Northwestern (226K) vs. Georgetown ($219K) vs. UMN ($95K) Forum

[ArchitectureVince03]

Posting this for a friend who is deciding currently between:

Northwestern- no scholarships so about $226K COA
Georgetown- no scholarship so about $219K COA
UMinn- $25K a year scholarship and $95K COA

Her desire is to go into corporate law or perhaps tax law/advisory.

Ideal areas to end up would be San Francisco or LA (from the West Coast), but open to big cities on the East Coast as well as Chicago and Minneapolis for the employment opportunities.

From talking to her she seems somewhat debt averse. Thinks over $200,000 is a lot of money and nervous about that. Likes the idea that she could pay off $95,000 with a good job living frugally for a few years, but doesn't like the idea of having to do double that for the other schools.

[CanadianWolf]

I think that your COA estimates are too low for all three schools.

[ArchitectureVince03]

Basically was pulling from the schools websites and adding 3% a year increase (I think Georgetown was the one to use that and used it for the others). Something I should do differently? Unless I underestimated the difference between Northwestern/Georgetown and UMN with the scholarship/lower COL I think people's responses will still be helpful to her.

[whymeohgodno]

I think that your COA estimates are too low for all three schools.

Wtf? No it's about right.

[tea_drinker]

No CA options?

[CanadianWolf]

Hopefully the economists are wrong. Regardless of whether you should use 3% or 5%, your friend's intolerance of debt & willingness to work in the Twin Cities area suggests that Minnesota is her best option.

P.S. Is your friend a resident of Minnesota ? Minnesota is a tough state for in-state tuition purposes unless from one of the two neighboring states with which Minnesota has a tuition agreement for law school.

[ArchitectureVince03]

No CA options?

If I remember correctly Berkeley was out and UCLA was waiting to hear/maybe out at this point (usual below the California GPA floor despite a good LSAT score).

With Hastings and possibly Davis and Loyola I don't think the options were appealing to her with the money offered. Not so set on California to focus on that and willing to live elsewhere for the employment opportunities.

[ArchitectureVince03]

Hopefully the economists are wrong. Regardless of whether you should use 3% or 5%, your friend's intolerance of debt & willingness to work in the Twin Cities area suggests that Minnesota is her best option.

P.S. Is your friend a resident of Minnesota ? Minnesota is a tough state for in-state tuition purposes unless from one of the two neighboring states with which Minnesota has a tuition agreement for law school.

No she is not. So the number I took from UMinn's website was the out of state costs. Didn't look into it closely enough to know if she can qualify for in-state after a year or what not. Calculated it based on out-of-state for three years.

[CanadianWolf]

She is unlikely to be able to get resident rates after the first year. Minnesota has not been shy about raising tuition over the past few years. Again, your estimates are a bit low for the private schools &, potentially, much too low for Minnesota depending on the legislature & state funding. And my comments assume low or no inflation which is highly unlikely as the dollar is expected to slide quite a bit in the near future.

[geoduck]

Hopefully the economists are wrong. Regardless of whether you should use 3% or 5%, your friend's intolerance of debt & willingness to work in the Twin Cities area suggests that Minnesota is her best option.

P.S. Is your friend a resident of Minnesota ? Minnesota is a tough state for in-state tuition purposes unless from one of the two neighboring states with which Minnesota has a tuition agreement for law school.

No she is not. So the number I took from UMinn's website was the out of state costs. Didn't look into it closely enough to know if she can qualify for in-state after a year or what not. Calculated it based on out-of-state for three years.

They have reciprocity if she's from Wisconsin or South Dakota. Otherwise, yeah, it's the full 40k. Luckily, UMN at least won't have too big of tuition increases. They have tuition increases every year, but the full increases only apply to 0Ls. Once you're in, the increases shouldn't top 3% or so.

If she had gotten into any T10 I'd say do that in a heartbeat. But I'm not sure that GULC is $134k+interest better than UMN. Northwestern might be though...

[tea_drinker]

Hopefully the economists are wrong. Regardless of whether you should use 3% or 5%, your friend's intolerance of debt & willingness to work in the Twin Cities area suggests that Minnesota is her best option.

P.S. Is your friend a resident of Minnesota ? Minnesota is a tough state for in-state tuition purposes unless from one of the two neighboring states with which Minnesota has a tuition agreement for law school.

No she is not. So the number I took from UMinn's website was the out of state costs. Didn't look into it closely enough to know if she can qualify for in-state after a year or what not. Calculated it based on out-of-state for three years.

I think his estimation are reasonable though. Georgetown should be out. Ask you friend if she is okay living in Minnesota for a while after graduation and how debt averse she is.

[FlightoftheEarls]

Minnesota with less debt if she's happy living in MN, and Northwestern with more debt for everywhere else. If she doesn't want to be pinned to MN, she should take NU. It's pretty straightforward, she just needs to figure out her priorities - lower debt, or non-MN placement.

