let's just get it started.

Quick disclaimer.

Just so you know, either Juno or myself, we're not any type of adviser or investment financial tax adviser or anything like that. Everything you'll see in here, it it should not be taken as as an investment advice.

In terms of agenda, I'll make a quick introduction about myself, about Juno. If you don't know what Juno is, we'll we'll introduce you to to the company real quick. Then we'll dive right into budgeting for law school and then a a a general overview of student loans. And at the end, we'll we'll leave a few minutes for for any q and a.

Alright. So, as a word of introduction, my name is Diego. As you can see here, I'm I am actually from Mexico. I spent a few years doing, corporate banking before heading to the US.

I did, grad school. I did business school. I did it at University of Chicago, Chicago Booth. I graduated class of twenty twenty two, and I've been part of Juneau ever ever since I was a summer intern in in in twenty twenty one.

So I I guess I've been around since the early days of this company.

Alright. So what is Juno?

Juno actually began as an experiment a few years ago by our two cofounders to reduce the cost of higher education for basically themselves and a few of their friends. Right? They were trying to get loans for themselves to pay for business school.

The rates that we're seeing seem a little bit high, so they basically approached part of these lenders and asked for a discount.

The banker at the time told them that if they brought some of their friends, they could offer them, like, a group discount. So long story short, they ended up sort of putting together roughly seven hundred MBA students.

They were actually able to get, a loan for the whole group. Right?

This basically represented, you know, average, people were saving thirteen thousand dollars on their on their interest payments, just because of this group this company, we're able to get for the whole group.

And ever since, Juno has been able to grow, in you know, across, you know, different schools in the US on different programs, not only MBAs. We also do, you know, different type of grad degrees. Obviously, law is one of them. We work with medical with with med students, petition assistance, you know, engineering, stuff like that. And we become, very popular chosen specifically for the top schools. Right?

We recently surpassed the one billion dollar mark of of student loans funded through our platform. Right? So I guess as an illustration, you can see this slide. Like, before Juno, like, every borrower approached, lenders, and this is a private market.

Right? We'll get into the differences between private and federal market in just a few slides. But, but, you know, borrowers initially kind of go shop around individually with all of these private student lenders. And with Juno, what we do is we make them shop around with you.

Right? So we bulk all of you, and we make lenders come to you. Right? So just to clear things up, if it was not clear enough, Juno is not a lender.

What we do is we just negotiate better interest rate on your behalf by making lenders compete for your business.

Alright. So now that we're off, you know, introductions on the company and myself, let's just get started with, you know, understanding the cost of of law school. Right? So the first thing you need to understand as you're heading to law school, I guess some of you might already be there.

You need to understand what the cost of attendance is. Right? So the cost of attendance is a number that's gonna be given to you by your school, right, by the financial aid office at your school, where where this number would include both direct and indirect expenses. Right? What does that mean?

It means it'll include tuition and fees that you directly owe to the school, and then as indirect expenses would be cut off your living expenses. Okay? So think of housing, food, transportation, things like that. Right?

So how is your school kind of calculating this cost of attendance? Well, on the tuition side, it's kind of straightforward. But in on the indirect expenses, what they do each year, they try to, you know, survey the outgoing class to kind of get a sense of how much, you know, their students are, you know, spending, to kind of attend that specific program. Right?

So each school will have a unique cost of attendance, and it's gonna be given to you by your financial aid office. Now why is this an an important number? Because that will be the maximum loan amount you will be allowed to borrow from any student loan lender. That's including the federal government and the private and private lenders.

Okay? Now if you're receiving some sort of scholarship, then that aid or scholarship would be deducted from your cost of attendance, and then that'll be your maximum loan amount. More on that in a few slides, but just for you to get get a sense of what the cost of attendance is because we'll be touching base on that as we go through this next few slides.

Okay. So once you kind of understand your cost of attendance, what we like to, I guess, guide you through the steps, the first thing you need to do is kind of build your own estimate. Right? And it has to be as simple as possible.

Don't don't try to make it very complex. Right? It doesn't have to be, like, a very complex financial model where you have a lot of tabs and stuff like that. Keep it simple.

I'll show you a screenshot of our own estimating next slide. But that's my first recommendation. Keep it as simple as possible. Right?

