I disagree with you on a lot of the points you made, but wanted to just say:Tekrul wrote:This trend continues all the way down the chain until we reach the last ABA accredited school.
This is missing the point. University of Wyoming Law School which currently charges $13,428 in resident tuition is not the problem with legal education right now. A far bigger problem is these second and third tier private schools that charge over $45,000 in tuition in the cities that have a demand for Big Law Attorneys. They are just completely flooding the market with a useless over saturation of "well-rounded citizens" that Lila C. Milford thinks is so critical. This carries over into the problem into these small state Law Schools have as well. I have no idea how many attorneys the state of Wyoming needs but it's probably more than 0. Not a bad idea to have a place for some locals to go if they want to stick around.Regulus wrote:See, this whole "unfair" shit is what is killing the legal industry. It "isn't fair" that some states wouldn't have accredited law schools? Why not? If you wanted to study Azerbaijan but no colleges in your state offered courses on that language, would it be "unfair" to expect you to leave the state if you so sought out that sort of education? Nobody is forcing you to study that particular thing, right? If we were saying that "the state of Wyoming isn't allowed to have any food" it would be one thing, but to remove accredited law schools from a region isn't unfair at all if the schools aren't meeting certain educational standards.
What isn't fair (to the legal community) is the fact that so many people think that everyone should "have a chance" to become a lawyer if they so desire, and at the same time expect to have the convenience of proximity to a law school so that they can receive a legal education locally. This type of idealistic thinking is complete and utter bullshit. Not every state needs an accredited law school, and it is okay for there to be more than one law school in certain states. Furthermore, everyone and their dog doesn't need to have a shot at law school just because they spent some time in college and a few hours (or maybe 0 hours) studying for the law school admission test.
Life doesn't need to be "fair." It needs to be "realistic."
It's not really the fault of the scam law schools. More the dumb students that go to them and mostly the dumb politicians that give them government loans. Private schools aren't charities.john7234797 wrote:This is missing the point. University of Wyoming Law School which currently charges $13,428 in resident tuition is not the problem with legal education right now. A far bigger problem is these second and third tier private schools that charge over $45,000 in tuition in the cities that have a demand for Big Law Attorneys. They are just completely flooding the market with a useless over saturation of "well-rounded citizens" that Lila C. Milford thinks is so critical. This carries over into the problem into these small state Law Schools have as well. I have no idea how many attorneys the state of Wyoming needs but it's probably more than 0. Not a bad idea to have a place for some locals to go if they want to stick around.Regulus wrote:See, this whole "unfair" shit is what is killing the legal industry. It "isn't fair" that some states wouldn't have accredited law schools? Why not? If you wanted to study Azerbaijan but no colleges in your state offered courses on that language, would it be "unfair" to expect you to leave the state if you so sought out that sort of education? Nobody is forcing you to study that particular thing, right? If we were saying that "the state of Wyoming isn't allowed to have any food" it would be one thing, but to remove accredited law schools from a region isn't unfair at all if the schools aren't meeting certain educational standards.
What isn't fair (to the legal community) is the fact that so many people think that everyone should "have a chance" to become a lawyer if they so desire, and at the same time expect to have the convenience of proximity to a law school so that they can receive a legal education locally. This type of idealistic thinking is complete and utter bullshit. Not every state needs an accredited law school, and it is okay for there to be more than one law school in certain states. Furthermore, everyone and their dog doesn't need to have a shot at law school just because they spent some time in college and a few hours (or maybe 0 hours) studying for the law school admission test.
Life doesn't need to be "fair." It needs to be "realistic."
It just doesn't ever occur to them that there is anything "to check out." They don't have friends or relatives who go to law school or are lawyers. They don't have parents who read the NYT or the Atlantic. They were raised to believe that higher education is the answer, education debt is good debt, lawyers are all rich, blah blah blah. Telling some people that they might be broke and unemployed at the end of three years in law school is like telling them the sky is yellow.Skye wrote:I have come to accept the system, as is. Obviously, there is empathy for those who are duped by sales pitches claiming their TT school will make you a successful rich lawyer like the ones you see on TV. But c’mon, we live in the world of the internet where anyone with any sense can check out what is really going on. As incredible as it seems, the TLS threads are filled with those choosing schools that are obviously a road to nowhere. If people were just a tiny bit smart the schools with low employment would already be closing their doors.
The ABA isn’t about to close any schools —they won’t even stand in the way of new schools opening. For a variety of reasons the government isn’t likely to cut funding.
It gets down to the marketplace, as it always does.
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That was stupid and poorly written.timbs4339 wrote:justonemoregame wrote:Somebody tell Lila C. Milford to shut her yapper. And come back in two years and ask how her classmates are managing their loan debt.
http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/ ... eckdam.pdf
If you go to some of the TLS school sites there are those all excited because they think they have a good chance to get off some TT waitlist. It is mindboggling.timbs4339 wrote:The people who are on TLS, even those posting "NYLS v Touro v Hofstra have to decide today plz thx no retake" are a well-informed subset of all law school applicants.
