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[sinfiery]

If they have that data, that would be a fairly legit basis to apply the change. Good point.


Yeah, when considering the cost of attendance, your personal wealth will become a much bigger factor. It isn't perfect but it would depend on how the market can analyze the financial merit of an investment as unorthodox as a legal education.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

I'm not arguing that removing loan subsidies would be a perfect solution, especially if schools waived need-blind admissions (which I would suggest the ABA prohibit). Nonetheless, there's no perfect way to do this, and there's still a massive problem of non-wealthy attendees going to schools who really don't have any incentive to keep costs down. How do you suggest a remedy to this problem in a way that doesn't restrict access on the margins?

[sinfiery]

The ABA should force schools to produce a conservative form dictating how their grads can pay off law school debt using historical salaries as the basis for said form and when Cooley has an average repayment period of 145 years, maybe the TTTs will close.

[beepboopbeep]

I'm not arguing that removing loan subsidies would be a perfect solution, especially if schools waived need-blind admissions (which I would suggest the ABA prohibit). Nonetheless, there's no perfect way to do this, and there's still a massive problem of non-wealthy attendees going to schools who really don't have any incentive to keep costs down. How do you suggest a remedy to this problem in a way that doesn't restrict access on the margins?

I agree there's no perfect solution - but as someone with a low-income background, I feel the need to serve token reminders about why this system exists in the first place.

I just think it's utopian to think lenders will differentiate interest rates based on the quality of your school. There's no precedent to think that: when you buy a house, they don't care if your industry is volatile, or whether your company fires people on the reg. They care about your assets, income, and credit, and the value of the house. Since no one is proposing lenders go around seizing diplomas from their delinquent debtors, it's back to the former.

The demand for law schools is itself artificial. The bar requires a certain amount of time spent studying at certain institutions. In other fields, especially computer science, there's a lot of innovation in education, stuff like MOOCs and App Academy/Dev Bootcamp/etc. So if you want to talk market solutions to the law school cost bubble, the first thing we have to talk about is the government-granted monopoly on who can be a lawyer and who can't.

[Big Dog]

B. Everyone is in agreement that loans should be available for those with a decent chance of actually paying them back.

Not me. There is no 'should' because that requires federal intervention. If we have fewer students matriculating to law (and grad) schools, so be it.

The bar requires a certain amount of time spent studying at certain institutions.

Not in California.

So if you want to talk market solutions to the law school cost bubble, the first thing we have to talk about is the government-granted monopoly on who can be a lawyer and who can't.

Those are state restrictions. So, following your line of thinking, the states -- not the feds -- should pony up the loans....or just drop tuition at the instate publics.

[sinfiery]

B. Everyone is in agreement that loans should be available for those with a decent chance of actually paying them back.

Not me. There is no 'should' because that requires federal intervention. If we have fewer students matriculating to law (and grad) schools, so be it.

The bar requires a certain amount of time spent studying at certain institutions.

Not in California.

So if you want to talk market solutions to the law school cost bubble, the first thing we have to talk about is the government-granted monopoly on who can be a lawyer and who can't.

Those are state restrictions. So, following your line of thinking, the states -- not the feds -- should pony up the loans....or just drop tuition at the instate publics.

How do you feel about a 99% estate tax?

[beepboopbeep]

The bar requires a certain amount of time spent studying at certain institutions.

Not in California.

So if you want to talk market solutions to the law school cost bubble, the first thing we have to talk about is the government-granted monopoly on who can be a lawyer and who can't.

Those are state restrictions. So, following your line of thinking, the states -- not the feds -- should pony up the loans....or just drop tuition at the instate publics.

Yep, true about Cali. No - what? I'm not saying that because states require bar passage, they should pay for legal education. I'm saying they shouldn't require bar passage.

The main problem I'm getting at is that right now, you need a JD to do all kinds of stuff that you don't really need a JD for. If clients aren't willing to pay partner rates for doc review and other shitlaw stuff, why make associates and contract workers get JDs? If JDs are optional for legal practice, whatever truly requires legal expertise will get it.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

I just think it's utopian to think lenders will differentiate interest rates based on the quality of your school. There's no precedent to think that: when you buy a house, they don't care if your industry is volatile, or whether your company fires people on the reg. They care about your assets, income, and credit, and the value of the house. Since no one is proposing lenders go around seizing diplomas from their delinquent debtors, it's back to the former.

I mean, the quality of your school becomes your income, when taken on average. A lender that didn't differentiate based on your school would go out of business fast compared to one that categorized you. Just like in mortgage rates, you'd get a different interest rate for going to a prime, Alt-A, or subprime school.

