Should all except the T14 law schools close

[NoodleyOne]

Why not this:

Have the schools foot the bill for law school, which is then paid for by the Federal government (in loans) based on students passing the bar. Some of these schools, which basically act as 3 year long bar prep courses anyway, are then punished for admitting people that can't even pass the bar.

Something like that. Not a well thought out proposal, but there might be a kernel of a good idea in there.

[sublime]

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[Circlewave]

peg stafford loan availability to lsat scores.

[dawyzest1]

Why not this:

Have the schools foot the bill for law school, which is then paid for by the Federal government (in loans) based on students passing the bar. Some of these schools, which basically act as 3 year long bar prep courses anyway, are then punished for admitting people that can't even pass the bar.

Something like that. Not a well thought out proposal, but there might be a kernel of a good idea in there.

I think you've got a great kernel, and the political environment is way better in congress to do something about this than it is in the ABA's section on legal education, which is dominated by lower tier schools, or the individual schools themselves, which have a ton of internal politics and their own self-interest leaving them vehemently opposed to any meaningful change.

[utlaw2007]

The problem with basing school closings on LSAT scores is that the LSAT is designed to measure 1st year law school success. As a result, it heavily measures cognitive processing speed. In your 1st year, you are processing large amounts of completely foreign information. But once one is out in law practice for a few years, this processing speed is not that important.

I agree that there needs to be several school closings. But relegating school closings to non t14 schools is just ridiculously absurd. Also, as previous posters have pointed out, there are regions of the country that exist outside of New York, DC, Chicago, and California. Those regions need to be serviced by lawyers, as well.

The better idea is to close those schools with the lowest employment rates and have most schools reduce class size. But closings should be done by region so that schools that heavily serve a particular region are not closed.

[utlaw2007]

If people aren't getting hired from those schools, what is the utility in their existence?

[sinfiery]

If people aren't getting hired from those schools, what is the utility in their existence?

I'm going to law school!



Oh, yeah. I just wait tables for fun. By profession, what I do, is am a lawyer.

[jbagelboy]

I think some sort of academic index would be a good thing. (GPA*X)+LSAT >Y, or no law school for you. Having more than 120-130 law schools is senseless and the fact that a lot of the schools out there exist is a travesty. As my republican friends love to say, sometimes you have to starve the beast.

This I agree with. 100 schools is plenty, and the fact that there are schools out there with median - and even some with with 75th %ile - LSAT scores below 152 (read: they got less than half of the questions right), is completely absurd.

I think the 100 school model with the return to a private/public price breakdown where local state universities would charge only half tuition would operate much better in the market. Establishing strict GPA/LSAT criteria is not the ideal way forward IMO, but it may be the quickest way to squeeze out the bottom 112 or so law schools (all those with medians below 160 would quickly fall off the map).

[utlaw2007]

I think some sort of academic index would be a good thing. (GPA*X)+LSAT >Y, or no law school for you. Having more than 120-130 law schools is senseless and the fact that a lot of the schools out there exist is a travesty. As my republican friends love to say, sometimes you have to starve the beast.

This I agree with. 100 schools is plenty, and the fact that there are schools out there with median - and even some with with 75th %ile - LSAT scores below 152 (read: they got less than half of the questions right), is completely absurd.

I think the 100 school model with the return to a private/public price breakdown where local state universities would charge only half tuition would operate much better in the market. Establishing strict GPA/LSAT criteria is not the ideal way forward IMO, but it may be the quickest way to squeeze out the bottom 112 or so law schools (all those with medians below 160 would quickly fall off the map).

While I am not for any type of prohibition preventing an individual student from attending law school because of his/her GPA/LSAT, and no, I'm not referring to myself, my scores were fine, I do think that there is use for some type of evaluation of a law school's utility that includes median LSAT scores, as the above poster suggests.

Student body quality is an integral part of a useful law school education. If the medians are lower than the high 150's, that school has no business educating potential lawyers.

[jingosaur]

There should be actuarial controls on federal loans.

If the current job prospects at your law school dictate that there is less than a 70% chance (arbitrary number) that you will ever be able to pay back your loans, you can't get the money. If people really want to drop $150k of their own cash to go to a T4 law school (which about 10% of their students do), then have fun. Once they start taking out loans and putting themselves in a position where they'll be in non-dischargeable debt hell that will have to be repaid with interest in 25 years by the federal tax payers, then there's a problem.

