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Columbia has offered me $35,000 and Northwestern has offered $120,000. With the money I expect from my family, my total debt from Columbia would be a bit over $200,000 and from Northwestern it would be a bit over $100,000. I likely will end up in public service long-term, but I do want to work in Big Law for at least a year or two, and I'm definitely interested in obtaining a federal clerkship if I can land one. The location of the clerkship does not matter to me, and I would be fine working at a firm in NY or Chicago. What does everyone think–––is the gap between Northwestern and Columbia worth $100K of additional debt?

I know these schools have LRAP, but I'm hesitant to plan around it, since I know the federal program, on which the schools are partially reliant, ends up helping so few people. If anyone has more information about that, it would be greatly appreciated.

Re: LRAP - look more closely at the details. I don't think Columbia's plan is contingent on Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), the federal program you're referencing, which makes it actually a very very good program. I don't know about NU though.

Also, very few people have obtained PSLF at this point because it's only been about a year since the first possible cohort could apply, and it's clear that it wasn't well understood when it first rolled out, because lots of people weren't on the right payment plans to qualify. I think those kinds of kinks will get worked out and more people will have been on the right track to get forgiveness as we move forward. (That said, it's always possible that Congress will mess with it, so that's certainly a fair concern.)

I'd go with NU. But have you taken your NU offer to Columbia to see if they would increase their scholarship? I think if you can get the debt level within 40-50k of each other, Columbia becomes more attractive

For your plans, NU makes the most sense.

If you plan to spend a year or two in biglaw, you can easily pay off your NU loans before moving into PI and not have to worry about something like PSLF and LRAP. Both schools do similarly in clerking, because neither school is particularly focused on it. NU also offers $8k guaranteed summer PI funding with a potential for an additional roughly ~$1.5k. Last time I checked, this was the most robust package in the country, and it should make your first summer more pleasant. You can also do PI within the city your first summer, so you don't have to worry about paying double rent (and your rent will be far lower than NYC).

The school also supports up to 10 (I believe) PI fellowships for new grads due to the $100M gift Pritzker made (also why summer funding is so robust), so if you wanted to ditch biglaw and go PI right out the gate that wouldn't be a problem. Also, if you end up wanting to go PI right out the gate and are worried about PSLF issues, you can reasonably service $100k of debt through a PI career (albiet not pleasantly), but $200k would be quite the hurdle.

Financially, this seems like a no brainer for NU.

The only "big" downside I could see would be if you're (1) a diehard NYC native and want to live every second of your life there, and (2) if you're among those who obsess about the NY elite firms, and you just can't imagine not working at Cravath or SullCrom. (1) doesn't seem to apply to you, and (2) doesn't seem to either, nor would it really have a great bearing on your PI career. Once you're at a good enough firm/have good enough grades, PI hiring is much more focused on fit and demonstrated interest.

Why isn't NYU in consideration?

I'm not convinced that Northwestern is 100% the right choice if you're going to be relying on LRAP post-graduation. Columbia's LRAP blows Northwestern's out of the water. But based on your offers, I assume you were admitted to NYU. Even if you didn't get a scholarship, you can negotiate with them, and NYU outperforms both of these schools in PI placement.

TrishAnne wrote:Columbia has offered me $35,000 and Northwestern has offered $120,000. With the money I expect from my family, my total debt from Columbia would be a bit over $200,000 and from Northwestern it would be a bit over $100,000. I likely will end up in public service long-term, but I do want to work in Big Law for at least a year or two, and I'm definitely interested in obtaining a federal clerkship if I can land one. The location of the clerkship does not matter to me, and I would be fine working at a firm in NY or Chicago. What does everyone think–––is the gap between Northwestern and Columbia worth $100K of additional debt?

I know these schools have LRAP, but I'm hesitant to plan around it, since I know the federal program, on which the schools are partially reliant, ends up helping so few people. If anyone has more information about that, it would be greatly appreciated.

Aside from differences in LRAP between NU and CLS, I think the big consideration here is how picky you are wrt which firms you want to work for after graduation and what caliber of public interest work you want to pursue after your Big Law years. CLS will give you more of a cushion when it comes to getting jobs at the more elite firms in New York and elite public interest gigs (ACLU etc.). Same goes with clerkships (don't be fooled by CLS' low clerkship rate-shouldn't be an issue to obtain a federal clerkship if you have decent grades and are not geographically sensitive). If pursuing more elite opportunities matters to you, I'd go with CLS for the extra cushion. If not I'd take NU.