Top Law Schools

Removed.

I wouldn't want to do either... but if you have to choose one, do UVA because it's marginally cheaper. $290k for any school scares the bejeezus out of me.

I'm confused. Do you have any $ at NW? If not, then UVA. Cheaper COL.

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Why are you not debt averse? do you have $290k sitting around?

Even though I'm not sure where this particular number comes from, I'm almost 100% confident that neither school is worth $290k in debt.

patrickd139 wrote:Even though I'm not sure where this particular number comes from, I'm almost 100% confident that neither school is worth $290k in debt.

Northwestern's COA from LST. UVA's is less.

What can you do instead?

I faced a similar choice with similar options. I had a shit UGPA in useless majors from a state school. I worked at a small firm getting no benefits and making less than 30k. Other than law school I felt I had two other possible options: work my way through a second UG degree in something worthwhile while not getting a shit GPA, or finding a job where I could work my way up into something decent. Having below a 3.0 and shit work experience coupled with the job market made the second option a rough go. The first option was less risky than law school (CCs are cheap to start out at and it's much easier to work part time to pay much of your way through UG), but in the end I opted for the riskier strategy of NU with 250k debt. I'm not really sure that was the rational choice but it was the one I made.

What sucks here is that dicking around 4 years of UG has screwed you (and me). There really aren't any terribly good options. Law school is a shit ton of debt yet redoing 4 years of UG isn't an entirely palatable situation either. I don't think you'd be crazy to choose law school, you will end up with 2/3 or more shot at a decent job and IBR serves as a worst comes to worst. That said, the worst case scenario is pretty bad and the decent job can be almost as miserable.