Whittier Shutting Down Forum

[Npret]

Let me ask you this, then, how does attacking those who fell for this "trap" do anything?

It makes 0Ls (and maybe current students) feel like they are fine mortgaging their future for law school because they read LST (and maybe googled.) They get to feel superior instead of wondering if maybe they are being scammed as well.

Edit: also a handful of 0Ls (who haven't even taken an exam) will feel great because they calculated their hand to mouth existence on a strict budget so they can repay their loans from their expected biglaw job. Or maybe with their presumed clerkship bonus.

I am certain most 0Ls have no clue how much they will owe or what career they will have.

[Redfactor]

Couple of things:

I don't see the point of debating the relative responsibility of the various parties in this scenario. The problem is fundamentally structural: if the government lends people $230,000 no questions asked to attend law schools with something close to de facto open admission policies, then those schools are going to be filled with people who shouldn't be going to law school, who will never be lawyers, and who will never pay back the money they owe.

Those schools will keep operating until one of two things happen: the government turns off the loan spigot (this is what's happening to the Infilaw racket, because the government actually has some minimal standards it applies to explicitly for-profit educational outfits), or the central administrators at an otherwise respectable institution get too embarrassed by their law school to keep it open. That's what happened with Whittier, which is actually a pretty decent LAC.

One thing that's been mentioned by many people in this thread really needs to be emphasized: the extent to which people all across the political spectrum in the USA treat higher education as some sort of magic bullet. The idea that we need a lot more college graduates is absurd, as is the idea that the problem is that too many people are majoring in "useless" majors instead of STEM. There's no shortage of STEM graduates, and there's essentially no structural unemployment in the STEM fields.

The big problem of the 21st century (along with the planet getting a bit toasty) is going to be the problem of surplus labor. The law school/higher ed mess in America is just one very early symptom of that. Millennials are screwed because there aren't enough good jobs for them and there are never going to be, full stop. Things will be even worse in this regard for their kids. "Google it" is a useful piece of advice on the individual level, but a worse than useless response in terms of collective political action.

I've been around these parts for a long time. I started lurking right when the "scamblog" movement was just kicking up (back when TLS was considered a pro-law school, head in the sand forum) and before all the NYT and Wapo articles. Every time the issue of big debt and no jobs was raised there were always people who made sure to remind everyone about how lazy and greedy the people who who were complaining had probably been, how if they'd just done a little more digging and asked a few more obvious questions they could have found the information they needed to avoid making a bad decision, how they shouldn't blame schools and deans and professors for operating in a flawed system because it was their right to make money, and how the solution to the law school problem was for these ungrateful millennials to just get some sweet hot PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY111!!1!!!

Thankfully, the "whiners" persisted. And only once there was a saturation of articles in major media outlets did you start seeing a severe decrease in applications; about the time when anyone who googled "law school admissions" would get the first 10 results being articles in major publications about high debt and crappy job prospects. Even after that there were still a lot of people who ignored this information or who just didn't think to even ask the questions that would help them understand the impact of the decisions they were making. (Even now, the majority of LSAT takers do not retake even once, despite the obvious benefits and no drawbacks in doing so.) That's just the way people are and the way people always will be.

Ultimately, where you come down in the debate is whether you believe the current system is a good one or not. I do not, and I strongly believe that there is a better system out there, one that delivers a modern legal education for a fraction of the current price. I also believe that if enough people also believe that the system we have now is not good, we can fix it even in the face of opposition by powerful stakeholders (ABA, government, law school deans and professors) with a lot of money at stake. If you agree on those things, the rest of the discussion is just about implementation.

A bit of revisionist history here in terms of TLS.

This site, even back then, actively warned people about schools. The meta thought back then was that T-14 was okay and t-14 at sticker was more acceptable, but "trap schools" were widely criticized for employment possibilities, especially at sticker (think USC/GW).

This site, through its posters, actually did a decent job of illustrating the difference between T-14 and poser schools who published the same employment statistic as T-14 (median private sector salary being market rate - the statistic in those days). I will, however, say that the school profiles did an inadequate job and rarely, if ever, cast a profiled school in a negative light. (But then again, only 30 or so schools had profiles -- and that took a while to get to.)

