law school costs too much Forum

[Stringer Bell]

Something is worth as much as the market is willing to pay for it.

Technically, he's right. Supply and demand. But the market functions imperfectly due to govt. loans and lack of real info.

Word

[GATORTIM]

the "market" functions imperfectly because the market is an abstract construct and we live in the real world

The Matrix has you.

[ArchRoark]

Something is worth as much as the market is willing to pay for it.

Come on... you are smart enough and well-versed enough in the legal market to know that this is BLATANTLY untrue.

Technically, he's right. Supply and demand. But the market functions imperfectly due to govt. loans and lack of real info.

This.

[GATORTIM]

Something is worth as much as the market is willing to pay for it.

Come on... you are smart enough and well-versed enough in the legal market to know that this is BLATANTLY untrue.

Technically, he's right. Supply and demand. But the market functions imperfectly due to govt. loans and lack of real info.

This.

In conjunction with this...

[shanemahsa]

In conjunction with this...

Blatant republican trolling.

[JazzOne]

I'm not much of an auditory listener.

I feel ya...I'm much more of a urinary listener

lol

Auditory listener. Good one, OP.

[MTU]

It's spelled "gypped".

And periods go inside quotations...

[Grizz]

It's spelled "gypped".

And periods go inside quotations...

QFshitnoonecaresabout

[jdubb990]

How many years do you have to put in with the government for it to wipe away your loans? 7, 10, I can't seem to remember?

[Doritos]

A legal education is priceless my friend....priceless

[romothesavior]

How many years do you have to put in with the government for it to wipe away your loans? 7, 10, I can't seem to remember?

10 for public interest, 25 for private practice.

[TigerBeer]

obviously the market is going to function imperfectly when you go around making ridiculous assumptions like "people act rationally."

[GMVarun]

ridiculous assumptions like "people act rationally."

It's pretty clear that you are not sure what economists mean by this (hint it's not the same as the definition used outside of economics) or the reasons for making this assumption. If you want to criticize this assumption, please do so, but do so in a way that indicates you have some idea of what's going on.

[Renzo]

ridiculous assumptions like "people act rationally."

It's pretty clear that you are not sure what economists mean by this (hint it's not the same as the definition used outside of economics) or the reasons for making this assumption. If you want to criticize this assumption, please do so, but do so in a way that indicates you have some idea of what's going on.

Please, enlighten us. What's the special technical definition of a rational behavior, and how does it differ from the common understanding.

[GMVarun]

There are three - four basic assumptions. 1. completeness - all choices can be ranked in order of preference. 2. transitivity of preferences 3. individuals prefer more of some good e.g. the bundle of (x+1, y) will be preferred over (x,y) and 4. people have convex utility curves which implies that people prefer having mixtures of bundles (rather than having a 100 apples and 0 oranges, or a 100 oranges and 0 apples, people prefer to have 50 apples and 50 oranges .. or some combination). The combination of these assumptions is what economists mean when we assume that people are acting "rationally."

Sure, we can argue over each one of these assumptions or all of them together, but there's a difference between this and what lay people mean when talking about rationality. I just hate it when people critique rational choice economics because people aren't "rational" but when we aren't really talking about the same thing.

Anyways, carry on.

[Borhas]

There are three - four basic assumptions. 1. completeness - all choices can be ranked in order of preference. 2. transitivity of preferences 3. individuals prefer more of some good e.g. the bundle of (x+1, y) will be preferred over (x,y) and 4. people have convex utility curves which implies that people prefer having mixtures of bundles (rather than having a 100 apples and 0 oranges, or a 100 oranges and 0 apples, people prefer to have 50 apples and 50 oranges .. or some combination). The combination of these assumptions is what economists mean when we assume that people are acting "rationally."

Sure, we can argue over each one of these assumptions or all of them together, but there's a difference between this and what lay people mean when talking about rationality. I just hate it when people critique rational choice economics because people aren't "rational" but when we aren't really talking about the same thing.

Anyways, carry on.

man, economists are dumb

preferences determine what is rational, everyone has preferences therefore everyone is rational

economists take the word "rational" suck all of its meaning out, and then insert some intuitively obvious bullshit like "people choose what they prefer" wow...what insight!

btw some of those assumptions are assumptions of what is preferred not what rationality is...(#3, and #4) though I guess they added them to the term "rational" so that it wasn't completely empty.

[dailygrind]

There are three - four basic assumptions. 1. completeness - all choices can be ranked in order of preference. 2. transitivity of preferences 3. individuals prefer more of some good e.g. the bundle of (x+1, y) will be preferred over (x,y) and 4. people have convex utility curves which implies that people prefer having mixtures of bundles (rather than having a 100 apples and 0 oranges, or a 100 oranges and 0 apples, people prefer to have 50 apples and 50 oranges .. or some combination). The combination of these assumptions is what economists mean when we assume that people are acting "rationally."

Sure, we can argue over each one of these assumptions or all of them together, but there's a difference between this and what lay people mean when talking about rationality. I just hate it when people critique rational choice economics because people aren't "rational" but when we aren't really talking about the same thing.

Anyways, carry on.

untrue. the first two are the only assumptions required for rationality. besides which, what lay people mean when they say rational is pretttty damn similar to what economists mean when they say rational.

[dailygrind]

In some ways you're paying for the degree more than the education. This is why rankings matter; you're likely to get a higher return on investment by paying nearly the same tuition for a degree from a more prestigious institution.

this is pretty much how i see it too. i'm sure i'm learning a bit more at uva than i would at say, rutgers, but rutgers probably would've given me a real hefty scholarship. the difference in learning is probably not significant enough for me to blow away 100k-200k on. what is significant is the name and the placement opportunities that come along with it.

