Top Law Schools

beach_terror wrote:

luthersloan wrote:Well, if make less then 80 or 90k a year, some of your student loan interest is tax deductable. However, given the bi-modal salary distribution you are likely either making to much to qualify, or not enough to make a real dent in your loans even with a deduction.

Well fuck it, just exempt those who opt in for like 3-5 years and make them submit paperwork and make qualifying payments or they get kicked out of the program. I'm convinced there's a solution somewhere in giving people time to catch their breath before paying off the man.

While I am still in school so I do not know for certain, I think one can get a forbarance in payments if you are not making very much. But the interest is still running. Just to take an example from my own case, I am going to be raking up like 14K a year in compounding interest starting at graduation. (or as I like to think about it, my loan balance grows by 38 dollars a day). So, with the interest rates where they are a delay in payments, without a tolling of the interest, does not do much, at least for people with big loan balances.

luthersloan wrote:

A'nold wrote:

luthersloan wrote:If the federal government stop issuing/guaranteeing loans for law schools, and state governments enforced existing laws against false and misleading advertising this whole problem would likely sort itself out. Except for the people who have already been "had," there is not much to be done for them, aside from making loans dischargeable.

Wouldn't that alone basically take care of it in the long run?

No, just making the loans dischargeable, while still issuing them without regard to their actual chances of being repaid, would cause the government to take a massive bath on said loans. I doubt tax payers are really interested in blowing billions funding a lot of unprofitable legal education.

But wouldn't such a change to the BK Code force the gov. into coming up with a way to scrutinize certain schools and their respective loan failure rates for their students (awkward sentence, I know).

luthersloan wrote:

beach_terror wrote:

luthersloan wrote:Well, if make less then 80 or 90k a year, some of your student loan interest is tax deductable. However, given the bi-modal salary distribution you are likely either making to much to qualify, or not enough to make a real dent in your loans even with a deduction.

Well fuck it, just exempt those who opt in for like 3-5 years and make them submit paperwork and make qualifying payments or they get kicked out of the program. I'm convinced there's a solution somewhere in giving people time to catch their breath before paying off the man.

While I am still in school so I do not know for certain, I think one can get a forbarance in payments if you are not making very much. But the interest is still running. Just to take an example from my own case, I am going to be raking up like 14K a year in compounding interest starting at graduation. (or as I like to think about it, my loan balance grows by 38 dollars a day). So, with the interest rates where they are a delay in payments, without a tolling of the interest, does not do much, at least for people with big loan balances.

The point of my post isn't to delay payments. It's to free up as much cash as possible as quickly as possible to make a big dent in your student loan debt. By cutting down taxes, or removing them entirely, for a certain period of time frees up that money - and as long as you give the participant a minimum monthly payment based on that amount (the difference between the bracket you're put in for the program and what you would be if you were taxed normally), you're loan burden is substantially eased. I know I'm being simplistic, but the whole system is fucked anyway.

Well, if there was such a radical oversupply of dentists or doctors with huge loan balances and no jobs they might very well work for free as well. It is not unique to our profession, it is just that the ADA and AMA are better at controlling production of new professionals (which is really only good for their members and bad for everyone else).

areyouinsane wrote:I'm also not sold on the "experience" angle: if you were a hiring partner and interviewed a candidate who was apparently so desperate that they were/are working for free, what type of salary would you offer said person? Hell, a dollar a week would be a huge "raise" from what they're currently earning.

Lol, I love this. If they work for free, it's some prestigious "internship." If you pay 'em a dollar a week, they're denigrated slaves.

Gotta love psychology.

beach_terror wrote:

luthersloan wrote:

beach_terror wrote:

luthersloan wrote:Well, if make less then 80 or 90k a year, some of your student loan interest is tax deductable. However, given the bi-modal salary distribution you are likely either making to much to qualify, or not enough to make a real dent in your loans even with a deduction.

Well fuck it, just exempt those who opt in for like 3-5 years and make them submit paperwork and make qualifying payments or they get kicked out of the program. I'm convinced there's a solution somewhere in giving people time to catch their breath before paying off the man.

While I am still in school so I do not know for certain, I think one can get a forbarance in payments if you are not making very much. But the interest is still running. Just to take an example from my own case, I am going to be raking up like 14K a year in compounding interest starting at graduation. (or as I like to think about it, my loan balance grows by 38 dollars a day). So, with the interest rates where they are a delay in payments, without a tolling of the interest, does not do much, at least for people with big loan balances.

