Law Student Regularly Commutes Thousands Of Miles To Attend Classes

People are willing to travel for prestige. Even before WashU achieved T14 status (along with 16 others), I flew around 800 miles from home to learn about the Chevron doctrine and the rule of law, two formerly foundational aspects of American legal study and practice that now lie dead below. And while becoming a transplant student shook my world, nothing about my willingness to travel was world shaking — many students move hundreds of miles away when the prestigious school they applied to extends an invite. But once they land there, they usually stay there for the duration of their program. Extended commutes are the type of thing that land you in a newspaper. New York Post has coverage:

For Nat Cedillo, jet-setting from one hotspot city to another each week is no cheap thrill…“I travel from Mexico City to New York City so that I can attend my law school classes,” Cedillo, 30, an aspiring intellectual property attorney, tells The Post. “It’s exhausting, but worth it.”
…
Throughout the 13-week semester, she’s taken the more than 4,000-mile round-trip — which begins with Monday morning flights into JFK Airport and ends back in Mexico City by Tuesday night — to complete her last term at a top NYC institution. 

There’s no way that going to law school like you’re Taylor Swift is remotely affordable. Doing so must cost a fortune!

Since January, Cedillo has spent upward of $2,000 on airfare, lodging and food.

That’s… actually not that bad at all. It is a little mind-boggling to imagine that regular 4,000-mile trip flights cost less than NY rent, but if the math is mathing, I’m happy for her. The only other point of interest is curiosity. The article says that she’s finishing her term at a “top NYC institution,” but that verbiage reads a little Kash Patel-ish if you ask me. Commuting from Mexico City for NYU (#8) or Cornell (#10) is one thing, but if the top New York school is Yeshiva University (#63) or New York Law School (#121), the smarter move may have been to push a little harder for a virtual classroom than amass the frequent flyer miles.

Would you consider doing a round trip super commute to attend law school? Hell, are you? Let us know at [email protected].

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.