1 year equity research internship with low pay vs expensive London Business School 1 year Masters

So I all of a sudden have a dilemma that I need to resolve in the next week or so. I was accepted to a master's program at LBS for this coming Fall term. It has amazing career placements and LBS has a good brand name, especially in Asia where I want to end up.

This past week, though, I got an offer to do equity research at a brand name boutique investment bank in Newport Beach. It's a weird program that is 7-12 months of minimum wage labor with a small chance of a full-time offer at the end. That being said, the MD personally reached out to me and connected me with a bunch of former interns that went on to BB and HF immediately after the program.

So I'm trying to decide between the brand name and career center of LBS at the cost of 60k and a year or a potential opportunity at a place where the MD makes a big effort in being a career mentor and I would be essentially be treading water financially. The former interns gave rave reviews about how much they learned and the team environment itself even though none of them stayed at the firm after the internship, so there's that.

I'm a recent graduate of a non-target top-10 state school majoring in international relations. I've had investment banking and private equity internships in the past but haven't had too much luck with recruiting, making it to a couple superdays and that's it.

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