The demand for law schools is itself artificial. The bar requires a certain amount of time spent studying at certain institutions. In other fields, especially computer science, there's a lot of innovation in education, stuff like MOOCs and App Academy/Dev Bootcamp/etc. So if you want to talk market solutions to the law school cost bubble, the first thing we have to talk about is the government-granted monopoly on who can be a lawyer and who can't.

I agree that there shouldn't be a monopoly on who can be a lawyer--it doesn't make sense to me, especially for those who can't afford to take on a whole bunch of debt given a practice area. If you needed to have an MBA to open a business, the American economy would dry up pretty quickly.

B. Everyone is in agreement that loans should be available for those with a decent chance of actually paying them back.

Not me. There is no 'should' because that requires federal intervention. If we have fewer students matriculating to law (and grad) schools, so be it.

I didn't say the loans would be federal. Private loans would do just fine. I'm for taking the federal government out of the process completely.

[Big Dog]

didn't say the loans would be federal. Private loans would do just fine. I'm for taking the federal government out of the process completely.

Then your point is inconsistent. You can't on one hand say, loans should be available, but then take the government out of the (enforcement) process. (Otherwise, who will ensure that loans are, in fact, available?)

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

didn't say the loans would be federal. Private loans would do just fine. I'm for taking the federal government out of the process completely.

Then your point is inconsistent. You can't on one hand say, loans should be available, but then take the government out of the (enforcement) process. (Otherwise, who will ensure that loans are, in fact, available?)

A normative statement by itself can't be inconsistent. It is perfectly consistent to hold the government should be out of the process but private lenders should nonetheless loan to matriculants of good schools.

[20141023]

.

[beepboopbeep]

The main problem I'm getting at is that right now, you need a JD to do all kinds of stuff that you don't really need a JD for. If clients aren't willing to pay partner rates for doc review and other shitlaw stuff, why make associates and contract workers get JDs? If JDs are optional for legal practice, whatever truly requires legal expertise will get it.

Yeah, but I think that this is universally true right now about education in general. For example, in order to become a full-time employee where I work, you have to have received at least a bachelor's degree in some sort of engineering field (preferably mechanical engineering). However, about 80% of the shit that people at my office do is done in Microsoft Excel, and the other 20% is just them delegating the actual engineering to someone else by outsourcing the work to contractors (who usually haven't gone to 4-year colleges). Almost all of my coworkers hate their jobs because they feel like they didn't need to spend 4 years taking courses like thermodynamics and calc 4 in order to do dumb shit that they could have done straight out of high school. However, the company won't hire people straight out of high school, so you have a bunch of over-educated people doing shitwork under a bunch of incompetent shitboomers.

The current college degree has almost become the high school diploma of thirty years ago, and graduate degrees are now starting to become the equivalent of college degrees from that era. People who receive an education look down on anyone who hasn't received equal or higher levels of education, and thus we end up in this downward spiral of unnecessary degree-earning. I wonder what the word for us will be by the time we're the age of the current shitboomers...

I was thinking about this on my way home from work after typing that last post. I fully agree; my job, along with the majority of those at my workplace, are exactly like this. And I think were the ABA to suddenly not exist tomorrow--along with the legal requirements for bar passage, etc--the situation would mimic what's happening with college degrees. Clearly it's not a solution by itself.

But it would be an improvement on the current situation. Government-sponsored monopoly means law school will never face outside competition like what's happening in undergrad education.

There's a sense on this thread and the similar ones before it that it's legally or politically untenable to go to a med school-esque lottery model of admissions, and I think that's correct. Med schools can get away with collusion because there's public benefit in enforcing a minimum competency for doctors. What's the public benefit in having state-required bar exams? There's a benefit to those who pass the bar: a monopoly on practicing law. And a benefit to law schools: they can charge ridiculous tuition. But what's the public benefit?

Bar passage ensures that those who need public defenders and such have qualified professional representation. Further, knowing that your attorney has been certified by the state builds faith in the legal profession. But I think this signalling effect is not worth its current cost of three years and a mountain of debt. Were bar passage not required, JDs would still carry a huge advantage in the marketplace.

Would law firms take a chance on a consultancy-type model, wherein associates are hired straight from undergrad and trained on the company dime? I wouldn't be surprised - it's a common refrain that law school does very little to actually train lawyers in the day-to-day work that firms do. If this happens, schools would have to innovate or die.

[Big Dog]

hold the government should be out of the process but private lenders should nonetheless loan to matriculants of good schools.

And how do you propose that we hold the private lenders accountable to do as you suggest? Seriously?

Med schools can get away with collusion because there's public benefit in enforcing a minimum competency for doctors.

Not really the reason why there are few med school seats.

1) The feds cap the number of residents for which they will pay. (Number hasn't changed in ~20 years.) And 2) unlike LS which is a cash cow for a university (and thus encourages more to open), med schools are extremely expensive to build and operate.