No, not really.



Given that either way you're emerging with $100K+ in debt, and IBR gives you a way to manage that debt, you would always be in a better employment situation with a T14 degree and, if you didn't get a BigLaw salary, be paying the same amount on your loans either way (that's the "income-based" part of IBR at work). If you do get a BigLaw salary, well, the difference in cost isn't going to be that much, and besides it's much more likely for you to get into that BigLaw job if you went to a T14 ITE.

So, either way, T14 wins over T30 at 1/2 sticker.

I put T30 at 1/2 price with the caveat that I'm attending a law school in the region I want to work. If I wasn't able to go to a good regional school where I want to work, then I'd definitely go the T14 route.

Scholarship stipulations suck big time. If the school in question has them, don't walk, run. It's such a TTT thing to do to students. That said, the math is different because of the recession. Schools like UIUC didn't used to have 10% placement rates. Before the bubble, they placed over 25% in biglaw. My own school's location offers us some protection (it doesn't cost firms that much to travel like ten blocks, even if they don't actually want to hire many people.)

Speaking personally, I would attend (and in fact am attending) the best school that accepted me, at full sticker. I rationalize this because I view law school as an investment in my life, not just a financial investment. Granted, I am less risk averse than most.

This kind of intangible benefit is what ultimately made me pull the trigger on trippling (perhaps a little more) my debt (and having to take the bar if I ever go back to Wisconsin-ughhh). The financial calculations of Chicago at sticker vs Wisconsin at in-state+"stay" money were hazy. I know a handful of my classmates from Wisconsin got amazing jobs that I would have been in the running for had I stayed. That said... there is something very powerful--and difficult to really give a "number value" to--in having the elite school experience. It isn't the sense of "prestige," as much as it is a sense of having managed to fight for a seat at the table.

I'm of the mind that tuition would have to be equal to choose Emory over UNC and with the cost difference it's a pretty clear decision. Plus UNC places better in NC than Emory (I think...actually thats almost a complete guess).

+1 Plus, a degree is for life. Having say a Cornell degree, from what I've seen in my career thus far, will be worth easily hundreds of thousands extra no matter what you end up in, as well as better positions. For example, I've seen people with no experience/little experience in the field given the top/leadership positions at every place I've worked out here in LA - while those of us even with years and years of endlessly successful experience stay back in the lower levels. And they are always introduced as, "Has a PhD from USC, went to Yale, Has a PhD from UCLA and and MA from USC." Doesn't matter even that the degrees are in entirely unrelated fields. Last place I worked I worked under a Yale english major (BA) who had no experience in the field.

Before seeing what I've seen in the workforce, I'd be all about a little cheaper, forget that ritzy top school name. Experience suggests the other path to me. And yes, especially if the economy is bad - I've also done quite a bit of hiring, and seeing a top school makes you more inclined to consider that person seriously/and/or interview.

I voted T14 earlier, but I now can't convince myself to ED at a T14. While it would make sense to attend T14 at sticker over a T100-T50 at half to full ride, it becomes more of a personal choice from T30 up. T14's and T30's are both in the category of top schools, and committing yourself to 100K more debt just to jump a few rankings just doesn't make sense to me now, especially in this economy.

But to each his own. I personally don't mind staying in the region and prefer a balanced life with less pay than to be enslaved by 160K+ of debt with endless hours of big-law. With that said, time to get networking

Certainly not trying to say there is a right answer and I do not want to flame those who attend at t14, but it's common behavior that one has to justify an expensive purchase with intangible "but it's very elite" sentiment. Like watching WUSTL undergrads grasp at straws to justify an overpriced poli sci degree.

Not saying that these schools are garbage. But there is a deep rooted psychological need to JUSTIFY the private school tuition that plays out in many college matriculation decisions.

I wouldn't go to G-town at sticker. The general trend is that G-town has been losing it's prestige cache, which is really what you're paying for when you attend a T14.

All you have to do is go to the top of your browser, click "clear browsing data" and select "empty the cache" ... then its emptied and you are fine.

