<p>I would not have my son put all of his eggs in the public interest basket, even with loan forgiveness and IBR. </p>
<p>For loan forgiveness you are talking about not only 10 years of work but 10 years of consecutive loan payments (the amount forgiven becomes taxable on the back end). If your son is going to go the IBR route, is he prepared to possibly that he may be single for years (as his spouse’s income will be included in his IBR). D has friends who are engaged but not getting married because he is working public interest and IBR, while she works big law (and is paying down her own 6 figure debt).</p>
<p>Public interest/state government jobs are getting harder to find. My D has large number of friends who are here in NY doing public interest work for free because public interest firms not only want experience but with a commitment to public interest. She is currently working as a paid fellow in an office that has 7 newly minted JD’s volunteering their time with hopes of getting their foot in the door (with mom and dad footing the bill). </p>
<p>Her boss left big law to work public interest because he has political aspirations and also wants to have more of a work life balance because he and his wife now have a very young child (i told her that there was no way that he could have done this if he had massive debt hanging over his head). To her credit she has no undergrad debt and very little LS debt and is making enough $ to be self supportive.</p>
<p>If your son does not want to put down roots in California, unless he is admitted to Stanford, perhaps the California schools (and a really hard CA bar exam) should come off the list.</p>