[Desert Fox]

There was a time on tls when people thought that you had a 50/50 shot at biglaw from tulane.

[Npret]

There was a time on tls when people thought that you had a 50/50 shot at biglaw from tulane.

Also models and bottles was a thing.

[Desert Fox]

There was a time on tls when people thought that you had a 50/50 shot at biglaw from tulane.

Also models and bottles was a thing.

People care about which T14 they went to, not because they wanted to get biglaw, but because they thought the lower T14 had TTT placement at the V5. Going to Cadwalader was considered a worst case scenario for t14 grads.

[Npret]

FYI: here is the faculty's filing for a TRO which describes how the college profited from the law school.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/files/whittier-tro.pdf

Something I didn't realize is that the college sold the law school property for a profit of $12 million which in my view has to be the real reason they closed the school.

[star fox]

Pretty decent LAC my ass, their SAT/GPA admissions data looks pedestrian as fuck.

[timbs4339]

Couple of things:

I don't see the point of debating the relative responsibility of the various parties in this scenario. The problem is fundamentally structural: if the government lends people $230,000 no questions asked to attend law schools with something close to de facto open admission policies, then those schools are going to be filled with people who shouldn't be going to law school, who will never be lawyers, and who will never pay back the money they owe.

Those schools will keep operating until one of two things happen: the government turns off the loan spigot (this is what's happening to the Infilaw racket, because the government actually has some minimal standards it applies to explicitly for-profit educational outfits), or the central administrators at an otherwise respectable institution get too embarrassed by their law school to keep it open. That's what happened with Whittier, which is actually a pretty decent LAC.

One thing that's been mentioned by many people in this thread really needs to be emphasized: the extent to which people all across the political spectrum in the USA treat higher education as some sort of magic bullet. The idea that we need a lot more college graduates is absurd, as is the idea that the problem is that too many people are majoring in "useless" majors instead of STEM. There's no shortage of STEM graduates, and there's essentially no structural unemployment in the STEM fields.

The big problem of the 21st century (along with the planet getting a bit toasty) is going to be the problem of surplus labor. The law school/higher ed mess in America is just one very early symptom of that. Millennials are screwed because there aren't enough good jobs for them and there are never going to be, full stop. Things will be even worse in this regard for their kids. "Google it" is a useful piece of advice on the individual level, but a worse than useless response in terms of collective political action.

I've been around these parts for a long time. I started lurking right when the "scamblog" movement was just kicking up (back when TLS was considered a pro-law school, head in the sand forum) and before all the NYT and Wapo articles. Every time the issue of big debt and no jobs was raised there were always people who made sure to remind everyone about how lazy and greedy the people who who were complaining had probably been, how if they'd just done a little more digging and asked a few more obvious questions they could have found the information they needed to avoid making a bad decision, how they shouldn't blame schools and deans and professors for operating in a flawed system because it was their right to make money, and how the solution to the law school problem was for these ungrateful millennials to just get some sweet hot PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY111!!1!!!

Thankfully, the "whiners" persisted. And only once there was a saturation of articles in major media outlets did you start seeing a severe decrease in applications; about the time when anyone who googled "law school admissions" would get the first 10 results being articles in major publications about high debt and crappy job prospects. Even after that there were still a lot of people who ignored this information or who just didn't think to even ask the questions that would help them understand the impact of the decisions they were making. (Even now, the majority of LSAT takers do not retake even once, despite the obvious benefits and no drawbacks in doing so.) That's just the way people are and the way people always will be.

Ultimately, where you come down in the debate is whether you believe the current system is a good one or not. I do not, and I strongly believe that there is a better system out there, one that delivers a modern legal education for a fraction of the current price. I also believe that if enough people also believe that the system we have now is not good, we can fix it even in the face of opposition by powerful stakeholders (ABA, government, law school deans and professors) with a lot of money at stake. If you agree on those things, the rest of the discussion is just about implementation.

I agree, but I don't think the positions w/r/t your last point are mutually exclusive. I think the system is flawed and it's set up to prey upon the reckless and willfully ignorant. This is a system that requires two parties to be at fault - one for not doing their due diligence, and the other for exploiting that.

