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Tuition at UCI would be about 85k
Tuition at Hastings would be close to 47k

i'm attempting negotiations with both of these schools.

my desired location is california but no preference in for the north or south. i am a current resident so ill
be eligible for instate tuition at both.

career-wise i'm looking for firm work out of lawschool as it seems to open up the most doors for latereralling after.

hastings has a solid alumni network but slightly lower job numbers than uci. is the price difference enough to go to hastings or are the job numbers of uci worth the extra cash?

UCI.

1. Are those total debt figures, or would you be taking debt for COL for both as well? $47k (pre-interest) for UCH is one thing, $100k+ (post interest) quite another. Same goes for UCI.

2. Your goal of being in CA is fine, but if you're married to firm work that is open to lateraling, just realize (with the aforementioned discussion of debt) that you're taking on potentially six figures of debt for a 1/3 chance (being generous for sake of simplicity) of the type of firm work that provides lateral opportunities. At UCH, and to a lesser extent UCI, you have a very real possibility of ending up scrapping for jobs that do not give you those lateral options.

3. Cost-benefit varies for every person, so maybe this risk profile is worth it to you (or alternatively, maybe I'm missing something about your particular calculation), but provided I'm correct in assuming you still have to pay to live beyond tuition, these are decidedly risky investments. I would never do it, but you have to recognize whether or not you're open to taking on that much risk.