• Overview
• J.D. Admissions
  • Application Instructions
    • Prospective First-Year Students
      • Online Application
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  • Contact Us
  • Financing Your Studies
    • Tuition, Fees and Expenses
    • Applying for Scholarship Aid
    • Dean’s Scholars
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    • Loans
      • Federal Direct Stafford Loans
      • Federal Direct Graduate PLUS Loan
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      • Part-Time Employment
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    • International Students
    • Forms and Resources
    • Financial Planning
      • Living Within the Student Budget
      • Credit Information
      • Adjusting the Student Budget
  • Request a Catalog
  • Talk to a Current Student
• LL.M. Admissions

Managing Your Finances

BU Law knows that every student comes to law school with different experiences and a different set of financial values that affect the financial choices that they make during law school.

Our perspective is that, while students are certainly able to borrow up to the student budget, each student should determine what they need to borrow and when at all possible, borrow less than the maximum amount allowed.

Our goal in this section of the website is to provide students with an array of information and suggestions that will encourage students to make sound financial decisions. Our hope is always that the financial aspect of your law school experience adds as little stress as possible to your academic experience.

To keep things simple, the pages in this section will focus on two aspects of personal finance - how to budget and how to protect your credit. Controlling your spending through budgeting and maintainging good credit will help you to expand you financial options and allow you to more comfortably explore other choices in the future - like investing, retirment planning, or buying a house/condo.

Living on a Budget

It's easy to approach the idea of budgeting with a negative perspective - thinking that we're telling you that you can't have any fun or buy anything that you want. Not true.

A budget is just a tool to help you be aware of how you spend your income so that you can achieve your financial goals without mortaging your future with things like credit card debt.

While it is true that to get through law school, many students will have to borrow student loans - we hope that students will carefully consider the amount that they need to borrow. So we offer suggestions for Living Within the Student Budget.

Credit Information

Have you had your identity stolen lately? As one of the fastest growing crimes, identity theft is just one more pitfall that can harm your credit and create problems if you need to borrow money, open a credit card account, or even apply for a job.

We have some information on you can protect your credit history and some resources that can help if you run into problems in Credit Information.

Adjusting the Student Budget

Not all students can live at or below the student budget. BU does allow students to request adjustments to the budget for specific expenses. Our hope is that students will try to see if they can make the existing budget work for them - but for those who cannot - we offer the possibility of Adjusting the Student Budget.