commute or live near campus? Forum

[pdevastey]

I have been accepted to top 10 school. My mom lives almost two hours away by public transportation(train, bus, walk). my debt load after graduation will 130k if i commute. if i live near campus I will graduate with 170k.
generally I am trying to get a feel of work load, networking events and other things around your typical law school that would suffer if i made that commute. Would i be spending an extra 40k on convience or actually help my grades and professional development? I commuted my whole undergrad and missed alot of events and pulled all nighters because of the commute which was about as bad as it is now.

[Good Guy Gaud]

Is that two hours one way?

[iowalum]

I commuted all through law school, with a max one-way trip of an hour. If you can at all avoid it, do, even if you have to take on a little extra in loans. My grades and connections with my classmates suffered, I couldn't be as involved in activities, and the commute added a lot of extra stress, especially if I was late or if there was bad weather.

The only positives were I felt like the drive home gave me a little mental separation from school and I saved some money. But if I were to do it over again I would definitely live close to campus.

[FrancisScottKey]

[deleted]

[pdevastey]

Is that two hours one way?

generally in the morning it would be 1 hour because of i can get a ride n the train comes every 5 mins. if i leave campus after 8pm it would take me about 2 hours

[pdevastey]

thanks for your experiences. I was planning on at least one year for stress and networking. if they offer me more money soon i would rather all three years but the debt load is scary