Top Law Schools

Hey, I'm just trying to help my friend out. My friend got into Columbia (0) and Duke (30K/yr). He's gonna have to pay it all by loan. He's leaning toward Columbia. I told him given the amount of debt he would have at Columbia, Duke is the clear winner here. His goal is to get biglaw in NYC after graduation. Which one should he pick? I'm trying to convince my friend to go to Duke. I'm going to NYU , so it would be nice for us to go to school in the same city and see each other once in a while. However, $290K just sounds ridi-fucking-culous to me. Any idea??

If Duke is clear winner on the poll, maybe I can use this to help my friend. Give me honest opinions please!!!

Duke is also estimated to be ~7K cheaper per year than Columbia or ~21k over 3 years. That's $110k cheaper before interest. Easily $150k+ cheaper depending on how fast you pay it off.

Columbia at sticker is going to be like 300k debt at graduation.

aboutmydaylight wrote:Duke is also estimated to be ~7K cheaper per year than Columbia or ~21k over 3 years. That's $110k cheaper before interest. Easily $150k+ cheaper depending on how fast you pay it off.

That's my point. Duke COA after interest accrued will be like $150K vs Columbia would be like $290K. I don't think +20% of biglaw (Columbia 70% vs Duke 50% approximately) is worth that much money...... However, the poll so far says Columbia...;;;

ask your friend if (s)he would rather pay 2X the price for law school at Columbia than at Duke.. Normally, id say go with Columbia, but not at 2x the amount.

Duke will still be about 175k at time of repayment if taking out full loans for cost of living and not accounting for potential 2L SA. This is assuming that tuition, fees, and COL estimates increase at the same rate as they have for the past 5 years.

Columbia would be about 310k at time of repayment given the same assumptions.

Both probably require big law, night sweats and panic. I'd go with Duke personally, but I just chose Michigan over Harvard so maybe you shouldn't listen to me.

I wouldn't place too much faith in poll results.

At school published COLs, Duke would wind up being about 170k debt at grad, while Columbia would be around 305k. Duke's COL estimate is really high for that area, though, while Columbia's is more realistic, so it's likely that the spread between the two could be even a bit higher.

If we're assuming biglaw with $15k from an SA towards tuition, that ends up being $155k from Duke and $290k from Columbia. If your friend pays off around $60k/yr, he can pay that off after 3 years out of Duke and 6 years out of Columbia. Your friend would pay $175k for Duke over the course of repayment, while he would pay $350k for Columbia.

Columbia is an insane biglaw powerhouse. But I don't think that initial placement power is worth the extra debt.

I would take Duke but have him continue negotiating with CLS and any other schools in between.

Duke is probably the better value, but for NYC big law Columbia, even at sticker, is a good strong option.

If your friend got into Columbia with sticker, then I'm surprised NYU with some small (30-45k) scholarship isn't an option here.

Also your friend should collect scholarship money from everyone #4-10 and see if Columbia might throw some money his way.

0 to 30 a year doesn't make any sense.. Differential b/t my CLS and Duke awards was $7K/year. Columbia is not worth $100K debt more than Duke, but that also shouldn't be a realistic scenario.

Talk to Charles and work something out. If CLS will come up to $50K, it has my vote.