“If I was willing to pay full price for Georgetown, I would be willing to pay full price for Vassar or Williams”
I don’t know about that, I’ve been to all three, surprising as that sounds, and they’re very different. One is integrated with a large city, one is rural and other is in suburbia (Poughkeepsie) where I grew up for a few years, and not integrated with the city. For History or Government or International Relations, many students and their parents actually did choose Georgetown over Vassar. I think Georgetown-Williams is tougher call but if the OP’s daughter is not doing something like Econ, Georgetown may still be the better choice.
You are asking if it is worth it to pay $70k (I think it is $80k now), ever, for any school. Only you can decide that and how much you have total for college. Your daughter will understand the economics. If you decide you have $200k for her education, tell her the amount and that that it is. She can spend $200 on undergrad and then have to come up with the rest for law school, or she can spend $100k on undergrad (state school, LAC with merit, larger school with merit or an honors program) and have the rest for law school. She might also feel a lot better about picking Geneseo with a large merit award if she knows that money is there for law school. Big picture.
Even my daughter who is NOT good at math understood the financing for college. She dreamed of a school in California but that wasn’t within the budget I’d set and she had no way of financing that.
How many HS students say they want to be a lawyer then get to college and change their minds?
While only you can judge whether it’s worth the cost, as law school may-or may not-be in the future, spend the time now to find the best affordable school for her.
But rather than worry about a possible future, focus on the here and now-in other words, find the UG which has the best fit for your daughter. How well she does in UG will play a huge role in what she does after, so find a school that fits, and you can afford.
I agree with those who say that the undergraduate school is not a big factor in law school admissions. I was thinking my own experience was irrelevant, as I went to law school in the '80s, but now I see that decade has been raised, so I will report that I attended a T3 law school after graduating from a state college with open admissions (after transferring from an LAC where I had flamed out after two years). I had an interesting story to tell and I was a good test taker. I like to think that, at least as to my law school, that could still take you pretty far.
Agreeing with @oldlaw - you can only take one step at a time. Now, that I’ve skimmed the whole thread, it’s clear to me that DD knows what she wants. Her career goals can certainly change over the course of four years (that’s kind of what LACs do) but right now, she wants to attend a LAC. Btw, I don’t draw a huge distinction between a free-standing, small college like Wesleyan and a college of arts and sciences tucked inside a university like Yale College or Harvard College. She’s not majoring in engineering. She’s not majoring in business. And, the vast majority of college graduates directly enter the work force. So, if she doesn’t go to graduate school (or, law school), she needs to make sure that her liberal arts degree will open doors for as wide a range of entry-level jobs as possible. That’s the point.