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Harvard Law School campus in the fall, with students sitting with their laptops at picnic tables outside of the HLS library.

The financial aid program at Harvard Law School has two central goals: to help make a legal education accessible to every student in the JD program through need-based aid, and to preserve the broadest range of career options for graduates through need-based loan repayment assistance (the Low Income Protection Plan, or LIPP).

In other words, Harvard Law School has a financial aid program to meet financial need during your law school years and after you graduate. HLS does not award “merit” or “full-ride” scholarships (which typically are not need-based) because doing so would decrease the resources available for need-based aid, and significantly increase the debt burden of every financially needy student.

The Need-Based Aid Philosophy