CUNY-no scholarship vs. Roger Williams University-full tuition

[asam]

Hi everyone,
    So I am having a lot of trouble deciding between CUNY Law and RWU. I want to do public interest law, specifically working on immigrant rights and labor organizing, and CUNY seems to be a perfect fit, I really like their programs and professors and living in NYC would be fantastic for connecting to radical legal organizations. However, they are not offering me any money, and RWU has offered me full tuition as a public interest scholar and honors student. I've tried to leverage some money from CUNY and they said that they are considering me for a 5,000 scholarship, no promises. RWU has an immigration clinic that i would be interested in and their public interest center seems really helpful and accessible and they really want me to go. Also, as the only law school in rhode island they claim to have almost exclusive access to the local and state courts for internships etc. CUNY seems a bit like they couldn't care less whether or not I enrolled.

So CUNY would be almost 50,000 of debt over 3 years in tuition alone. Luckily my partner will be helping to support me so the living expenses wont demand much more of a loan. My question: is CUNY's program really that much better than RWU? Or should I suck it up and forego living in NYC and being surrounded by leftist law students at CUNY?

[jbean29]

I would go to Roger Williams. Go to law school and come out in no debt? I don't think it can get any better than that.

[kdev1203]

I'd take RWU in a heartbeat. Shoot for top of your class with zero debt...you'll be living the life 

[john4040]

How about neither?  Re-take the LSAT and go to a better school.

[FalconJimmy]

Gonna buck the trend here.

CUNY?  Look at the size of that market.  Look how wired in their graduates are to the NYC metro.

Roger Williams?  Honestly, I'm in school for my second graduate degree and I never heard of the place.  Yeah, you can accuse me of being ignorant, and frankly, I probably am, but then so are a lot of folks.  If you leave Rhode Island, I wouldn't be optimistic about this degree porting well outside the state. 

There are a lot of 4T schools you can go to with generous scholarship offers, but if they're not in the part of the country where you'd eventually like to practice, I think that's a sucker's bet. 

Of course, if you want to live in RI and not NYC, Roger Williams is probably your best choice. 

For me, I'd be thinking that I've got a 30 or 40 year career ahead of me, and paying off student loans is going to be the least of my problems.  The biggest of my problems will be getting a job and then, getting a good-paying job.  Seems to me that CUNY would be a better bet for that.