Just doesn't have to be very, very extent.

So step one will be estimate your expenses as you go through law school. Right? Expenses that'll be obviously housing, books, you know, cost of living percent. Right?

Like, you know, social life, stuff like that. Estimate your funds available. Right? Some of you might have some savings before you're heading to business school sorry, to law school.

So, you'll have to determine that as well. Right? You know, probably you you have a job right now, and you might be, you know, stop stop working on that on that specific role probably before heading to to to law school. So you wanna calculate how much savings you'll have before you get there.

Right?

Of course, it's very common for you guys to have internships. Right? Whether that's on your first summer, your second summer. So that's an income that you should also be considering.

And then after you do this exercise, then you kind of will will come to a number that you need to fund. Right? So, you have all of your expenses, right, including tuition, funds available. You know, you can, you know, determine whether whether or not you wanna use those those funds to pay for school, more on that in a little bit. You have your earnings, and then you have, you know, a delta, right, between the the the number on the top and then the number of below, and then that's the number that, I guess, you'll need to fund. Right? Typically, students, use student loans to fund that gap, but there are other ways that you can find it, obviously, more on that in a in a few slides as well.

So this is an example of the estimate I was just telling you about.

Kind of the first things that come to mind is usually in this cost of attendance, schools only include nine months, per academic cycle. Right? So one thing I think I didn't I I didn't mention is that the cost of attendance is a number that's gonna be given to you every academic year. Right?

So if if your program is a three year program, your cost of attend you have a cost of attendance for your first year, you have a cost of attendance for your second year, and then you have a cost of attendance for your third year. Right? Now in each of these cost of attendance, you'll only see be seen, like, nine months of, you know, academic expenses. Right?

So, basically, the school is saying that you'd only be paying housing nine months. Right? But you'll have two summers in the middle. Right?

So you have to fund, you know, your housing there. Just just an example. Right? So why am I mentioning this?

I just wanna kind of, you know, get you the you know, explain to you how, you know, in some cases, financial offices kind of underestimate your real costs. Right? So, again, go through this exercise, make make your own budget, make your own estimate of expenses yourself, and then you'll come to a number. As you can see on the screenshot at the end, I I have I have, like, you know, from this random example, like, a gap of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars that, that, you know, that someone would need to fund, for the whole three year program.

Right?

So that's just one thing. One one recommendation I'd like to do here is that, if you have some savings, I encourage you to kind of put some of those savings into a savings account just for a rainy day. Right?

Especially in the job market, like, you never know what's gonna happen once you graduate. Like, you you you wanna have some some sort of, you know, safety net, on a savings account solver. Right? So my personal case, I calculated six months worth of my cost of living. I had some savings before I went to my degree.

I set aside six months cost of of living on a savings account, and I didn't touch it. And then, you know, I that was kind of this the the cash that I had was lower than than what I actually had. Right? Just because I had, like, that six month cushion in the in the bank.

Right? So that's my recommendation. Just leave something in the bank for for a, you know, a a rainy day or, you know, you never know what's gonna happen after after school. Right?

And yeah. So that will be the exercise that we recommend you guys do. Go through it. You can download this. You know, go to this link.

You know, you can download that, you know, that same spreadsheet that was showing on the screenshot. It's free. It wouldn't cost you. It's just for you to get get a get a sense of, you know, some sort of guide, if you will.

Okay. Now student loans. Right? This is where usually there's a lot of questions coming in, on this on this next few slides. Right? So in terms of process, how does how does student loan work?

They usually happen once per year. It's usually in the summer. Right? As I was saying, the cost of attendance that your financial ad office is gonna be giving you is a cost of attendance that's valid for the, I guess, upcoming academic year.

Right? So it's gonna it's gonna be a cost of attendance per academic year. So that means that if you need funding, from a student loan lender for that academic year, you would only be allowed to borrow for the immediate cost of attendance. Right?

This cost of attendance are usually issued by schools like April. So right now, April, May, depending on the school.

So whenever someone has their cost of attendance, they kind of know exactly how much they can borrow for the immediate academic year. Right? And then people usually borrow over the summer. Right?

So, again, you know, go through your, you know, your estimate expenses.