[vamedic03]

I think that your COA estimates are too low for all three schools.

How are the COA estimates too low? You keep repeating this mantra without providing data to back it up.

[ArchitectureVince03]

I think his estimation are reasonable though. Georgetown should be out. Ask you friend if she is okay living in Minnesota for a while after graduation and how debt averse she is.

She has stated she would be fine ending up in Minnesota if that is her option when graduating. We've had the conversation somewhat that at UMinn you can't expect anything more depending on how you end up doing. She is not super opposed to taking on higher debt just wondering whether the difference in costs between NW/GU and UMN plus interest would be made up in higher earnings.

I think I agree with having the highest chance of a job outside MN and okay with the higher debt = Northwestern. Fine ending up in Minnesota after graduation and fall on the side of caution for debt = UMinn.

Thanks you guys for your voting and thoughts. Any more advice and thoughts- especially information that can address her feelings on job prospects/earnings would be helpful (I don't feel I know enough to advise her on that). Regardless I'll try and let you guys know what she decides as long as she doesn't mind!

[Sean1269]

I have to say that I'm baffled at that NW has the most votes a 226K. It seems like a relatively bad business decision to get 226K into debt and then add interest, that's similar to having a mortgage but no house. Unless you make enough $, or already have a house...how do you afford two mortgages? Even on 160K?

Tell your friend that they're about to bury themselves in a crushing debt. Probably not worth it. UMN seems like the credible option, given the debt will be more manageable that the other two options. 226K....nuts....

Good luck!

[T14FM]

So.... This kind of debt and your definitely getting fucked. That said, we'll stick with that analogy:

paying 226K for Northwestern = paying 226K for sex
paying 219K for Georgetown = paying 219K for a blow job
paying 95K for UMN = paying 95K for a firm handshake and eye contact

Sure, law school is overpriced... But you get what you pay for.

[Dany]

That kind of debt just makes me incredibly uneasy, so I guess I'd go with UMN? Tough call...

[fingersxd]

I say UMN...she will have opportunities in Minnesota (duh) and Chicago (if she does well). 95k in debt can be paid off in a reasonable amount of time and getting BigLaw in that situation is not a must.

GTown is def out. NU is tough to turn down but ~230k in debt means you will be paying somewhere close to 400k depending on your time horizon once you factor in interest. That is A LOT of money. More to the point, it means you have to get BigLaw (if not you are SCREWED) and on top of that, you have to stay there for most of your career. Whereas the average person tends to only do big law for 2-4 and then move on, she will NOT have that option. Def something to consider. In addition, people don't seem consider the lost "time value of money" ... if you simply invested the 140k+interest you "save" by not going to NU you would be making money instead of paying it out. Do you really want to be paying your own law school loans when your kids are ready for college?

Full disclosure, I am debt averse and don't think any school school outside of HYS and maybe CCN is worth it at sticker.

[dakatz]

A quarter million dollars of debt (and thats without interest)!? Slap some sense into your friend.

[Sean1269]

I say UMN...she will have opportunities in Minnesota (duh) and Chicago (if she does well). 95k in debt can be paid off in a reasonable amount of time and getting BigLaw in that situation is not a must.

GTown is def out. NU is tough to turn down but ~230k in debt means you will be paying somewhere close to 400k depending on your time horizon once you factor in interest. That is A LOT of money. More to the point, it means you have to get BigLaw (if not you are SCREWED) and on top of that, you have to stay there for most of your career. Whereas the average person tends to only do big law for 2-4 and then move on, she will NOT have that option. Def something to consider. In addition, people don't seem consider the lost "time value of money" ... if you simply invested the 140k+interest you "save" by not going to NU you would be making money instead of paying it out. Do you really want to be paying your own law school loans when your kids are ready for college?

Full disclosure, I am debt averse and don't think any school school outside of HYS and maybe CCN is worth it at sticker.

+1

[bdubs]

I would be wary of the fact that less than 12% of UMN students get placed in NLJ 250 firms. I don't know what the salary statistics are like there, but it doesn't sound very appealing to pay off $95,000 on a $45,000/year salary.

It's a risk either way.

[geoduck]

I would be wary of the fact that less than 12% of UMN students get placed in NLJ 250 firms. I don't know what the salary statistics are like there, but it doesn't sound very appealing to pay off $95,000 on a $45,000/year salary.

It's a risk either way.

Gotta remember interest though. The interest racks up a hell of a lot faster at $226k and a higher percentage of that debt is going to be gradplus instead of Stafford. Plus more than just the 12% that get into NLJ 250 firms are getting decent salaries. But even if not, $95,000 on a $45,000 year salary isn't really much worse than $226k on a $160k salary.