If the Chancellors alone took a pay cut from their hefty 800k salary, I'm sure they could each put 10 kids through college alone.

There is certainly some truth to this, but you arbitrarily pick "average" law students being rational as the standard at which law school tuition becomes inelastic? Do you know for a fact that there wouldn't be a tuition freeze or reduction at a lower standard? A number of things push tuition sky high (as I mentioned before, easily availiable government money and rich kids' parents paying for it), but I'm not convinced the market is so inelastic. One of the major things that was also pushing tuition higher was the prospect of a $160k job 3 years down the road. What happens when that prospect goes away? I don't think any of us know that, but for me it was a lot easier to justify going into $200k+ of debt when there was a $160k job around the corner. A number of years ago it was widely accepted that in order for there to be any reduction in consumption of gas, it would have to hit $10/gal. As evidenced by summer 2008, that was proven completely false. Consumption fell drastically around $4/gal. We'll see what happens, you may well be right on this one.

I think a lot of social studies and humanities majors who can't find a way to make more than $40,000 are willing to gamble $200K of debt to eventually make anything close to $100K a year or more.

In my opinion, I assume this accounts for over half the law school population.

This. Actually, this assumes that those people can even find 40k jobs ITE. I know I couldn't find anything with my dismal gpa and year's worth of experience working at a video store during my freshman year. I very nearly took out 180k to got to a T20 before I got lucky with some scholarship money somewhere else. Even though one has to take out a lot of debt to go to law school, the rationale for most liberal arts majors is that the ceiling for lawyers is a lot higher than whatever crappy job they can find right now.

Furthermore, this assumes that these people actually take the time to research things. A lot of prospective students' research is limited to checking the websites of the schools without looking at the fine print, which is how schools like Brooklyn and Cardozo get away with doing what they do.

Schools do a good job of hiding that information

(link)

you have to pay for gas on the spot.

with education, you can take out loans. Because people are overly optimistic they don't feel the pains of loans as much as they feel the pains of having to pay $50 every few days to fill their tanks.

Your nuance is noted, but perfect analogies don't exist... I never attempted to say it was identical, just that prevailing economic opinions about the elasticity of markets are not always correct, and are sometimes way off (suprisingly!!!).

You are all making perfectly valid points, but none of you are changing my opinion that it isn't impossible that Berkeley/UCLA's tuition hike will hurt them. Perhaps the fact that I have good alternatives to paying out the ass for a legal education (i.e. a decent chance at a good scholarship at a cheap and pretty good public institution in-state, and great connections to the secondary markets here) has skewed my perception of the elasticity of legal educaton for people who don't have that going for them. However, I'm still not convinced I'm wrong.

I agree with this. Prospective law students generally have little experience with investments of this magnitude. Taking out loans of $150K instead of $75K doesn't cause much immediate pain to someone who doesn't have to start making payments for three years. The problem is that law students are forced to make decisions on speculation as much as homebuyers did in a volatile market a few years ago. That was always the case, but the risks are greater now.

In a perfect world, law school tuition would drop due to the economy and job prospects, and schools would make up for it by cutting costs until the economy recovers. But no school would do this because professors and students would flee, leading to a rankings drop. So schools have to artificially keep the market going by shifting costs elsewhere. For now, that means taking an even greater share from the future paychecks of students. Because students don't have to pay this money now, as they would in the case of any other kind of loan, it's easier to convince them to take on greater debt than it is to get money from the state, tap into a shrinking endowment, or cut professor salaries.

A class of idiots and rich kids, maybe. It might take time, but if job prospects don't improve, I can see a decreased demand for JDs. It's called laissez-faire economics.

Also, the employment statistics for Duke were leaked on autoadmit, and apparently slightly less than 50% of the 2Ls have a job for next summer. Duke's employment stats are pretty comparable with most of the T-14 too.

DAMN!

If I was a more traditional applicant, that would definitely affect my calculus.

That's a drop in the bucket compared to a $913M budget ask.

It's also good to pay market for administrators and professors if you want to maintain the system's excellence.

But it'd be good pr.

+1. Seriously. I bet no one here would want go to a school that couldn't attract top flight faculty and administrators. Then again, people can feel free to prove me wrong and go to the budget T1s....

I know...it's really bad. From what I have heard on the boards, through friends at these schools, etc. the situation is comparably dire at other T-14s.




40k is overly optimistic for a liberal arts major, not just ITE, but pre-recession as well. I went to a t-20 university and the career center's statistics reported, before the recession, that liberal arts majors on average made 20-30k. The average starting salary for a history major was in the early 20k. Engineers on the other hand made 70k+ starting while business/economics majors made on average 55k starting. The lack of demand for liberal arts majors really just shows how completely useless the degree is, but it should be expected since you don't learn anything useful. Maybe people will start responding to demand and major in real subjects, but I doubt it, not until it is too late anyway. I just hope the JD doesn't head in the same direction as the BA.

Two things..

1. My experience differs from 'economics = 55k starting' and 'engineering = 70k starting'. I have a BA in Econ, earned 40k at my first job. My g/f has BS in EE, is making just over 40k right now. Many people on TLS have had better experiences but I just wanted to point out that it is not a foregone conclusion that these degrees = big bucks.

2. Re: bolded part. Lib Arts ARE useless. But hoping for people to stop doing them is kind of the same as hoping for more people to get JDs. If you push them all the libarts lemmings into business/engineering/nursing, etc., then those jobs suddenly become less lucrative as well.