You'll have to determine how much you wanna borrow.

Determine where you wanna borrow from, more on that in a little bit, and then you just complete the process. Right?

There are some cases that people, right, in the middle of the year, they they realize that they need more funding. Right? They probably, you know, borrowed, like, less of what they needed or they never borrowed, and they they they kinda find themselves in a situation where they do need to borrow. You can always do that. Right?

So as long as you have some room left in your cost of attendance, then you will be allowed to borrow from any student or vendor. That's including federal government and private lenders. Right? So the rationale of the cost of attendance is this. Okay?

So let's say your cost of attendance for your first year is eighty thousand dollars. Right? I I have two semesters.

And let's say you're in the middle of the year. Right? Let's say you're in January, and you wanna borrow eighty thousand dollars, you wouldn't be allowed to borrow eighty thousand dollars. You will only be allowed to borrow forty thousand dollars because you only have one semester left. Right? That's assuming you already pay the first semester, right, out of pocket or with other type of funds.

But, anyways, if you find yourself in that situation, you will have to work proactively with your financial aid office, to determine exactly what's the maximum amount you will be allowed to borrow at that time of the year.

Okay?

Alright. Again, I get this is kind of repetitive. Right? But what's the maximum amount you're allowed to borrow? That'll be your cost of attendance. Now there are some cases that your financial office might be able to increase your cost of attendance. Right?

But only on their specific situations. Right? Like, if you wanna say, hey. I wanna my social life is gonna be more expensive.

I want more cost of attendance. Like, that that just wouldn't cut it. Right? Let's say that you you're going to law school with a partner with a dependent, something like that.

Right? You can argue to your financial office that because of your situation, you will need more money because you have, you know, dependents and stuff like that. Right? So that'll be, like, a a very valid reason for your financial office to increase your cost of attendance.

Now that happens kind of on a one on one basis. So if that's your case, I would encourage you to just work proactively with your financial office and request a higher cost of attendance.

Alright.

What are your student loan options?

Alright. We just wanna make a stop here because someone's, asking a question. Hey, Jack. Thank you. Does your individual credit score matter?

Yes.

Let me just get you know, I'll touch base on that in just literally in this slide. Alright? So, what are your student loan options as a grad student? Right?

Right. On the federal side, you will have two loan options. One is known as the unsubsidized loan option, and then the second one will be the grad plus loan. Right? Now let me walk you through the differences between between these two. Alright?

On the federal loan subsidized loan, the amount you're allowed to borrow is gonna be twenty thousand five hundred dollars. Okay?

On the grapplers loan, you'll be allowed to borrow up to your cost of attendance minus any financial aid. Right? And then the rate that you have for each of these loans is eight point eight point two eight percent and nine point two eight percent. Now as you can see here on the on the left hand side, this is the interest rates that were valid for academic year twenty four twenty five.

Now what are the rates for academy year twenty five, twenty six? Then that depends on congress. Right? So the the way that these rates are set up every year, literally in May, congress takes a look at the the the treasury auction of that, you know, month right up from a couple of weeks before, end of May.

And based on the ten year cost or the ten year yield, they will price these two loan options. Right? So that's why you're seeing a line here on this table on the predicted rates, for this year. Right?

Like, if actually, this was as as of February twenty twenty five. Right? So, a couple of months ago. I guess the tenure right now, I know it's been kind of up and down these these last few days, but it's roughly in the same place as it was couple of months ago.

So let's assume, that that the the the ten year yield is the same as in February. That if if congress were to set, you know, these rates today, then these will the these will be the rates that that we would expect to be the same. Right? So very, very similar to to last year's.

Right? Now federal loans also have an origination fee. Right? As you can see here, the unsubsidized loan option has roughly a one percent origination fee, and the grab plus option has a four point twenty eight percent origination fee.

That usually doesn't change from year to year. That's kind of stable. The only thing that changes is the rate.

Now, obviously, there are benefits of going federal before going private. Right? I know in law school, it's very common for for law students to go to for public service. Right? That's one of the benefits that federal loans offer, right, in terms of repayment plans. Right? Public service loan forgiveness, which is what you're seeing here, the PSLF.

That basically means that after ten years of public service, your loans will be forgiven. And you also have the income driven repayment plans. Right?