The problem with that is that this isn't a purchase. A purchase is something where you buy an item that depreciates in value. It's important to be rational and careful about such things because you're going to lose that money, or at least a part of it, even if you want to get rid of the thing you've bought later. Once it becomes used it becomes increasingly impossible to recoup the original money put in to buy it.

A degree is not a purchase but an investment. It's something that can appreciate in value over time and generate more and more income for you. In this sense, if you're looking at making two investments with similar initial costs, but one has an obviously greater financial return, it'd be irrational to not invest in the latter. It's not the "eliteness" of the thing in itself, but how that "eliteness" manifests itself in greater job opportunities, prestige, alumni connections, etc. Those are all things that can increase the lifetime dollar value of your degree, and can make a decision to go to a better school far more wise in the long term.

A decision to go to a T14 is very tangible, if you understand exactly what you're looking at. It's an economic decision, and especially given modern aids like government-backed student loans and Income-Based Repayment plans, one that has become heavily tilted toward attending a T14 school even at sticker price.

Okay, what about T14 at sticker vs. a T30 with full tuition scholarship. This is another hypothetical, obviously. For those of you who may have read my other threads, you already know that I messed up on my LSAT.

With a retake, though, I think I might be competitive for the full ride ED at George Washington. I would love to go to school in DC. Would a full ride at George Washington be better than sticker at Berkeley, Michigan, Penn, or UVA?

I turned down a full-tuition scholarship at WUSTL to go to UVA. UVA gave me a teeny tiny scholarship (probably because I waved the WUSTL thing at them) but I'm still going to have $150K in loans when I graduate, so I still may as well be paying sticker. I don't really think twice about it at all. It was the right call, I'm certain of it.

I would pay double to attend the only T14 to which I've applied. ... Then again, with the IBR plan I hope to follow ... that's not that big of a deal. And, with my crappy stats, I'll be lucky to land top40. ... (But to that T14 adcomm: Really. I'm serious. I'll pay double. I'll wash your car and clean your house. I will put you in and around my mouth.)

Here's why:

I chose my undergrad b/c I earned a full scholarship there. And thanks to outside scholarships I actually wound up making a healthy bit of money (wishing I could go back in time and spend it better). I turned down half-priced NYU and similar offers from better-rep journalism schools than where I ultimately went. ... ... I told myself that on-the-job success would pave the way. That journalism would be different than other professions (e.g., engineering/biz/law/etc.) where training is more intense and where prestige is transparently more important: No one would hire a Carson-Newman College computer programmer over one from, say, Georgia Tech, but reporting? Surely, I thought, no one will care where you learned to scribble notes and suffer crappy pay. Those school-paper articles and summer internships were all that I'd need.

Horseshit!

My career has been great, and I've worked hard at it. But, starting with the inability to grab those internships away from better-schooled kids, I'm years behind where I would be had I gone for that shinier medal. It sucks. But it is fact. If I were staying in the biz, it'd likely take me many many years to catch up. If I ever could.

I made the mistake once, and I'm still paying for it. So if Little Baby Jesus were to be so wonderful as give me the chance again, I vow not to futz it up this time.

I voted for the T30 at half tuition. In this economy, if you're lucky enough to get half-tuition paid at a top 30 school -- such as, oh, let' say my favorite (GW) -- take it! You have virtually equal probabilities of scoring lucrative salaries with top firms, and about the same employment prospects, with up to 50% less grad school debt, and more of the 100k+ salary in your pockets instead of in loan repayments.

So, why not?

Because the bolded part is false, especially in this economy.

FUQUE YES.

Do you really believe that? GW degrees have as much weight as any in the lower t14, if not more, particularly in DC.

1) This may have been true before the bottom dropped out on the economy, but only because there were enough jobs available to go around. It's not that the GW degree "had as much weight", it's that there were so many available jobs and so many GW grads wanting to remain in DC that their numbers ended up similar to those of lower T14 grads. It's not because the GW degree is actually considered as prestigious as the lower T14 degrees, it's because there were more available jobs than there were T14 grads wanting to work those kinds of jobs in the DC market.