The point of my post isn't to delay payments. It's to free up as much cash as possible as quickly as possible to make a big dent in your student loan debt. By cutting down taxes, or removing them entirely, for a certain period of time frees up that money - and as long as you give the participant a minimum monthly payment based on that amount (the difference between the bracket you're put in for the program and what you would be if you were taxed normally), you're loan burden is substantially eased. I know I'm being simplistic, but the whole system is fucked anyway.

Well, they could also just lower the rates or pay off some of your balance. It is the tax payers fronting you the money either way, either in delayed taxes (which are just a form of loan) or lowered rates (which are just free money). Might as well just address the issue head on and lower the rates on the loans if loan burden is what you are after.

beach_terror wrote:This is a really stupid question, but this is a really stupid thread so I'm going to ask anyway. Why don't we get some sort of tax alleviation while we have outstanding student loan debt? Paying back our loans would be a lot easier if they just dumped us in a low tax bracket and required us to spend the difference between tax brackets on our student loan debt. I guess the government can't compel us to spend our money a certain way, but it'd be a hell of an opt-in program - assuming I'm not missing something huge.

Interest on student loans is deductible from adjusted gross income, even on top of the standard deduction. there is your tax alleviation. also tuition paid results in hope / lifetime learner credits, thogh that only helps if you were working immediatily before or after law school or had a good paying summer gig, since otherwise you wouldn't have enough income to justify using the credit. we nood a lot more than tax alleviation.

robotclubmember wrote:

beach_terror wrote:This is a really stupid question, but this is a really stupid thread so I'm going to ask anyway. Why don't we get some sort of tax alleviation while we have outstanding student loan debt? Paying back our loans would be a lot easier if they just dumped us in a low tax bracket and required us to spend the difference between tax brackets on our student loan debt. I guess the government can't compel us to spend our money a certain way, but it'd be a hell of an opt-in program - assuming I'm not missing something huge.

Interest on student loans is deductible from adjusted gross income, even on top of the standard deduction. there is your tax alleviation. also tuition paid results in hope / lifetime learner credits, thogh that only helps if you were working immediatily before or after law school or had a good paying summer gig, since otherwise you wouldn't have enough income to justify using the credit. we nood a lot more than tax alleviation.

Well, certainly both caps on it should be removed (that is both the phase out above a certain AGI and also the 2500 dollar cap) but I do not think the problem is that the effective rates are too high (something that could be lowered via tax treatment) but rather that the loans encourage over consumption. Giving them better tax treat would make the oversupply problem worse since it would lower the real long term cost of attending.

luthersloan wrote:Well, if there was such a radical oversupply of dentists or doctors with huge loan balances and no jobs they might very well work for free as well. It is not unique to our profession, it is just that the ADA and AMA are better at controlling production of new professionals (which is really only good for their members and bad for everyone else).

+1

It's a supply and demand concern. Why are there more law schools than med schools? Because shit places enjoy opening law schools because they cost next to nothing to maintain compared to med schools and they bring in just as much. Every goddamn hole in the wall, halfway community college is popping up with a TTTT law school and it's causing a huge overflow of new JDs. That's why we have a dearth of doctors yet this grotesque amount of lawyers. Simple school cost efficiency. With law schools, if you have a 2.0 GPA and a 145 LSAT, you can still find like 80 schools to accept you, yet if you're trying for med school and have a 3.0 and poor MCAT scores, even the shady Bahama med schools are hesitant about taking you in.

Making loans dischargeable is only going to lead to a terrible string of bankruptcies hurting everyone because every 24 year old Tom, Dick, and Harry would rather try and build credit back up than pay $200k. Also, making it more difficult for students to get financing for school automatically favors those from wealthier backgrounds even more than academia already does.

crossarmant wrote:

luthersloan wrote:Well, if there was such a radical oversupply of dentists or doctors with huge loan balances and no jobs they might very well work for free as well. It is not unique to our profession, it is just that the ADA and AMA are better at controlling production of new professionals (which is really only good for their members and bad for everyone else).

+1

It's a supply and demand concern. Why are there more law schools than med schools? Because shit places enjoy opening law schools because they cost next to nothing to maintain compared to med schools and they bring in just as much. Every goddamn hole in the wall, halfway community college is popping up with a TTTT law school and it's causing a huge overflow of new JDs. That's why we have a dearth of doctors yet this grotesque amount of lawyers. Simple school cost efficiency. With law schools, if you have a 2.0 GPA and a 145 LSAT, you can still find like 80 schools to accept you, yet if you're trying for med school and have a 3.0 and poor MCAT scores, even the shady Bahama med schools are hesitant about taking you in.

