More Law Students Should Join ROTC To Help Minimize Their Student Debt

Attention law students: you may be eligible for ROTC graduate school scholarships.

Most law students are intimately familiar with the fact that it costs an unbelievable amount of money to earn a law degree.  And this website and others have discussed at length how much it costs to attend law school and how individuals can minimize the amount of money they borrow to earn a law degree.  Since few outside scholarships are available for law students, most individuals seeking to minimize their student debt as a law student have to apply for need-based financial aid or pursue merit scholarships.

However, many law students might not be familiar with the fact that law students are eligible to receive ROTC scholarships that cover the last two years of law school.  In addition, the military also provides stipends to law students who accept ROTC scholarships.  This opportunity should definitely be considered when thinking of ways to minimize the amount of student loans one must borrow to attend law school.

I wanted to participate in ROTC as an undergraduate, but my college did not have an ROTC detachment, and the closest one was pretty far away.  However, the first law school that I attended was literally right next to the Virginia Military Institute, which had a solid Army ROTC program.  Since I was interested in joining the military (and receiving financial assistance for law school), I reached out to the folks at the Army ROTC program at VMI as a first-year law student.  I was told that two-year Army ROTC scholarships were available for graduate students, and this could help me with my last two years of law school.

I asked the folks at VMI if I could participate in their Army ROTC program as a non-contracted cadet, so that I could get a feel for what military service might be like.  To my surprise, they were more than happy to allow me participate, and during my second semester of law school, I took a military science class once a week at VMI.  This course covered the basics of the Army hierarchy, land navigation, and other military skills.  I also attended PT classes once a week at VMI, and I participated in a field training exercise at a local military base during that semester as well.

I really enjoyed these experiences.  It was great to get away from law school once in a while, and the ROTC cadets were fun to be around.  I met a number of undergraduates in the area through participating in the ROTC program, and this definitely helped enrich my social life as a first-year law student!  In addition, the undergraduates gave me a weird kind of respect, since I was one of the few law students in the group.

These experiences showed me that military service might be something I wanted to pursue, so I decided to compete for an Army ROTC graduate school scholarship.  In order to do this, I had to attend a 30-day course in Fort Knox, KY.

During the training, cadets were taught a number of military skills, and ROTC staff assessed cadets and decided if they should be awarded scholarships.  The training was pretty tough, since Fort Knox in the summer is dreadful, and we slept on average four to five hours a night throughout the course.  In addition, the training was physically taxing, and we had to do a lot of PT, road marches, squad tactical exercises in the woods, and other tasks.

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The course, however, was extremely rewarding.  It was great to push my limits and complete tasks I had never done before.  It was also awesome to meet people from across the county, including cadets from Guam, Puerto Rico, and a number of other places.  I still have numerous friends from this experience, and I met people from all walks of life at this training.

After successfully completing this course, I was offered an Army ROTC scholarship.  This was a surprise, since I definitely was not the strongest cadet.  Trust me, if I can win an Army ROTC graduate school scholarship, almost anyone can!  However, I learned during training that I had been accepted as a transfer student to another law school, and my new law school offered me substantial need-based financial aid. As a result, I decided to decline my scholarship, since I reasoned that with this financial aid, it would be easier to pay off my student loans if I did not join the armed services

Of course, military service is not for everyone.  Indeed, I later applied to and was accepted to serve in the reserve component of the Army JAG Corps, but I was medically disqualified.  In addition, everyone entering the military needs to evaluate whether they are okay with being separated from family and being put in harm’s way.

However, participating in Army ROTC as a law student could be a great way to minimize the amount of student debt you need to borrow.  I have not heard of many law students participating in this program, and this might be because not many law students know that they could be eligible for ROTC graduate school scholarships.

Of course, ROTC might be different now from when I participated in the program over eight years ago, and everyone should do their own research about the details of joining ROTC.  In any case, participating in ROTC as a law student could give you unique experiences and help minimize the amount of student loans you need to borrow to earn a law degree.

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Jordan Rothman is the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a personal finance website discussing how he paid off all $197,890.20 of his college and law school student loans over 46 months of his late 20s. You can reach him at Jordan@studentdebtdiaries.com.