Education / Schools, Law Schools, Money, Student Loans, UNC Law

UNC Law Abruptly Ends Loan Repayment Assistance Program

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On Monday, we warned you that student loan forgiveness programs were under attack. Today, the University of North Carolina School of Law informed students that the school could not afford to make the promised loan repayments to students in low income jobs. Here’s the email from UNC Law Dean Jack Boger:

We are writing to share news about a regrettable delay in our implementation of the new LRAP program at UNC School of Law. Unfortunately, because of the grave economic downturn that has hit the North Carolina state budget, we will not be able to go forward this spring with Loan Repayment Assistance Program funding. As you may know, various statewide freezes and other severe restrictions have been imposed this spring on all state funds, including the UNC law school account that was designated for LRAP purposes. Moreover, the state has made clear that it intends to ‘recapture’ those funds to meet its larger budgetary needs sometime before June 30, the end of this fiscal year. This will leave us without the financial means to make LRAP awards.
While we share your disappointment with this turn of events, we remain committed to the LRAP program – and will keep your application on file. We hope to be able to relaunch this program sometime during the 2009-10 fiscal year.
Thank you for your patience, and for your help in the development of this program. We also thank you for your continued support of Carolina Law.
Sincerely yours,
Jack Boger, Dean, UNC School of Law

UNC Law seems to be developing a pattern of raising people’s hopes, and then dashing them.
A student affected by this decision shares an interesting viewpoint after the jump.


One tipster had this thoughtful response to UNC’s situation:

Several months ago we were informed that our law school was beginning a Loan Repayment Assistance Program (“LRAP”) to aid those of us working in the public and non-profit sectors. We all scrambled to get years’ worth of tax returns, life-long financial histories, and extensive applications together in a matter of weeks in order to be considered….
Please do not misunderstand, this is not a rant, nor do I feel entitled to any sort of relief from my self-incurred debt, and nor do I in any way blame the law school. This action (or inaction) is simply a reflection of the misappropriation of values and resources in our society that occurs every day. What we’re ultimately talking about here is one way in which the government (often the primary lender) could organically make an impact on the non-profit and public legal sectors, by taking action that would make it a bit easier for those of us so inclined to take lower paying jobs without worrying about the loans we’ll never finish paying.

Do we want law schools to become the exclusive domain of the independently wealthy? Family wealth isn’t supposed to be a barrier to accessing a top education in this country.
Or do we want students who receive the best legal education to have no choice except going into a large corporate law firm simply because of their debt load? Even if that is the preferred solution, the market isn’t providing jobs for all of these people.
Law schools cost too much. And slowly but surely, governments are abandoning its commitment to helping people manage that cost for the benefit of the public good.
It’s an unacceptable situation. That is all.
Earlier: Student Loan Bailout: Are Loan Forgiveness Programs In Danger?
Snafu at UNC Law Raises Hopes, Then Dashes Them

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