":"The Next Law School Admissions Crisis Could Be About Loans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><u>Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/tag\/quote-of-the-day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>It\u2019ll take us a couple more years to see what kind of fallout in their ability to finance their education.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>It\u2019s anecdotal at this point, but you can see it coming. There\u2019s a slice of students who don\u2019t realize until they\u2019re through the application, admission, and matriculation process what that full picture looks like for them. Many know the cost, but they haven\u2019t really delved into what that looks like. Maybe they\u2019ve walked an unconventional path to get to law school, and their credit is not where they are able to access private loans. That brings a challenge, so they could end up deferring or wondering whether legal education is right for them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><em><b>\u2014 <\/b><\/em><strong><em><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lsac.org\/about\/lsac-leadership\/sudha-setty\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sudha Setty<\/a>, president and CEO of the Law School Admission Council, discussing the potential impact of changes to graduate student lending in an interview with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abajournal.com\/web\/article\/lsac-president-sudha-setty-reflects-on-dynamic-landscape-of-law-school-admissions\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABA Journal<\/a>. The new rules ended Grad PLUS loans for new borrowers starting July 1, 2026. JD students borrowing for the first time after that date can access up to $50,000 a year in federal loans, subject to a $200,000 lifetime cap. Students who need more may have to turn to private lenders, where eligibility depends on credit history, and private loans aren\u2019t eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.<\/strong><\/em><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"150\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/11\/Staci-Zaretsky.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-66762\" title=\"\"><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/author\/staci-zaretsky\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Staci Zaretsky<\/a> is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to <a href=\"mailto:staci@abovethelaw.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/stacizaretsky.bsky.social\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Bluesky<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/stacizaretsky\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">X\/Twitter<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.threads.net\/@stacizaretsky\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Threads<\/a>, or connect with her on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/staci-zaretsky\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2026\/11\/the-next-law-school-admissions-crisis-could-be-about-loans\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Next Law School Admissions Crisis Could Be About Loans<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-single__featured-image post-single__featured-image--medium alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"193\" src=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/law-school-loan-debt-300x193.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><u>Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/tag\/quote-of-the-day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>It\u2019ll take us a couple more years to see what kind of fallout in their ability to finance their education.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>It\u2019s anecdotal at this point, but you can see it coming. There\u2019s a slice of students who don\u2019t realize until they\u2019re through the application, admission, and matriculation process what that full picture looks like for them. Many know the cost, but they haven\u2019t really delved into what that looks like. Maybe they\u2019ve walked an unconventional path to get to law school, and their credit is not where they are able to access private loans. That brings a challenge, so they could end up deferring or wondering whether legal education is right for them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><em><b>\u2014 <\/b><\/em><strong><em><em><strong>, president and CEO of the Law School Admission Council, discussing the potential impact of changes to graduate student lending in an interview with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abajournal.com\/web\/article\/lsac-president-sudha-setty-reflects-on-dynamic-landscape-of-law-school-admissions\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABA Journal<\/a>. The new rules ended Grad PLUS loans for new borrowers starting July 1, 2026. JD students borrowing for the first time after that date can access up to $50,000 a year in federal loans, subject to a $200,000 lifetime cap. Students who need more may have to turn to private lenders, where eligibility depends on credit history, and private loans aren\u2019t eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.<\/strong><\/em><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/11\/Staci-Zaretsky.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-66762\" title=\"\"><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/author\/staci-zaretsky\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Staci Zaretsky<\/a> is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#f88b8c999b91b8999a978e9d8c909d94998fd69b9795\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/stacizaretsky.bsky.social\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Bluesky<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/stacizaretsky\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">X\/Twitter<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.threads.net\/@stacizaretsky\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Threads<\/a>, or connect with her on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/staci-zaretsky\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day. It\u2019ll take us a couple more years to see what kind of fallout in their ability to finance their education. It\u2019s anecdotal at this point, but you can see it coming. There\u2019s a slice of students who don\u2019t realize until they\u2019re through the application, admission, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":167027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}