[sublime]

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[M458]

I've always found it a bit strange that student loans carry the same interest rate for every person attending law school. What if there was some way to tie the interest rate to how risky attending the school is? Some sort of formula that took into account employment percentage 9 months after graduation along with median salary (yes, I realize there'd have to be some way to enforce that these numbers were actually true and not just being fudged by the schools, but just go along with me here for a second). The students attending the schools that carried the strongest probability of a successful outcome would receive loans at a very low interest rate, while students attending schools with employment percentages below 50% would have to face the reality of high-interest loans if they wanted to attend law school. Maybe it'd look something like this:

HYS - 3%
Rest of T-14 - 4%
T1 - 5%
T2 - 6.5%
TTT - 8%
(Yes, I know employment outcomes/salaries aren't always tied to the typical rankings we see, but this just serves to kind of illustrate the idea)

I know there are flaws with this idea (screwing over the people attending crap TTT schools even more, mainly), but hopefully the incentives would adjust applicants' behavior over time. More of a reward for people to take the LSAT seriously and try to shoot for a better school.

If you take a loan out for anything else (car, home, small business, etc.), your credit will determine the interest rate. Why not have an applicant's school's employment outcomes/median salaries serve as a sort of credit score that determines the interest rate as well?

[OutCold]

I still think the way to correct the problem is allowing student loan rates to operate the way normal loan rates do: by tying the rate to the amount of risk. A Harvard student shouldn't be paying the same rate as a Barry or Nova student. A 20% interest rate akin to a credit card would be a strong deterrent to someone contemplating spending 200k on a TTTT.

Edit: Just saw the post above me. Clearly I agree, except I think the loan rates there are too low. There is no underlying asset to be sold, and while you can't default on them, you can't pay what you aren't making either.

[dawyzest1]

Edit: Just saw the post above me. Clearly I agree, except I think the loan rates there are too low. There is no underlying asset to be sold, and while you can't default on them, you can't pay what you aren't making either.

I agree 100% that the risk pricing is off here. I'd be thinking at least 25% interest on any loan for a TTT/T. I just don't have confidence that differential interest will influence "buyer's" decisions sufficiently to change their uptake of law schools. They aren't scared off by the gargantuan principal amounts as they should be, so I don't think some additional points is going to scare them off either. I think for some folks making this decision, it's all Monopoly money anyway.

[Dr. Dre]

Bro, the solution isn't to close all lolschools except the T14. The solution is to slap some sense into the states that are creating new law schools.

Just look at california. It's in a recession, the legal market sucks, and yet starts up a new law school—UC Irvine. dafuq.

We should close those types of toilets.

[Barack O'Drama]

The only solution is to cure the cognitive dissonance in U.G. I am a 0L (Sophomore 2nd semester) And numerous acquaintances/friends are so blinded by going to L.S. nothing will stop them. They believe they are the exception, to have a J.D. and no job is a thought they cannot comprehend. The idea of massive loan debt seems to access the same unwavering cognitive dissonance. They will of course be attending: New England Law, NYSL, and the last girl I know is deciding between Albany Law School and Touro. The odd thing is they are all fairly smarter and do well.

To avoid TL;DR - Cognitive dissonance in U.G. = Only thinking: Will be a lawyer, legit, pimp, $$$. Not thinking: Debt, employment, nature of job, Lawl School $cam.

[TatteredDignity]

wrong thread

[NoodleyOne]

I had two suits ordered into my local JAB because they didn't have my size in either of them. One is their "tropical weave" fabric and one is a slim fit suit, with undisclosed fabric type. Is either of these comparable to signature, and if not, does anyone know which is better quality?

... This is certainly relevant to the discussion at hand.

[ManOfTheMinute]

If it isn't HYS or a cheap state school, close that shiTTT. There will be plenty of paralegal jobs out there

[sublime]

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[Barack O'Drama]

The only solution is to cure the cognitive dissonance in U.G. I am a 0L (Sophomore 2nd semester) And numerous acquaintances/friends are so blinded by going to L.S. nothing will stop them. They believe they are the exception, to have a J.D. and no job is a thought they cannot comprehend. The idea of massive loan debt seems to access the same unwavering cognitive dissonance. They will of course be attending: New England Law, NYSL, and the last girl I know is deciding between Albany Law School and Touro. The odd thing is they are all fairly smarter and do well.