Now jobs are far more scarce. There are fewer of those "lucrative salaries with top firms" being offered at all in any market. More T14 grads are looking to grab up what jobs are still available anywhere, including in DC, and those who wouldn't have considered the DC market before would gladly move there now because it's a paying job. There are both fewer jobs available and more T14 grads eager to take them, and those two things are going to combine for at least the next couple years longer to squeeze out a lot more non-T14 grads than usual.

2) If you do get closed out of the DC market due to lack of job availability, the T14 grad has options to go anywhere else in the country. Their degree is recognized nationally as a solid and reputable degree and they can apply pretty much anywhere, and have hope of finding employment in other cities even if they can't get one in the market nearest their school. On the other hand, GW's "prestige" wanes significantly once you get outside the DC market. If you can't find work in DC, you're going to have a lot more trouble finding work anywhere.

Anyone who actually believes a GW degree weighs equally next to a T14 degree is in for a hell of a shock when they start job hunting. I'm hoping that you're not actually as naive as you're acting, or that if you are, other people don't mistake your naive beliefs as something they should base their own future on.

GW's employment stats were hurting before the recession set in, which was one of the important reasons it dropped considerably in the rankings, GW can not even compare to GULC much less MVPB

So Cornell or Georgetown beat UT (for Texas) or UCLA (for LA)? What if someone is interested in a local DA office or local government job - is the lower T14 on the other side of the country really better than the well regarded (but non-T14) local school that has connections in those places? Although I agree that in general, if you want BigLaw and don't care about location T14 is better than T30 with $, there are certain cases where it makes more sense to take $60k (half-tuition) and go to the slightly lower ranked school. This is why knowing the specific schools and goals are important. Although there is a huge difference between job prospects from Yale versus Alabama (30) there is not THAT much difference between schools ranked 14 and 15. Context matters.

this would be way way dependent on the exact schools and your interest in where and what sort of work you're interested in.

for example, UCLA at 1/2 would be greater than Duke at sticker if you wanted to work west coast big law.

UT and UCLA have close to national reach and roughly the same arguments apply to them. UT isn't that different from GULC honestly. Given that it's better to choose which one is closest to the area you most want to work with when you graduate, but this is only true because of the point I made earlier, that you want to go to a school with broad prestige and employment reach if you can. The more difference between the two schools, the more you want to go to the higher-ranked one. GULC vs. UT can be a hard decision depending on where you want to work; UVA vs. GW isn't.



If you're going into a government/PI job, then IBR is going to take care of the bulk of your post-graduation debt anyway. Even at a half-tuition scholarship, the T30 school is still going to ring up $100k in debt, and it's not going to offer you as many opportunities when you graduate across the country, no matter if you want to go into BigLaw or PI. It's a lot better to go for the T14 degree in general, because it will be recognized as well-regarded anywhere in the country including wherever "local" is to you, and it gives you plenty of other options if you can't get hired in the one "local" place you want.

I do agree that there's not that much difference between #14 and #15, but there's a big enough difference between any school ranked #20 and below and any school ranked #14 and above, no matter what you want to do after graduating.

what's your opinion of WUSTL? is it closer to ucla,texas,vandy or BC, BU, GW, Fordham, Emory, ND, etc...?

I'm a 1L. i picked a top-30 with a half scholly in the region I want to work, and I'm infinitely glad I did. Even coming out of many top-10 schools, getting a biglaw job is far, far far from a sure thing. Even HYS are seeing their students deferred or offers withdrawn from the top firms. I'll graduate with under 50K in debt, which would allow me to clerk (my school somehow places a ton of people in Article III clerkships) or work for the DOJ or whatever should I decide to.

My caveat, however, is this: don't assume that you can graduate in the top 10% at a T-30 just because you got in to a T-14. My money is no-strings-attached. I know for a fact that my opportunities will be more limited out of this school, but the reality is they are currently also pretty limited in the T-14.

keep in mind, i'm not advocating you go to some 3rd tier shithole...we're talking about half scholarships at some pretty solid schools.