So if you you know, I usually see people using this, when going to nonprofits, right, or even a government job, where their income is not gonna be as high. Then you can just, you know, use their loans and take advantage of the income driven repayment plans that they offer so that your monthly payment after school is not gonna be as as as high. Right? It's it's kind of a percentage of your income.

Now on the private side, how does these loans loans work? Right? And, Jack, I'm getting to your question just in just in just a few seconds.

The private student loan typically will lend you up to the cost of attendance. Similar very similar to the graph plus option. Right? Now what are the rates you'd be getting?

The rates depend on your grade score. Right? Or if you're using a cosigner or your cosigner's grade score as well. Right?

So in some in some cases, you might end up above the federal loan options. In some cases, you might end up below the federal loan options. Right? Again, it all depends on on your credit score and or your cosigner's credit score if you're if you're if you're using one.

Now the private lenders, as far as we know, they do not offer the benefits that the federal government offers, right, in terms of public service public service or income driven repayment plans. Right? So you would have that on on on the private loan side.

It's basically, you know, as soon as you graduate, you'll have some some months of grace period, a little more on that in a in a few slides. But, once your grace period is over, then you have to pay. Right?

We haven't seen any and at least the ones we work with here at Juno, any lenders that are charging an origination fee on the private side.

So I guess if if your case is that you're not gonna be seeking any public service or you're not you don't think you're gonna be needing any income driven repayment plans, then our recommendation will be to shop around a kind of compare federal loans versus private loans based on rate. Right? Who is offering you the lowest rate possible?

And and, again, some cases, you know, the private side will offer you rates below the the the federal options. In some cases, it wouldn't. So, you know, it's basically your you're just optimizing based on the interest rate that it that's been offered to you.

Okay.

Again, this this slide is very, you know, kind of what I was just mentioning. Right? So what is it convenient for you to use federal loans? Again, if you're going for public service or if you think you're gonna need some income repayment plan options, just optimize based on that. If you don't need any of those, then optimize based on rate. Okay?

You can use this calculator that we have here. There's a link, on that you see on the right hand side where you can actually kind of get a dollar value, you know, comparing one one option versus the other. Right? Like, let's say you get a quote from a private lender. You can kind of input your quote in this calculator and then compare it, you know, the quotes. I guess, guess, the quote from the federal side is the same for everyone, so you know beforehand that right you'll be getting on the federal side. I just kinda have you can compare, right, you know, how much, you know, the dollar value, you know, first between going, you know, one way or the other, I guess.

Again, you get all this, information, on your inbox tomorrow morning, so you can kinda play around with these with these links, you know, offline if you want.

Alright. In terms of timeline, usually, as I was saying, you know, people apply for student loans in the summer, but that doesn't mean that you'll get your money instantly. Right? So usually what happens is you apply for a lender, you get approved, on honestly, in a few in a few business days, like, one to three business days.

And then that's about it. Right? Your your loan is gonna be certified by your financial aid office. And once that loan is certified, then the your school's gonna share, like, a calendar of payments with your lender, where they will be saying, hey.

Send me these students' money on this date. Right? That's usually usually paired with your tuition due dates. Alright?

So assuming that your loan's gonna, you know, be dispersed in August twenty twenty five, that means that, roughly, you'll be in school, you know, for thirty four months if you're going for, you know, to a three year program. You'll be graduating around May twenty twenty eight, and then, you know, you can have, like, between six and nine months of grace period. Right? All that period of time, you know, the moment you're in school plus your grace period is known as a deferment period, where you don't have to make any payments, but you are accumulating, interest on your loan.

Right?

Anyways, once your risk period is is over, then you have to start paying back, you know, to your full you know, your payments. Right? Whether that's on the federal side or on the private side.

Usually, people tend to select the ten year option, so that's why I I I use this example here.

But on the private side, I think something that I didn't mention is that you can customize your loan as as you want. Right? You you wouldn't only get the ten year offer that the federal government offers. You can select a five year, a a seven year, a ten year, or even longer.

Right? There's also options for twelve, fifteen, and in some cases, twenty year term options. Right? But, anyways, if if you decide for a ten year, term, which is, you know, what the majority of students go for, then this is the the time line that you're looking looking at.

