Well, the real question is whether or not you want to be a lawyer. Law is a fundamentally different enterprise than the sort of broader, more open career paths that there are for an MPP or a related degree, and you should go to law school if you want to be a lawyer - and only if you want to be a lawyer.
The good thing is that you have a realistic outlook on how much people in helping professions (even good professional helping professions) get paid. It is entirely reasonable for an MPP to make $60-80K; it is also entirely reasonable for an immigration lawyer to make around $60-80K. Payscale says the median for an immigration lawyer is around $63K; Indeed puts it at about $82K, and Glassdoor says $88K. None of those alone is probably more accurate than the other, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that an appropriate expectation is somewhere between $60K and $90K, with the uncommon immigration lawyer making above $110K.
The issue, though, is that law school is expensive. It’s difficult for lawyers who didn’t go to top schools to get good jobs. If you are interested in immigration law jobs it might be less important for you to go to a top 14 law school, although the law school forum probably knows more about that; you’d still want to try to go to a top 30-40 law school, though, I’d presume. And those law schools tend to cost a lot: most private law schools in that range are going to cost you $180,000 to $250,000 over the course of three years, and even your public flagship law school will cost you between $100,000 to $150,000 all told (and some cost more, because they don’t give much of a discount for residents. UC-Berkeley law’s yearly cost of attendance is still just shy of $80K even for CA residents; it’s only about $4,000 more for non-residents). That’s a losing proposition for a law student without a significant scholarship or some cash savings they can dump on tuition; you’ll end up owing more - in some cases, way more - than you can affordably repay.
Of course, MPP programs don’t fare well in this sense, either; since large chunks (and sometimes the majority) of MPP graduates go into the nonprofit and public sector, sometimes they command lower salaries. They are more likely to be on the lower end of your projected range at least right out of graduate school, and perhaps even a bit lower. However, MPP programs are also expensive: probably somewhere between $50K and $70K a year (or $100K and $140K altogether) for private programs, less for a public flagship. You can also quickly get into a situation where you can’t repay those loans unless you have a substantial scholarship there, too.
Questions:
- Do you want to be a lawyer? If not, then don't go to law school.
If you do, then you need to carefully consider whether it makes financial sense for you to go to law school given what you want to do and your likelihood of getting a scholarship at a good-quality law school that will allow you entree into what you want to do. If you are competitive for top 14 law schools, you might get a decent scholarship at a #25-40 ranked law school that makes the ROI make sense for you. If you are barely competitive for a top 40-50ish law school, then it’s unlikely that law school is a good investment for you, because coming out of those law schools you likely won’t get a job that will allow you to repay those loans
- I'm sure this varies by school. 92% of Columbia MPA graduates in 2015 had a full-time job upon graduation (or within 3 months); no average salary is given, but a list of the positions and employers is ([here](https://sipa.columbia.edu/system/files/OCS/MPA_Employment_Overview_2015_.pdf)). 94% of American University MPP graduates are working after graduation; two-thirds of them are making between $40K and $60K a year. 95% of Duke MPP graduates are working full-time after graduation. If you go to a good solid MPP program, your employment prospects are probably quite good.