<p>In todays job market I am struggling to decide which is better:
Attend T2 #75-100 USNWR ranked schools, ( accepted ) with little or no monies offered.
Attend T3/T4 Regional schools, with 70-80% monies. ( offers in hand presently )
Local schools in which I would not having housing costs. ( In a perfect world I would stay in local states. Great Lakes/Midwest )</p>
<p>Waiting on few other pending higher ranked schools, and thier possible offers/acceptance.</p>
<p>The job prospects 3 years out, and the regional nature/ranking of schools offering monies concerns me.</p>
<p>Personally, yes. There’s a pretty extensive thread on here that runs a few pages (happened within the last month or two) that can probably give you multiple opinions on the matter. </p>
<p>Here’s something that might put it into perception for you: a cousin and a few of his friends (about 5 years older) who are all currently in investment banking, almost all got really solid internships after freshman year, going to a school that is farther down the rung then the ones my friends and I currently attend (all target schools). It’s been INCREDIBLY hard to get something this summer, and the reason is that the job market has contracted, older students are settling for less prestigious jobs, and that shuts out normally qualified candidates from a potential labor market. Imagine what I would be going to if I gone to my cousin’s school, a semi/non target? Or worse, if I attended a complete non-target that was nowhere on the map?</p>
<p>Would you happen to see any similarities between my anecdote and what is currently going on in the job market in terms of law school?</p>
<p>I understand the comments, at the present time my LSAT score is not high enough for a T14 university.</p>
<p>That is why I ask, I have a couple T2 acceptances, out of state with a small amount of monies offered. I am comparing expected costs associated with my options.</p>
<p>I will take your reference and check the thread you mentioned.</p>
<p>Pointless to consider expected costs without also considering expected returns. Also, the argument is that, regardless of whether your LSAT is good enough for a T14, don’t go unless you get into one. If you really want to go to law school, then your goal should be to improve that LSAT so you can attend a T14. It’s really that simple.</p>
<p>UCLA Law is a top30 school. And $90k adjusted for cost of living is barely above the poverty line in LA, short of having significant savings. But if one could graduate from a similarly ranked school elsewhere that is cheaper (say the midwest or south) and make the same kind of money, that would be worth it.</p>
<p>what are your other options OP? if unemployment, the T3 with full scholarship could be a good option. that would delay the economy for 3 years, but keep in mind you would most likely end up in the lower-end legal jobs, making perhaps 30k. if that is just fine and you really want to be an attorney you should go for it.</p>
<p>if you are motivated by money, it is not worth it to pay sticker at T2 or to attend T3 for free. you can probably get a better job with just undergrad degree</p>
<p>Say what you will but $90k is not a lot of money in LA (actually, pretty bare bones pay for LA). 20% fed tax leaves $72k. FICA at 8% leaves about $64k. State of about 7% leaves $57k (9.3% top marginal). Even before you’ve spent a cent on anything. And good luck getting a decent apartment in LA for less than $2k. A car is pretty much mandatory in LA, so oops, there goes $1k (including gas and insurance and maintenance and parking, and payments).So before you’ve eaten, paid utilities, dry cleaned your clothes, saved money, or paid down your student loans, you’re down to $21k. You’ll get to own your own home when you’re 40, and even then it’ll be a shack out in Riverside County an 2 hours away from work each way that you barely financed with 3% down because COL is so prohibitively expensive, and for no good reason, not to mention the CA real estate bubble that hasn’t deflated completely. You’d have to pay me quadruple that to even consider living in LA.</p>
<p>futurenyustudent, you are in for a financial shock after graduation. 90k is far from poverty, even in a city as expensive as NYC. there are very few jobs that pay even close to 90k for recent graduates (IE people < 28).</p>
<p>After taxes and loans, starting associates at big NYC firms pretty much bring in 90k. Last I checked, they were doing quite well for themselves.</p>
<p>$90k NET OF TAX. That’s about 50% higher than $90k GROSS. $90k net of tax=$90k. $90k gross=$57k net of tax (or closer to $53k net of tax in NYC). The inhouse lawyer at LA is at $45k after loans and taxes. Unless his income goes up significantly in the short term or the cost of housing goes down significantly in the short term (yeah right :rolleyes: ) he’ll live paycheck to paycheck forever. </p>
<p>I guess you’ll do fine if you don’t ever want to save or buy a house and plan on living paycheck to paycheck forever, or expect your pay to double in the next 5 years.</p>
<p>Assuming taxable income is 90,000$ (which probably isn’t the case, after loan-interest deductions, exemptions, the standard deduction, etc.), income comes out to 74k. </p>
<p>Shame on you for making me pull out the Internal Revenue Code.</p>