Law School Discussion

Can a school mandate you use their new (crappy) loan program?

During first year we could choose any loan program we wanted, and the school had a special loan program which pretty much lowered the interest rates greatly and rebated all the loan fees. This year, the program died, not only did it die though, but they are essentially MANDATING that all students go through just one particular loan program, one where you get charged the full 6.8% for all stafford loans, 7.9% for Grad+ and most importantly, you are forced to pay ALL FEES.

For those who don't know, there are dozens of banks which will pay most of the fees for you and give you these interest rates. The fees are pretty large, 2.5% up front for the stafford loans and 4% for the grad+, on top of the accumulating interest. Being forced to go through this program will cost me, and all the other students an extra $5000-$10000+ more for the same type of federal loans available at many banks over the course of the loans, depending on how fast someone pays the loans off and/or refinances the loans after finishing school. So, this is pretty annoying if it really can be mandated