@blprof, I worked in DC at a firm for many years, so I’m familiar with the market. I’m not going to trash Georgia State, because I don’t know anything about it, but I’m just saying that it’s certainly a hard stretch to go from there into a DC legal job. I looked at the NALP filings of both, and GW had 250 out of class of 550(?) get jobs in DC while Georgia State only had 3 in a class of 200. Even if the GW numbers are inflated, it’s still a far more attractive path into the DC law firms. If the OP is just looking at jobs in Atlanta, I think it’s probably not a bad choice to go to Georgia State. And I agree with what you and others have said that GWU is an overall risky proposition if the OP is taking on a lot of debt to go to school.
My only direct experience with Georgia State is taking Bar Bri bar classed there when I graduated from law school. I wasn’t impressed by the facilities. It’s not a school that I ever heard much about, even when working within the same geographic part of the country (outside Georgia though).