Money money money monnnnaaaaay!
I've heard that a lot of students, when they begin law school, have had little prior experience managing their own financial aid. As an older student, I always pay very close attention to learning the ins and outs of financial aid administration because there is nothing worse than being out of money when you have to keep your grades in line, and have nowhere to go for supplemental income.
Northeastern's financial aid has been tricky for the first year, because while the rest of the school is on quarters, we 1Ls are on a semester system. Dates don't always line up. In fact, when school first started it wasn't until about a week after classes had begun that refunds were available.
These are very important things to know because how you budget for the week or so before school, into a week or so after school starts will really set the pace for the entire year.
Here's what I started doing during holiday breaks to make sure my money ducks were in a row:
-Get familiar with the school's total cost of education (which includes tuition, rent, books, food, etc.); the more familiar I was with this information, the better the frame of reference I had in terms of how expensive the school was. Remember, tuition is only a tiny portion of the total cost. Sure there's rent as well, but what about headache medicine, pots and pans, warm winter clothing... Turns out, Boston isn't as expensive as a lot of places I've lived but I found this out by accounting for everything down to my budget for hair grease.
-If you've been working, locate and organize ALL of your paycheck stubs and tax returns. You can even request them from the IRS. Next year's financial aid will be based on this year's earnings, as you may recall. A paycheck stub can tell you some great information, including how much you can expect for next year's return (which paid for my airfare to come to Boston).
-Start budgeting in Excel or some other spreadsheet. Play around with some numbers and get a preliminary monthly budget amount for yourself, both for now and then for when you're in school. The more familiar you are with these numbers, the easier it is to shift amounts around and to get a grasp on what you will have available when school starts.
-Review Your Credit Report ASAP. Can't stress this enough. I cleaned up my entire credit report before coming to school because you never know what little things can trip you up. Also, in order to pass the bar in many states, your credit report and history will probably be taken into consideration. Pay off any delinquencies. I paid off about 4,000.00 in undergrad "mistakes" before starting school, which took me almost a year. Now, it's just one less thing to worry about, especially when I'm going bar crazy in two and a half or so years.
-See if you can memorize everything on this page: NEU Financial Aid.
The law school's financial aid office is well accessible, but the more you know about financial aid in general, the better tailored your questions will be so that you can get in and get out.
