Went to UT-Austin back in the late 1990's with Texas residency.

While not one of the uber elite law schools in the country, it's consistently ranked in the top 20 and back in those days, tuition+fees were like $6K/year for Texas residents.

Today, tuition+fees for Texas residents are around $34K/year (out of state is about $50k/year).

Plus, the job market for lawyers was waaaaay better back then than it is today. I graduated in 2000, which was just about the best year in the history of the world for graduating from law school, especially if you were going into patent/IP law (I received job offers from firms that probably wouldn't give me the time of day if I were graduating today).

That being said, my lifestyle for the first seven years after graduating pretty much sucked (big law in DC). But at least I wasn't burdened with a heavy debt load.

And while I've since left big law (and don't make the big bucks of big law partners), my work situation is relatively decent from a lifestyle perspective, at least by legal profession standards (am in-house IP counsel, working remotely in Utah for a New York based Fortune 500 company). Not having a ton of debt somewhat freed me to make that career switch.

Not trying to humblebrag. it's just that the legal profession can be a minefield (many lawyers have really crappy lifestyles and/or tons of debt) and, for the most part, I've been really lucky in navigating it (and I doubt that I'd do nearly as well if I were trying to start my career now).