Making loans dischargeable is only going to lead to a terrible string of bankruptcies hurting everyone because every 24 year old Tom, Dick, and Harry would rather try and build credit back up than pay $200k. Also, making it more difficult for students to get financing for school automatically favors those from wealthier backgrounds even more than academia already does.

Exactly. I would not have been able to attend UG, let alone ls, without entirely relying on loans.

We have a dearth of doctors because the AMA has purposefully withheld residency spots from being approved by congress (not hard to do since it would cost congress money to approve them) so nobody can get licensed. We could have an extra 20,000 doctors a year if there were more residency spots. Heck, the only reason we don't care about the students not getting residencies is cuz they're all foreigners or US kids who went out of the country to get their medical education.

Now, the law schools are cash cows, and (ETA: the TTTs) need to be shut down, but comparing them to medical schools is silly.

Making loans dischargeable is only going to lead to a terrible string of bankruptcies hurting everyone because every 24 year old Tom, Dick, and Harry would rather try and build credit back up than pay $200k. Also, making it more difficult for students to get financing for school automatically favors those from wealthier backgrounds even more than academia already does.

How about make one forfeit their professional license in exchange for the discharge? I'd take that deal in a minute (as would many TTT grads). Or how about clawing back some of the discharged $$$ from the schools? That way, if a large portion of a schools grads defaulted, it would put the school out of business. Clawback is used all the time in other Ponzi scheme disasters, so why not law schools too?

A'nold wrote:

crossarmant wrote:

luthersloan wrote:Well, if there was such a radical oversupply of dentists or doctors with huge loan balances and no jobs they might very well work for free as well. It is not unique to our profession, it is just that the ADA and AMA are better at controlling production of new professionals (which is really only good for their members and bad for everyone else).

+1

It's a supply and demand concern. Why are there more law schools than med schools? Because shit places enjoy opening law schools because they cost next to nothing to maintain compared to med schools and they bring in just as much. Every goddamn hole in the wall, halfway community college is popping up with a TTTT law school and it's causing a huge overflow of new JDs. That's why we have a dearth of doctors yet this grotesque amount of lawyers. Simple school cost efficiency. With law schools, if you have a 2.0 GPA and a 145 LSAT, you can still find like 80 schools to accept you, yet if you're trying for med school and have a 3.0 and poor MCAT scores, even the shady Bahama med schools are hesitant about taking you in.

Making loans dischargeable is only going to lead to a terrible string of bankruptcies hurting everyone because every 24 year old Tom, Dick, and Harry would rather try and build credit back up than pay $200k. Also, making it more difficult for students to get financing for school automatically favors those from wealthier backgrounds even more than academia already does.

Exactly. I would not have been able to attend UG, let alone ls, without entirely relying on loans.

First off, I fail to see how bankruptcy would be worse then leaving them with 200K in loans, a person with that kind of debt, unless they have an income to match, is already going to be a terrible credit risk. I never said there should not be student loans, I too am attending law school on student loans, what I am saying is that it is insane to have the federal government guarantee student loans without regard to the students likely ability to repay. A bank or other entity would certainly lead someone with a 3.9 /175

firemed wrote:We have a dearth of doctors because the AMA has purposefully withheld residency spots from being approved by congress (not hard to do since it would cost congress money to approve them) so nobody can get licensed. We could have an extra 20,000 doctors a year if there were more residency spots. Heck, the only reason we don't care about the students not getting residencies is cuz they're all foreigners or US kids who went out of the country to get their medical education.

Now, the law schools are cash cows, and (ETA: the TTTs) need to be shut down, but comparing them to medical schools is silly.

I do not see how that is a silly comparision at all, as you said it is the AMA that is holding up residency slots, which was my point. I was not talking about medical schools v. law schools. It certainly is true law schools make money whereas medical schools tend to lose it like a stuck pig, but that does not mean that if the AMA did not have the power to block said residences there would not be doctors to fill them. Hell, if a lack of funding for medical schools is the problem universities can always fund them with the law school "tax," which they seem to spend on all sorts of other money losing programs.

areyouinsane wrote:

Making loans dischargeable is only going to lead to a terrible string of bankruptcies hurting everyone because every 24 year old Tom, Dick, and Harry would rather try and build credit back up than pay $200k. Also, making it more difficult for students to get financing for school automatically favors those from wealthier backgrounds even more than academia already does.

How about make one forfeit their professional license in exchange for the discharge? I'd take that deal in a minute (as would many TTT grads). Or how about clawing back some of the discharged $$$ from the schools? That way, if a large portion of a schools grads defaulted, it would put the school out of business. Clawback is used all the time in other Ponzi scheme disasters, so why not law schools too?