Once you've identified that someone could have done due diligence, then you have to unpack why they didn't do it. Did they not have access to the information or the time and resources to access it (unlikely but possible). Did they not think to ask the questions that would get the information in front of them so they could analyze it? (Very likely, in my experience). Did they have all the information they needed, but disregarded it or gave it low weight? (Also very likely given the contradictory information out there and people's preconceived biases). Then the next issue is how you compensate for these things.

These are all important questions to ask, but it is not simply about apportioning relative fault, but about figuring out what happened so you can identify potential solutions.

[timbs4339]

Couple of things:

I don't see the point of debating the relative responsibility of the various parties in this scenario. The problem is fundamentally structural: if the government lends people $230,000 no questions asked to attend law schools with something close to de facto open admission policies, then those schools are going to be filled with people who shouldn't be going to law school, who will never be lawyers, and who will never pay back the money they owe.

Those schools will keep operating until one of two things happen: the government turns off the loan spigot (this is what's happening to the Infilaw racket, because the government actually has some minimal standards it applies to explicitly for-profit educational outfits), or the central administrators at an otherwise respectable institution get too embarrassed by their law school to keep it open. That's what happened with Whittier, which is actually a pretty decent LAC.

One thing that's been mentioned by many people in this thread really needs to be emphasized: the extent to which people all across the political spectrum in the USA treat higher education as some sort of magic bullet. The idea that we need a lot more college graduates is absurd, as is the idea that the problem is that too many people are majoring in "useless" majors instead of STEM. There's no shortage of STEM graduates, and there's essentially no structural unemployment in the STEM fields.

The big problem of the 21st century (along with the planet getting a bit toasty) is going to be the problem of surplus labor. The law school/higher ed mess in America is just one very early symptom of that. Millennials are screwed because there aren't enough good jobs for them and there are never going to be, full stop. Things will be even worse in this regard for their kids. "Google it" is a useful piece of advice on the individual level, but a worse than useless response in terms of collective political action.

I've been around these parts for a long time. I started lurking right when the "scamblog" movement was just kicking up (back when TLS was considered a pro-law school, head in the sand forum) and before all the NYT and Wapo articles. Every time the issue of big debt and no jobs was raised there were always people who made sure to remind everyone about how lazy and greedy the people who who were complaining had probably been, how if they'd just done a little more digging and asked a few more obvious questions they could have found the information they needed to avoid making a bad decision, how they shouldn't blame schools and deans and professors for operating in a flawed system because it was their right to make money, and how the solution to the law school problem was for these ungrateful millennials to just get some sweet hot PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY111!!1!!!

Thankfully, the "whiners" persisted. And only once there was a saturation of articles in major media outlets did you start seeing a severe decrease in applications; about the time when anyone who googled "law school admissions" would get the first 10 results being articles in major publications about high debt and crappy job prospects. Even after that there were still a lot of people who ignored this information or who just didn't think to even ask the questions that would help them understand the impact of the decisions they were making. (Even now, the majority of LSAT takers do not retake even once, despite the obvious benefits and no drawbacks in doing so.) That's just the way people are and the way people always will be.

Ultimately, where you come down in the debate is whether you believe the current system is a good one or not. I do not, and I strongly believe that there is a better system out there, one that delivers a modern legal education for a fraction of the current price. I also believe that if enough people also believe that the system we have now is not good, we can fix it even in the face of opposition by powerful stakeholders (ABA, government, law school deans and professors) with a lot of money at stake. If you agree on those things, the rest of the discussion is just about implementation.

A bit of revisionist history here in terms of TLS.

This site, even back then, actively warned people about schools. The meta thought back then was that T-14 was okay and t-14 at sticker was more acceptable, but "trap schools" were widely criticized for employment possibilities, especially at sticker (think USC/GW).

This site, through its posters, actually did a decent job of illustrating the difference between T-14 and poser schools who published the same employment statistic as T-14 (median private sector salary being market rate - the statistic in those days). I will, however, say that the school profiles did an inadequate job and rarely, if ever, cast a profiled school in a negative light. (But then again, only 30 or so schools had profiles -- and that took a while to get to.)

