Location wise, LA is definitely a great place to live, work and even retire. I've been living here for 13 years, really love this city and plan to probably spend many coming years here as well. But USC is really not a good school for MBA at least. I applied for USC this year and did a lot research on this school. My initial impression was a OK school to attend, but after a few incidents during the application process, my confidence dropped to zero. If a school doesn't even treat its applicants seriously and doesn't care about its presence, how would you expect you would enjoy your 2 years MBA experience with it. So I got in, but I'm not going. If location is your first priority, go for USC. If school is your first priority, go for Duke. Just my 2 cents.