Top Law Schools

Stats: 3.64, 168 (4th attempt), URM (Latino)

Schools and COA(I used the calculator provided on the forum)-
UT: 154-167k. I was awarded a $10,000 scholarship which I will try to appeal but I don't expect any substantial increase.
UF: 64-76k. I was awarded a full tuition scholarship but I still have to borrow for CoL.

These will be financed primarily by loans. The variance in the CoA is based on where I decide to stay and how much parental assistance I end up securing.

General career goals in order of preference: Public Interest, Government, Big Law. I would seek employment primarily in the state of the school I choose to attend.

Cycle Recap: This was my third cycle after finally upping my LSAT score a bit but it was a rough cycle. I casted a wide net by applying to all the non HYS T-14 schools as well as UT, Vanderbilt, WashU, UCLA, and UF. Georgetown, Vanderbilt, and WashU waitlisted me. I still have applications pending at Duke, Columbia, and Northwestern. Based on the fact that every other T-14 with the exception of Georgetown denied me, I don't expect any positive results from those.

It's another question of costs vs outcomes. As a lifelong Texan, UT is a dream school for me. It allows me to stay in my home state and gives me a good (but certainly not definite) chance of reaching my preferred career outcomes from the median. But, I have to borrow almost 100k more.

Florida was my safety net school for this cycle. I'm not terribly familiar with either the school or the area in general. UF has been pouring a lot of money into its law school lately and it appears that their graduate's outcomes have improved year after year. Though reaching any of my preferred outcomes is considerably harder, striking out would not cost me as dearly as it would at UT.

Hence my quandary. Quite honestly, I can see myself being happy at either school for different reasons. I've been gathering information from current students, graduates, forums, and websites like LST to get a good picture of which offer is better. I even elected to fly up to Gainesville to see what the area is like. I would appreciate any additional insight that y'all could offer me. Thank you.

Based on your stats (168 LSAT & 3.61 uGPA) plus URM status, your application cycle is disappointing.

If you would like to practice in Florida, then UFlorida is the better choice due to lower COA. If Texas is your preferred destination, then Univ. of Texas is better but risky due to amount that you plan to borrow to finance your law school tuition & COL expenses.

A concern is what caused your poor results this admissions cycle & will that cause affect possible future employment.

This has been a brutal cycle, so your results aren't all that surprising to me. You would have had better options in almost any prior year, but this one has been especially tough. I would take UT here.

I think you should just pick whichever state you want to live in. Florida is a good school and on the rise- but UT is a great school- is it really that much with instate and a scholarship? I think you'd be paying closer to 20-25k per year as instate with your scholly, and you'd end up with around 60-75 from that and I'm guessing 15k living expenses a year in Austin, so adding another 45k onto that- I think you'd be actually closer to 120-130k mark (still bad, but better than 160k). Additionally, I think your FL COA is pretty high- it should be around 40-50k since you're on a fullride.
I'd think you're really looking at, with interest, UF total COA @ 55k; and UT total COA @ 140k, I'm bad at math, but I think your estimates were a bit high.
I would decide which state you'd rather live in and make my decision. I had a fairly similar decision to make as you, and I chose the FL comparable school, but I'm staying in the SE and picked a *slightly portable private school in the region that would get me back to my homestate if I needed (I did).
With your goals being public interest/govt work I lean towards FL, but you seem to like UT better, you've got a system there, and it gives you a real shot at BL if you change your goals (and obviously dominates the state).
Sorry, I don't have a clear answer for you. If you are unsure of your goals and prefer Texas, I'd take UT; if you really know what you want and you're happy with FL for your early career, and the much lower debt load, I'd take UF.

Since you're geared toward PI and government work, you could take advantage of UT's LRAP. Do read it thoroughly, since it has a lot of conditions for what kind of employment qualifies and how much they'll forgive (https://law.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploa ... y-2020.pdf). UF has a good offer on the table as well– go with where you'd like to live during law school and maybe your first few years of practice afterward.

I lived in Gville a good while back. It's a typical college town and living is very affordable, weather is almost always good. I think you could live on 15k/year if you're really frugal there. idk about Austin, though.

Thanks for the advice so far y'all

The CoA may be a little higher based on the fact the calculator takes into account potential tuition/CoL rises. Additionally, I am 26 so I have to account for an extra 9300 or so for health insurance from the school. So would 150k be a more realistic estimate?

I would honestly prefer to stay in Texas and UT is a better school that I really wanted to get into. What keeps giving me pause is the internal question of "well is it $100,000 better?/do you want to stay in Texas THAT bad?" which is a question I suppose that only I can really answer. Based on y'all's advice and the differences in outcomes I would venture to say that UT looks to be worth the additional cost.

As far as servicing that debt though is it better to shoot for PI/gov jobs right off the bat and use the PSLF/LRAP programs or is it better to try for BL to pay off the debt ASAP? I've read that doing BL to pay off loans then moving on to a field you're more interested in hurts you if you try for PI work but not so much for government work. (As far as I can tell you have to do BL if you want to target something like a federal job.) Do I have that right?

I'm surprised you got so little from Texas. UF is a fine enough school for your goals, but it sounds like Texas is where your heart is. As far as servicing your debt goes, it's up to you. If you want to do LRAP, you need to make sure your job is qualifying and that you'll stick it out. Going the biglaw route is another option. Trouble is that it's not always easy to transition from biglaw to PI.

And no, you don't necessarily need biglaw for federal government jobs. There are some jobs where it is valuable. There are other jobs where it might not be. That's likely not overly helpful, but the federal government is so large and diverse that it's hard to give a more specific answer without more information on what exactly you want to do (and it's perfectly okay if you don't know that right now).