Certainly not back in 2008/2009. The idea of a trap school was something ID'd by Prof. Campos back in 2012. Before then, the general consensus was still that "T-1" schools were okay, even if everyone knew the Cooleys and NELS's of the world were terrible decisions. People on this site did not start challenging the decision to attend, say, GW or BU/BC at sticker until later. (There were other sites, like JDU, that were talking about this concept much earlier.)

[timbs4339]

There was a time on tls when people thought that you had a 50/50 shot at biglaw from tulane.

Also models and bottles was a thing.

People care about which T14 they went to, not because they wanted to get biglaw, but because they thought the lower T14 had TTT placement at the V5. Going to Cadwalader was considered a worst case scenario for t14 grads.

Member autoadmit? I member.

[Monday]

.

[Desert Fox]

There was a time on tls when people thought that you had a 50/50 shot at biglaw from tulane.

Also models and bottles was a thing.

People care about which T14 they went to, not because they wanted to get biglaw, but because they thought the lower T14 had TTT placement at the V5. Going to Cadwalader was considered a worst case scenario for t14 grads.

Member autoadmit? I member.

The cream doesn't go to white and case.

[Npret]

FYI: here is the faculty's filing for a TRO which describes how the college profited from the law school.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/files/whittier-tro.pdf

Something I didn't realize is that the college sold the law school property for a profit of $12 million which in my view has to be the real reason they closed the school.

Hmm. What would be the next move for the faculty, especially the tenured professors in terms of damages? I wonder how easy it'd be to defend against the claim that the closure was for the property sale profit when Whittier is known to be such an unsuccessful law school.

They have no plan in place for current students to continue and they just made $12 million that could have been used for the law school. It looks like a money grab and an FU to the current students.

[Mr. Blackacre]

A bit of revisionist history here in terms of TLS.

This site, even back then, actively warned people about schools. The meta thought back then was that T-14 was okay and t-14 at sticker was more acceptable, but "trap schools" were widely criticized for employment possibilities, especially at sticker (think USC/GW).

This site, through its posters, actually did a decent job of illustrating the difference between T-14 and poser schools who published the same employment statistic as T-14 (median private sector salary being market rate - the statistic in those days). I will, however, say that the school profiles did an inadequate job and rarely, if ever, cast a profiled school in a negative light. (But then again, only 30 or so schools had profiles -- and that took a while to get to.)

Certainly not back in 2008/2009. The idea of a trap school was something ID'd by Prof. Campos back in 2012. Before then, the general consensus was still that "T-1" schools were okay, even if everyone knew the Cooleys and NELS's of the world were terrible decisions. People on this site did not start challenging the decision to attend, say, GW or BU/BC at sticker until later. (There were other sites, like JDU, that were talking about this concept much earlier.)

Yeah dude I have no idea where you've been but this site has a pretty bad reputation in the law school scam movement, precisely because people didn't seriously start challenging prospective students who wanted to go to trap schools until 2012ish and the whole scam movement became mainstream. Just go ask on JDU what they think about TLS. I remember when I first starting looking into LS in 2012, JDU was way, way more pessimistic about employment outcomes and LS in general than TLS was. Back then the only reason I settled for T14 or bust was advice on JDU, not TLS.

[Veil of Ignorance]

You guys are looking at this from a perspective that most people don't look at things. What's going on is people decide they want to be a lawyer - it'll improve their career prospects from whatever their liberal arts degree is, they think they'll enjoy it, it suits their skill-set etc. So they figure out what they gotta do - they take the LSAT, maybe talk to a prelaw advisor if they're still in undergrad. They take it and think "man that was hard, hopefully I don't have to do that again." They get their score. The next step isn't "what law schools are worth it? What law schools are a scam?" It's usually - "where are my stats good enough to get me into?" They're not googling "is Whittier worth it?" they're googling "Whittier Law Admissions data." To them, a law school is a law school and you got to law school to become a lawyer.