1) I was emphasizing the vast difference b/w econ/business/engineering majors and liberal arts majors, even at top 20 undergrads, and noting that someone with a liberal arts degree from a top 20 undergrad can't get a remotely decent paying job. I'm sure that there are comparable differences at lower-ranked institutions. I was not saying that "these" degrees are necessarily objectively "money-making" on their own, but that they are comparably far more lucrative. Also, it is probably harder for someone who went to a worse undergrad to start out at making 55k with an economics/business degree. On average people at my school placed into firms like Lehman Brothers (lol), Deloitte, Ernst Young, and Pricewaterhouse because they recruited a lot of students there.

2) There is an excess demand for science majors right now, i.e. nursing, engineering, etc. (Business is obviously on a downturn like law at the moment.) We have enough excess supply of liberal arts majors relative to demand and excess demand for science majors relative to supply to allow for a shift to the latter fields without decreasing market salary all that much, at least until we hit what is pareto optimal.

It can also be contended that the fact that there is a HUGE excess supply of JDs relative to demand, that it is definitely more optimal for the rational individual--while providing for a more socially optimal outcome--to pursue a science degree than to pursue a JD. Also, liberal arts majors tend to work jobs that require no particular skill sets, jobs that any other major can properly perform, and perhaps more productively. You are right that if the supply of science majors increases, market salaries will decrease; but at the same time perhaps you can get a pareto superior outcome if people start pursuing science while knowing that there will stratifications among those w/ different skill sets. For example, the best scientists will get the best jobs, while those with lower skill sets will end up with jobs previously allocated for liberal arts majors. While the average salary for scientists will be lower because some will have to look outside of the field, perhaps their increased productivity at jobs previously allocated for liberal arts majors will make them better off salary-wise because of an actual shift in the PPC than if they started off as liberal arts majors in the first place. This is just supposition though, but I do think that it is probably better for the rational individual and society to have an excess supply of science majors relative to the number of science jobs available rather than having an excess supply of liberal arts majors. This is because the other jobs that liberal arts majors take do not, in general, require any particular skill set, and I think that the training real majors provide can make you more effective in any job you undertake.

One of my family friends graduated with an engineering degree from UMich and has been unemployed for over a year now. I don't think it's easy for anyone out of undergrad right now.

Comparably much easier for an engineer though. At least this person has a skill set. I don't know what is wrong with your family friend, considering that's a top 10 engineering program, but I'm willing to bet that person is still better off than practically all liberal arts majors.

Something is amiss. Really crappy grades, inflexible on relocation, or bad interviewing skills. There's work for engineers out in SoCal even though every other sector is in the pooper. I have to imagine that there are more than a few other places in America that are also hiring engineers.

Its pretty stupid to get a well rounded education in college with a liberal arts degree. Who wants people who actually know how to think? Id much rather have people trained to do a skill that will be shipped abroad in the next few years.

Yes, trained to do a skill as opposed to "thinking", is that what liberal arts majors do? I wasn't aware. I thought they just had a summer reading list x10 and learned inanely obvious things to excruciating detail, coulda fooled me.

In all seriousness, a big reason those skills are shipped abroad is because other countries are better at math than we are. It won't take them long to catch up in social theory, what are you gonna do then, think at them to balance your trade deficit? American engineers still have a lot of clout because they are better innovators. I really insist that a big problem in this country is that not enough people know math and science, and approaching some things from a purely philosophical standpoint not only leads to wild inaccuracies, it's counterproductive.

My buddy has his Poli sci degree... he's very inflexible on location. Refuses to move to any of the larger metropolitan cities, yet he's considering moving north to work in a diamond mine...

I am finishing up my commerce degree, have a job at Deloitte (woohoo)

I'm worried about my gf, she is majoring in Sociology and doesn't really have much of a grasp on what she wants. The good thing is that she has 0 debt since she worked full time as a housekeeper during her UG.

That's a comically dumb statement. That and the part about liberal arts degrees and thinking.

An excess demand for engineers? Really? Not in Silicon Valley there isn't

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 170O6S.DTL

That link is from April and I am certain the job market has not improved.

There is an excess demand for physicians, but they have a limited pool limited so that's moot. There's an excess demand for nurses, but they don't have the funding to hire more, so that's moot. Engineers aren't really in super high demand, except in software and maybe petroleum. BME was supposed to be the hot new field, but it's gone a bit cold, and many BME majors are turning to Med school. Chemists are getting cut back a little bit. Many sciences have little practical application, just like social sciences (ie. bio major is useless, physics needs a PhD, math is useless).

I hate that this is the best I could find, but I don't feel like more than a cursory google search today (link). Defense-related industries in SoCal are booming. Even established companies like Qualcomm are doing fine. Startups got killed, though (this might explain the "mood" in the Bay Area since its a more sensitive to startups).

Economic growth in America, in the long run, is going to depend on our ability to generate new ideas and technology. If anyone thinks science and engineering are bad or shrinking career avenues, buy canned goods. NOW. Also, people exaggerate the impact of outsourcing. At the margins, some jobs are going to be lost to emerging economies in Indian and China. Its how shit works. Stuff is invented here. Other countries catch up. Different stuff is invented here. Other countries catch up. Its a boring re-run.

EDIT: I'm still having a hard time buying the idea that the demand for engineers in Silicon Valley is low. A lot of the people I know graduating from UC San Diego are moving to the Bay Area for work. Maybe EEs are just having a good run.