Does anybody else think this movie has a tragic ending? *spoilers*

So spoilers throughout (you are warned):

So Mike is at least halfway through law school and most likely in the middle of his 4th semester when Worm gets out of prison and the events that follow (Mike said that grinding got him through "half of law school" and that doesn't even count the time he spends driving Kanish's truck).

Thus, Mike is around 1 year away from graduating from school. Unless he is an unbelievable card player, he probably has taken out at least some school loans since a legal education costs $150,000 these days (albeit this was back in 1998) and winning all of the 75 k it would take to get through half of law school is sort of doubtful.

This means he possibly owed money in loans, was at maximum a little over a year from graduation, and he threw it all away so he could go play poker in Vegas. Even though me, my friends, and everyone I've talked to see the ending as a "happy ending", I'm starting to change my mind and believe it's downright depressing. Furthermore, the first year of law school is supposed to be the hardest and he has already gotten through that.

You would think he should at just tough it out for one more year to graduate and go play cards then (he could always just take the bar later if he changed his mind). I'm not positive, but I don't think you can just leave law school for a couple of years and come back and start where you left off (like you could do in undergrad).

Anyways, I think it's kinda said he chose to become a poker player/ gambler/ semanticslol when he had so much going for him.