They're aware on a broad scale that yes, Harvard is "better" than Whittier, but to them law school rankings are just like undergrad rankings, it's there for prestige-whores to ooh and ahh over, but not something that will serve as a barrier to entry into the profession. People aren't thinking when they're applying that their law school is the one that is going to get them a job, they think that it is is they themselves that will go out and get a job and they just need a law degree to have the tools to go out and get a job themselves.

It's a big fat strawman to say that these people probably thought they were gonna get a guaranteed six figure salary upon graduation. Most people who go to these law schools are explicitly aware that they will never be a "rich, fancy lawyer" and that's not even what they're after. They just want a normal middle class life and the intuition is if you graduate from law school, that should at least be obtainable. They see successful law grads from Whittier and think "that person was in the same position I am now, so there's no reason I can't do that." And most importantly, the part about needing to get a job is being kicked three years down the road. Time is a hell of a drug and makes people confident that the future will have a way of working itself out.

Add into all of this that people are getting positive reinforcement every step of the way. That one attorney they know is encouraging, their friends and parents are proud of them (and now add in if they come from a really low SES status, where pursuing a graduate degree makes them the most highly educated person they know). The natural inclination isn't to view higher education through the lens of cynicism and apprehension. This isn't giving your money to a Nigerian Prince. This is the traditional means for upward mobility in this country. For someone to try and better their situation and their family's, this is how you do it. The notion that they'd be better off sticking with a job at Burger King runs so counter-intuitive to everything society is telling you. As far as debt, well that's just the cost, it's another thing you can kick down the line. They may even be award of borrower-friendly terms from the government that make it clear that you don't pay more than you're able to. The $250K roll of the roulette table isn't how people are looking at it. They're looking at it as an investment in human capital that can be paid back to the extent of their means over a very long time horizon.

So if asking - why didn't they just google "is Whittier worth it?" first ask "why would they?"

Totally agree. A very thoughtful post.

[vcap180]

You guys are looking at this from a perspective that most people don't look at things. What's going on is people decide they want to be a lawyer - it'll improve their career prospects from whatever their liberal arts degree is, they think they'll enjoy it, it suits their skill-set etc. So they figure out what they gotta do - they take the LSAT, maybe talk to a prelaw advisor if they're still in undergrad. They take it and think "man that was hard, hopefully I don't have to do that again." They get their score. The next step isn't "what law schools are worth it? What law schools are a scam?" It's usually - "where are my stats good enough to get me into?" They're not googling "is Whittier worth it?" they're googling "Whittier Law Admissions data." To them, a law school is a law school and you got to law school to become a lawyer.

They're aware on a broad scale that yes, Harvard is "better" than Whittier, but to them law school rankings are just like undergrad rankings, it's there for prestige-whores to ooh and ahh over, but not something that will serve as a barrier to entry into the profession. People aren't thinking when they're applying that their law school is the one that is going to get them a job, they think that it is is they themselves that will go out and get a job and they just need a law degree to have the tools to go out and get a job themselves.

It's a big fat strawman to say that these people probably thought they were gonna get a guaranteed six figure salary upon graduation. Most people who go to these law schools are explicitly aware that they will never be a "rich, fancy lawyer" and that's not even what they're after. They just want a normal middle class life and the intuition is if you graduate from law school, that should at least be obtainable. They see successful law grads from Whittier and think "that person was in the same position I am now, so there's no reason I can't do that." And most importantly, the part about needing to get a job is being kicked three years down the road. Time is a hell of a drug and makes people confident that the future will have a way of working itself out.

Add into all of this that people are getting positive reinforcement every step of the way. That one attorney they know is encouraging, their friends and parents are proud of them (and now add in if they come from a really low SES status, where pursuing a graduate degree makes them the most highly educated person they know). The natural inclination isn't to view higher education through the lens of cynicism and apprehension. This isn't giving your money to a Nigerian Prince. This is the traditional means for upward mobility in this country. For someone to try and better their situation and their family's, this is how you do it. The notion that they'd be better off sticking with a job at Burger King runs so counter-intuitive to everything society is telling you. As far as debt, well that's just the cost, it's another thing you can kick down the line. They may even be award of borrower-friendly terms from the government that make it clear that you don't pay more than you're able to. The $250K roll of the roulette table isn't how people are looking at it. They're looking at it as an investment in human capital that can be paid back to the extent of their means over a very long time horizon.