[PunjabiLower]

guys relax...I'm not talking about paying for the degree....I'm talking paying to learn and to expand my understanding of the law. I'm saying 100 dollars per lecture is not worth what I'm learning...also considering that the professors send out their powerpoint slides and lecture right out of the textbook. And I've talked to many other people at T1 and T14 schools...nothing is different.

[kalvano]

$100/lecture equals about $100/hour, which, for access to the professors, is far less than what they would typically bill a client.

[GMVarun]

untrue. the first two are the only assumptions required for rationality. besides which, what lay people mean when they say rational is pretttty damn similar to what economists mean when they say rational.

btw some of those assumptions are assumptions of what is preferred not what rationality is...(#3, and #4) though I guess they added them to the term "rational" so that it wasn't completely empty.

My whole point is that for economists a serial killer can be rational. If the serial killer's objective is to kill person x, has only available modes of behavior X,Y, Z, and X costs the least of the three, and if the serial killer choose mode X, killing someone, the serial killer is "rational" according to economic choice theory. Very few people would think that a serial killer can be rational.

By similar cost/benefit analysis, some economists conclude that it may be rational for individuals to eat more/exercise less than before (for arguments sake say in the 1200s) because the costs of doing so (i.e. the health costs) have gone drastically down. Again, most people think that it's irrational to not exercise, or overeat, etc.

Rationality refers to achieving your objective in the most efficient manner. Economists generally care more about the direction of the behavior rather than the magnitude (though there are obviously cases where we care about the magnitude and we might try to measure the magnitude in cases where we might not care about it so much). Say we increase the price of good x, assuming "rational behavior", we economists think that the consumption of good x will go down. How much is an empirical question - which we can try to answer, but the models will tell us the direction (that consumption will go down.. not up). Iono, I think it's a useful way of analyzing behavior .. and, on the margins, is accurate.

[Stringer Bell]

$100/lecture equals about $100/hour, which, for access to the professors, is far less than what they would typically bill a client.

The entire section is the client. Not each individual student. Granted, they would be billing for time spent grading exams and preparing for lectures, but the billing rate a section pays for the professors time is likely to be substantially higher than the rate those professors would be billing clients at.

[kalvano]

$100/lecture equals about $100/hour, which, for access to the professors, is far less than what they would typically bill a client.

The entire section is the client. Not each individual student. Granted, they would be billing for time spent grading exams and preparing for lectures, but the billing rate a section pays for the professors time is likely to be substantially higher than the rate those professors would be billing clients at.

Wouldn't the professor be there to teach whether the class had 90 people or 5 people?

[dailygrind]

untrue. the first two are the only assumptions required for rationality. besides which, what lay people mean when they say rational is pretttty damn similar to what economists mean when they say rational.

btw some of those assumptions are assumptions of what is preferred not what rationality is...(#3, and #4) though I guess they added them to the term "rational" so that it wasn't completely empty.

My whole point is that for economists a serial killer can be rational. If the serial killer's objective is to kill person x, has only available modes of behavior X,Y, Z, and X costs the least of the three, and if the serial killer choose mode X, killing someone, the serial killer is "rational" according to economic choice theory. Very few people would think that a serial killer can be rational.

By similar cost/benefit analysis, some economists conclude that it may be rational for individuals to eat more/exercise less than before (for arguments sake say in the 1200s) because the costs of doing so (i.e. the health costs) have gone drastically down. Again, most people think that it's irrational to not exercise, or overeat, etc.

Rationality refers to achieving your objective in the most efficient manner. Economists generally care more about the direction of the behavior rather than the magnitude (though there are obviously cases where we care about the magnitude and we might try to measure the magnitude in cases where we might not care about it so much). Say we increase the price of good x, assuming "rational behavior", we economists think that the consumption of good x will go down. How much is an empirical question - which we can try to answer, but the models will tell us the direction (that consumption will go down.. not up). Iono, I think it's a useful way of analyzing behavior .. and, on the margins, is accurate.

the rationality of serial killers wouldn't be admitted by laymen because laymen just aren't cold enough to accept murdering people as a way to achieve utility. not because they don't understand what efficiency is. and most people might argue that it's irrational to not exercise, but if you showed them a cost/benefit analysis proving that it was the right choice not to do so, they could be persuaded of the rationality of the choice. it's not a matter of them not understanding rationality in the way econheads understand rationality, but a matter of them knowing/accepting the information/paradigm that makes the choice rational. eg, they usually don't know the math and facts behind the cost/benefit, and a lot of them don't accept the model - they typically ascribe more costs to being overweight and unhealthy than the model allows for.

on a sidenote, i'd like to speculate that most attacks on rationality as i've seen them aren't attacks on people acting rationally, which most people would, i think, accept. it's usually an attack on other assumptions like perfect information, perfect computing power, or an attack on the model.

[Renzo]

There are three - four basic assumptions. 1. completeness - all choices can be ranked in order of preference. 2. transitivity of preferences 3. individuals prefer more of some good e.g. the bundle of (x+1, y) will be preferred over (x,y) and 4. people have convex utility curves which implies that people prefer having mixtures of bundles (rather than having a 100 apples and 0 oranges, or a 100 oranges and 0 apples, people prefer to have 50 apples and 50 oranges .. or some combination). The combination of these assumptions is what economists mean when we assume that people are acting "rationally."

Sure, we can argue over each one of these assumptions or all of them together, but there's a difference between this and what lay people mean when talking about rationality. I just hate it when people critique rational choice economics because people aren't "rational" but when we aren't really talking about the same thing.

Edit: Borhas beat me.

Maybe there are people who think that "rational" means "sane." But they're not generally debating economics. Lay people understand what a "rational actor" is. 20 years of behavioral economics research has given everyone plenty of reason to doubt that "rational behavior" looks anything like reality, and that's exactly the critique that I perceived above.