Right? You have your thirty four months of in school. You have your six to nine months of grace period, and then you start paying back your loan after that's over.

Okay. Let me just wanna make a quick pause here to see if there are any any additional questions.

If not, I can more than happy to guide you through, I guess, what Juno can do for you this this upcoming season.

Sorry. I'm seeing okay. I think these, these questions have been have been answered. Alright.

What does Juno, you know, can do for you? What as I was saying in the beginning, what we do at Juno is we try to negotiate better interest rates on your behalf. Right? This is on the private side, not on the federal side. So I wanna be clear on that. Right? So what we're doing like, what we do each year was we group together as many students as possible.

Once we have a a big group, we we we run a bid, basically, an auction, with lenders, private lenders, where they bid on our group.

The way they bid is who is gonna be offering the biggest discount, in terms of rate to our group of students. Right? For you to join, if you haven't done so already, it's free. Right? It's basically a free option for you. You don't have to commit taking out a loan if you are part of the group.

It's it's basically like a free option for you in in in the case that you end up needing, like, a private tutor loan, later in the in the summer. Right? So as I was saying, we run these negotiations on I guess, not the negotiations. We run, like, this, you know, group until the end of April. On May is when we actually start the actual negotiations with all the lenders, and then the first week of June is when we release, the deal that we negotiated for everyone who signed up for our group. Right now, I'll check the numbers just before this this meeting. We had around four hundred law students already.

The majority of the law students that we have are from, I think, HLS, NYU Law, and and Columbia.

And altogether, they they represent roughly twenty five million dollars in funding. Right? So we combine that with all the other groups that we have with pit schools and other, you know, type of grad degrees.

We're we're representing right now roughly three hundred dollars three hundred million dollars worth of of demand. Right? Which is what it get, you know, a lender is very, very interested in our group. So, what you can do, is just, you know, sign to our negotiation group, post a link on the chat in just a few minutes. Again, it's free for you to join. It's Dustin company that could maybe not taking out a student loan if you do so. Now what are the the key things that we negotiate for?

First and foremost, like, a large discount for everyone in the group. Right? That's a right discount.

We try to, you know, negotiate for rates that are below federal loans, and this year, we hope to be, like, materially below federal student loan options. And, obviously, we've never had a deal with fees. That's something we all we keep, you know, in all of our negotiations. There's never gonna be, a fee that, you know, any lender is gonna charge to any of our students.

And then lastly, we have, like, this rate match guarantee, which is basically if you're gonna be taking out a private student loan and you have a better rate, you know, through a different loan provider than the one June is working with in the summer, We have this guarantee where you can show us that rate. We'll match it for you, and then, we'll give you one percent of your loan as a cashback option. So that's one of the things we we didn't we're never sharing for. I'm confident we'll be able to hit these goals, now that we're closer to the May deadline.

So, anyway, just wanna kinda provide some color into what what we're actually negotiating for.

Again, what can you do if you haven't done so already? You can join our group, tell your friends. It'll help us a lot if you can, you you know, obviously share Juno with your friends. You have a referral link whenever you join Juno. That means, like, if anyone joins our group using your link and that person ends up taking a loan with us in the summer, you'll both get a hundred dollars.

So it's just a way for us to kind of pay you back in some in some way, you know, the efforts of helping us grow for the negotiation group. And, we also have some early member benefits. Like, if you join right now, you'll you'll be getting some T shirts. You'll be getting some prices whenever you start referring more people to the group, so on and so forth. So whenever you sign up, you'll get all this information in your inbox.

And, again, I don't wanna be super repetitive here, but, again, it's it's free, and it doesn't come with with any commitment to take out any any student loan.

Yeah. I would love to open it up for, you know, any questions, you know, any of you guys have right now.

I know it's a small audience.

It's almost eight thirty PM on a Tuesday night. So, yeah, happy to take any questions. Stay online. I wanna wrap it up. Happy to do so as well.

Again, I guess, thank you for joining and and and staying with me, for these thirty minutes.

Thank you, Jack. Thank you for all your questions.

Alright. I guess, thank you, Hannah. Alright. Thank you, Jack. Take care, guys. Have a good night.