I'd support a clawback solution.

Do it.

dresden doll wrote:

areyouinsane wrote:

Making loans dischargeable is only going to lead to a terrible string of bankruptcies hurting everyone because every 24 year old Tom, Dick, and Harry would rather try and build credit back up than pay $200k. Also, making it more difficult for students to get financing for school automatically favors those from wealthier backgrounds even more than academia already does.

How about make one forfeit their professional license in exchange for the discharge? I'd take that deal in a minute (as would many TTT grads). Or how about clawing back some of the discharged $$$ from the schools? That way, if a large portion of a schools grads defaulted, it would put the school out of business. Clawback is used all the time in other Ponzi scheme disasters, so why not law schools too?

I'd support a clawback solution.

Heck yeah if you can show the school defrauded the student, they should certainly have to return as much of the money they stole as possible.

luthersloan wrote:

firemed wrote:We have a dearth of doctors because the AMA has purposefully withheld residency spots from being approved by congress (not hard to do since it would cost congress money to approve them) so nobody can get licensed. We could have an extra 20,000 doctors a year if there were more residency spots. Heck, the only reason we don't care about the students not getting residencies is cuz they're all foreigners or US kids who went out of the country to get their medical education.

Now, the law schools are cash cows, and (ETA: the TTTs) need to be shut down, but comparing them to medical schools is silly.

I do not see how that is a silly comparision at all, as you said it is the AMA that is holding up residency slots, which was my point. I was not talking about medical schools v. law schools. It certainly is true law schools make money whereas medical schools tend to lose it like a stuck pig, but that does not mean that if the AMA did not have the power to block said residences there would not be doctors to fill them. Hell, if a lack of funding for medical schools is the problem universities can always fund them with the law school "tax," which they seem to spend on all sorts of other money losing programs.

Um... wait, whut?

areyouinsane wrote:

Making loans dischargeable is only going to lead to a terrible string of bankruptcies hurting everyone because every 24 year old Tom, Dick, and Harry would rather try and build credit back up than pay $200k. Also, making it more difficult for students to get financing for school automatically favors those from wealthier backgrounds even more than academia already does.

How about make one forfeit their professional license in exchange for the discharge? I'd take that deal in a minute (as would many TTT grads). Or how about clawing back some of the discharged $$$ from the schools? That way, if a large portion of a schools grads defaulted, it would put the school out of business. Clawback is used all the time in other Ponzi scheme disasters, so why not law schools too?

That's better than the status quo, it's not like you'll be paying back your debts in Turkey... and it's not like you make enough here to make a dent. Either way, those loans aint getting paid back

It'd really be great if one of two things mentioned in this thread happened:

1) You do not get taxed if you have school loans, instead that extra money goes towards the repayment of the loan on top of the minimum due each month.

2) If a student defaults on a loan, the law school is required to pay back at least 50% of the remaining balance.

You can bet your ass that schools would shut down and others would severely restrict enrollment. However, as long as these schools have absolutely nothing to lose and all the money in the world to gain they will continue to accept students, lie to them, and send them out into the world with no jobs while they attempt to simply get by without killing themselves....all thanks to their wonderful and promising employment statistics.

Taxguy should be in this thread.

i think taxguy's spirit died in the 2011 application cycle. may his spirit be well up in that big softs-really-do-matter delusion in the sky.

rip taxguy, 2010 - 2011.

robotclubmember wrote:i think taxguy's spirit died in the 2011 application cycle. may his spirit be well up in that big softs-really-do-matter delusion in the sky.

rip taxguy, 2010 - 2011.

He actually started a new thread on here a couple days ago... But it got locked as a duplicate.

robotclubmember wrote:i think taxguy's spirit died in the 2011 application cycle. may his spirit be well up in that big softs-really-do-matter delusion in the sky.

rip taxguy, 2010 - 2011.

Taxguy is redefining irony as he begins to rail against the very law school scam he couldn't convince his own son to avoid. lulz.

It's always amazing to me to see the salaries that the government arbitrarily decides to authorize for certain positions. I looked up my city's (a large city btw) job openings earlier today just to see what was available and saw a position for a police officer listed at about $60K and a position for a physician listed at $90K. It's just odd to me that these lawyers who are going to be given quite a bit of responsibility will be paid less than parking attendants for federal buildings.

Maybe we should reduce governmental pensions rather than start forcing new governmental workers to work for free. Just a thought.