So if asking - why didn't they just google "is Whittier worth it?" first ask "why would they?"

Lol.
Lots of solid points that didn't go unnoticed, but the answer to your question is laughably simple:
Because it's really, really, really, really.....really, really...
REALLY expensive.

That, by my apparently unreasonable estimation, is why they should look into whether Whittier is worth it.

Look - you give plenty of reasons as to why they might not look at this quarter million dollar investment as being risky... Some may well be valid, but the decision is still huge and 250000 is an enormous amount of money that any prudent person should take very seriously, regardless of how society generally views higher Ed. People need to take some level of responsibility for their own actions.

[Aristogeiton1]

You guys are looking at this from a perspective that most people don't look at things. What's going on is people decide they want to be a lawyer - it'll improve their career prospects from whatever their liberal arts degree is, they think they'll enjoy it, it suits their skill-set etc. So they figure out what they gotta do - they take the LSAT, maybe talk to a prelaw advisor if they're still in undergrad. They take it and think "man that was hard, hopefully I don't have to do that again." They get their score. The next step isn't "what law schools are worth it? What law schools are a scam?" It's usually - "where are my stats good enough to get me into?" They're not googling "is Whittier worth it?" they're googling "Whittier Law Admissions data." To them, a law school is a law school and you got to law school to become a lawyer.

They're aware on a broad scale that yes, Harvard is "better" than Whittier, but to them law school rankings are just like undergrad rankings, it's there for prestige-whores to ooh and ahh over, but not something that will serve as a barrier to entry into the profession. People aren't thinking when they're applying that their law school is the one that is going to get them a job, they think that it is is they themselves that will go out and get a job and they just need a law degree to have the tools to go out and get a job themselves.

It's a big fat strawman to say that these people probably thought they were gonna get a guaranteed six figure salary upon graduation. Most people who go to these law schools are explicitly aware that they will never be a "rich, fancy lawyer" and that's not even what they're after. They just want a normal middle class life and the intuition is if you graduate from law school, that should at least be obtainable. They see successful law grads from Whittier and think "that person was in the same position I am now, so there's no reason I can't do that." And most importantly, the part about needing to get a job is being kicked three years down the road. Time is a hell of a drug and makes people confident that the future will have a way of working itself out.

Add into all of this that people are getting positive reinforcement every step of the way. That one attorney they know is encouraging, their friends and parents are proud of them (and now add in if they come from a really low SES status, where pursuing a graduate degree makes them the most highly educated person they know). The natural inclination isn't to view higher education through the lens of cynicism and apprehension. This isn't giving your money to a Nigerian Prince. This is the traditional means for upward mobility in this country. For someone to try and better their situation and their family's, this is how you do it. The notion that they'd be better off sticking with a job at Burger King runs so counter-intuitive to everything society is telling you. As far as debt, well that's just the cost, it's another thing you can kick down the line. They may even be award of borrower-friendly terms from the government that make it clear that you don't pay more than you're able to. The $250K roll of the roulette table isn't how people are looking at it. They're looking at it as an investment in human capital that can be paid back to the extent of their means over a very long time horizon.

So if asking - why didn't they just google "is Whittier worth it?" first ask "why would they?"

This, all of this.
I still have people telling me to attend Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and the University of Akron Law School, because they're "good schools," and they all know "successful lawyers who went there." These are faculty at my undergrad, local (Boomer) lawyers I've talked to, fellow students, etc.
I've been on TLS for 5 years of my life, and that's why I'm so critical. The vast majority of pre-law students are not like me.

[ughbugchugplug]

The point of education cannot be to whittle down your school's quality until you finally attract the most easily manipulable and mislead in our society. People will always go to schools like Whittier if they exist. If you inform everyone of the risks, the people that go will just be a different set of people. But people will always go. These schools will always have a market to take advantage of.