To avoid TL;DR - Cognitive dissonance in U.G. = Only thinking: Will be a lawyer, legit, pimp, $$$. Not thinking: Debt, employment, nature of job, Lawl School $cam.

Forreal. Being from Florida, I have friends at Barry, Ave Maria, many at Stetson (not AS bad), and one at Hofstra. While I could almost see someone talking themselves into the latter two, how do you end up at Barry/Ave Maria?

Exactly! I feel the same way. I'm far from a prestige whore, however, it is directly related to job prospects. When I first started getting serious about going to law school (About this time last year) I did RESEARCH! I found this website and it helped me see the truth. I guess if you aren't smart enough to research and see the blatant scam...its on you.

[LeninLunchbox]

The beginning and the end of the problem is the federal loan system. If rich idiots want to blow $150k or more at the usual suspects (cooley, barry, NYLS, etc etc etc) let them. There simply aren't enough of them to keep those schools alive.

The simple 100% effective solution is to tie the loan system to employment prospects You take the mean 9 month out salary of all grads, with unemployed counting for zero and non JD-req jobs counting for 50%. Multiply by 3. That's how much money the government will loan you. End of story, no negotiations, no sob stories, no means testing, no public interest exception. You still think it's a good idea to attend? Work until you get enough to borrow $150K+ on your own credit.

Which schools have no business being open would be sorted out by the market in a few years. Problem solved.

[ramsdancer1]

Bro, the solution isn't to close all lolschools except the T14. The solution is to slap some sense into the states that are creating new law schools.

To me, this is the main problem. The ABA needs to enact stricter qualifications for law schools to become certified. And if a law school doesn't meet certain qualifications, such as employment rates and a minimum educational standard, it cannot call itself a law school. There are some schools that are tier 3 or 4 that have decent job prospects especially if you want to go into PI work so I don't think closing schools within a certain range is reasonable.

I also disagree that there should be any kind of mandated LSAT score and GPA combination to be able to apply to law school. Some people don't do well on standardized tests and this doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't succeed in law school. There are many circumstances that could affect those figures and the law schools should be able to hear that information and decide. To me, the key is to make stricter qualifications for law school certification to ensure students get a minimum standard of education and employment. Then if certified law schools want to accept a student with a lower LSAT score or GPA that is their choice. A big problem to me isn’t that students who have no business being in law school apply and take financial aid they could never afford to pay back, it is that schools accept them. If there were fewer schools, the schools would naturally be more selective and it would weed students out that way.

I also think it is utterly ridiculous to restrict financial aid to employment salaries. There are no stipulations like this for undergraduate degrees so why should law school or any professional school be different? All this would do is hinder poor people from being able to attend law school because they couldn't get loans. Besides, you have to pay back your student loans aside from death or fleeing the country so I don't see the harm in federal student loans.

[untar614]

Besides, you have to pay back your student loans aside from death or fleeing the country so I don't see the harm in federal student loans.

Because people DON'T pay them back. They can't if they don't have the money, and if you have 250k in student loans, even paying off the interest may not be manageable. So some just tune out the debt collector calls and just don't make payments while they work whatever 20-30k job they can get to just get by. These loans end up just being sunk and never paid back, so the federal government, by way of the taxpayers, is forced to eat the cost.

[ramsdancer1]

Besides, you have to pay back your student loans aside from death or fleeing the country so I don't see the harm in federal student loans.

Because people DON'T pay them back. They can't if they don't have the money, and if you have 250k in student loans, even paying off the interest may not be manageable. So some just tune out the debt collector calls and just don't make payments while they work whatever 20-30k job they can get to just get by. These loans end up just being sunk and never paid back, so the federal government, by way of the taxpayers, is forced to eat the cost.

I understand what you are saying but the government has ways to get money back even if you do work a 20-30k job. They can garnish your wages, take money out of your tax refund etc. So your right, maybe they don't get all the money back but they have ways to get at least some money back and the interest paid by other students helps to offest the potential loss.