The answer, then, is that these schools shouldn't exist. Education should not be subject to the morals of the market place. Its a place where people go to improve themselves, where they learn and have trusting relationships with faculty and administrators. Its not arms length like an investment in stock. It shouldn't work like an industry where young and impressionable people have to guard themselves against fraud

[Nebby]

The point of education cannot be to whittle down your school's quality until you finally attract the most easily manipulable and mislead in our society. People will always go to schools like Whittier if they exist. If you inform everyone of the risks, the people that go will just be a different set of people. But people will always go. These schools will always have a market to take advantage of.

The answer, then, is that these schools shouldn't exist. Education should not be subject to the morals of the market place. Its a place where people go to improve themselves, where they learn and have trusting relationships with faculty and administrators. Its not arms length like an investment in stock. It shouldn't work like an industry where young and impressionable people have to guard themselves against fraud

Good post

[goldenbear2020]

FYI: here is the faculty's filing for a TRO which describes how the college profited from the law school.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/files/whittier-tro.pdf

Something I didn't realize is that the college sold the law school property for a profit of $12 million which in my view has to be the real reason they closed the school.

I'm surprised that the profit on 130,000 sq ft of space was only < $100/sq ft.

[Npret]

FYI: here is the faculty's filing for a TRO which describes how the college profited from the law school.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/files/whittier-tro.pdf

Something I didn't realize is that the college sold the law school property for a profit of $12 million which in my view has to be the real reason they closed the school.

I'm surprised that the profit on 130,000 sq ft of space was only < $100/sq ft.

I think they sold the entire 14 acre campus but I'm not sure. I don't know what existing liens were on the property

[uion1715]

FYI: here is the faculty's filing for a TRO which describes how the college profited from the law school.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/files/whittier-tro.pdf

Something I didn't realize is that the college sold the law school property for a profit of $12 million which in my view has to be the real reason they closed the school.

I'm surprised that the profit on 130,000 sq ft of space was only < $100/sq ft.

Took LSAT there in December. The building is kind of on a middle of nowhere (Albeit next to a freeway).

[Quichelorraine]

I know a fair number of students who ended up at TTTs. They were all generally aware of the lousy employment numbers, but 1) thought they'd be one of the special ones ("Andrew Cuomo went to Albany!" is single-handedly keeping that school in business), and 2) "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take"/"Don't tell me what I can't do"/"YOLO".

Jumping in somewhat belatedly, but: I've encountered this attitude from a number of otherwise reasonable people whose law-school plans would've ruined them. An old high-school pal of mine, with a fancy undergrad degree and substantial post-college work experience in a non-law field, was thinking of attending PACE. I quite gently suggested that it was a bad idea. Cue the above, albeit in reverse order and with an ample helping of "Unlike you, I won't be a failure" sentiment mixed in (this was ~2011, and grads with a public-service yen were not doing too great). Another, also with a fancy undergrad degree, was dead set on NYLS. He knew its reputation, but he was convinced--absolutely, truly convinced--that he was smarter than the rest of the class, that he'd come out on top, and so on. And these are people from wealthy backgrounds who did have access to all of the cultural capital that's supposed to drive smart decisionmaking.

More anecdata: a close acquaintance, who came to the United States from an unbelievably impoverished background in his late teens, "pulled himself up by his bootstraps" through community college, a state undergrad, and then a fancy graduate school he attended for free. Looking back, he has remarked more than once that at each stage of the process, his "smart" decision was essentially blundering into the best choice by accident. He knew nothing of American cultural capital, didn't really understand debt, and had no idea of what he was supposed to be doing other than getting an education. At several inflection points, he could've been captured by Monroe College, or any of the number of similar institutions infesting the NYC region. He counts himself fortunate beyond belief.

Extrapolating from this, and knowing a great number of first-generation college students and students from low-income/SES backgrounds, it isn't hard for me to understand how otherwise bright and hard-working folks might get tricked into a place like Whittier.

[NewUser_2017]

I think the youtube video of the announcement, along with the promotional videos of Whittier "suggested" on the side, could form a piece called "the fall of the American bourgeoisie."

I would watch this. "The bourgeoisie snake eating its own tail"

[Nebby]

I just be an idiot because I can't find the video. Link?