We're the richest, most powerful country in the world. Unfortunately, we are like 17th in education so we're not really all that smart as a whole. We're also #1 in confidence (nice job boomers) so unfortunately, we're going to need to protect people from themselves and their crazy, unrealistic ambitions that capitalism thrives on. Can't have a whole generation of people taking out massive student loans that they will be unable to pay back. Bad for America. It's all institutionalized now though so good luck getting reform. Safe to say we fucked that up badly.Tom Joad wrote:It's not really the fault of the scam law schools. More the dumb students that go to them and mostly the dumb politicians that give them government loans. Private schools aren't charities.john7234797 wrote:This is missing the point. University of Wyoming Law School which currently charges $13,428 in resident tuition is not the problem with legal education right now. A far bigger problem is these second and third tier private schools that charge over $45,000 in tuition in the cities that have a demand for Big Law Attorneys. They are just completely flooding the market with a useless over saturation of "well-rounded citizens" that Lila C. Milford thinks is so critical. This carries over into the problem into these small state Law Schools have as well. I have no idea how many attorneys the state of Wyoming needs but it's probably more than 0. Not a bad idea to have a place for some locals to go if they want to stick around.Regulus wrote:See, this whole "unfair" shit is what is killing the legal industry. It "isn't fair" that some states wouldn't have accredited law schools? Why not? If you wanted to study Azerbaijan but no colleges in your state offered courses on that language, would it be "unfair" to expect you to leave the state if you so sought out that sort of education? Nobody is forcing you to study that particular thing, right? If we were saying that "the state of Wyoming isn't allowed to have any food" it would be one thing, but to remove accredited law schools from a region isn't unfair at all if the schools aren't meeting certain educational standards.
What isn't fair (to the legal community) is the fact that so many people think that everyone should "have a chance" to become a lawyer if they so desire, and at the same time expect to have the convenience of proximity to a law school so that they can receive a legal education locally. This type of idealistic thinking is complete and utter bullshit. Not every state needs an accredited law school, and it is okay for there to be more than one law school in certain states. Furthermore, everyone and their dog doesn't need to have a shot at law school just because they spent some time in college and a few hours (or maybe 0 hours) studying for the law school admission test.
Life doesn't need to be "fair." It needs to be "realistic."
Eh, not really. Those schools tend to draw from a certain subset of the applicant pool for which getting into any law school is an achievement in and of itself. It's similar to the people who are excited to go to expensive online universities. Unfortunately we need to exercise a bit of paternalism here and cut off the federal loan spigot or place severe restrictions on tuition and class sizes. I don't really see any social benefit to what law professors produce that justifies subsidizing people's terrible life choices.Skye wrote:If you go to some of the TLS school sites there are those all excited because they think they have a good chance to get off some TT waitlist. It is mindboggling.timbs4339 wrote:The people who are on TLS, even those posting "NYLS v Touro v Hofstra have to decide today plz thx no retake" are a well-informed subset of all law school applicants.
Bingo. Going to law school should never be an end goal in itself and yet it is for so many people. 3 years after already going to school for an undergraduate degree.. mind boggling. Rich parents willing to throw around money for their 23 year old children have to be part of the problem here too.. can't blame them entirely but if they're helping the student put up with some of the cost of living partially and encourage them to go to law school because you're special, follow your heart, blah blah blah then that's encouraging them to take out big loans to pay tuition and the rest of the COL. Years later the parents are confused why the 28 year old kid is doing doc review with their J.D.timbs4339 wrote:Eh, not really. Those schools tend to draw from a certain subset of the applicant pool for which getting into any law school is an achievement in and of itself. It's similar to the people who are excited to go to expensive online universities. Unfortunately we need to exercise a bit of paternalism here and cut off the federal loan spigot or place severe restrictions on tuition and class sizes. I don't really see any social benefit to what law professors produce that justifies subsidizing people's terrible life choices.Skye wrote:If you go to some of the TLS school sites there are those all excited because they think they have a good chance to get off some TT waitlist. It is mindboggling.timbs4339 wrote:The people who are on TLS, even those posting "NYLS v Touro v Hofstra have to decide today plz thx no retake" are a well-informed subset of all law school applicants.
Probably true, but to me, that is simply bewildering.timbs4339 wrote:Eh, not really. Those schools tend to draw from a certain subset of the applicant pool for which getting into any law school is an achievement in and of itself. It's similar to the people who are excited to go to expensive online universities.Skye wrote:If you go to some of the TLS school sites there are those all excited because they think they have a good chance to get off some TT waitlist. It is mindboggling.
Agreed, but simply put, not going to happen.Unfortunately we need to exercise a bit of paternalism here and cut off the federal loan spigot or place severe restrictions on tuition and class sizes....
I guess I didn't understand the economics of your argument. What about non-American countries where college/university tuition is extremely cheap/free, and which don't see the default "BA required for anything" kind of attitude? I'm thinking about, say, Germany, where higher ed charges no or extremely low tuition, and yet far fewer people go on to higher ed.Tekrul wrote:Freezing/lowering tuition keeps cropping up as an idea. My post regarding how the economics of that move is on the bottom of page 1. It got no visibility as we've moved on the page 2, but if you send in proposals to Mr. Garwin, please read it first before choosing to include a section on tuition. It is absolutely the wrong way to go.
The rich kids I can handle. The rich spend their money on frivolous shit all the time, what's wrong with adding law school to that list? The problem is that middle and lower class kids get it into their head that they should drop 200K on a shitty law school education too, the professors and deans have no problem taking their money, and the government has no problem lending them 200K with zero cost controls.john7234797 wrote:Bingo. Going to law school should never be an end goal in itself and yet it is for so many people. 3 years after already going to school for an undergraduate degree.. mind boggling. Rich parents willing to throw around money for their 23 year old children have to be part of the problem here too.. can't blame them entirely but if they're helping the student put up with some of the cost of living partially and encourage them to go to law school because you're special, follow your heart, blah blah blah then that's encouraging them to take out big loans to pay tuition and the rest of the COL. Years later the parents are confused why the 28 year old kid is doing doc review with their J.D.timbs4339 wrote:Eh, not really. Those schools tend to draw from a certain subset of the applicant pool for which getting into any law school is an achievement in and of itself. It's similar to the people who are excited to go to expensive online universities. Unfortunately we need to exercise a bit of paternalism here and cut off the federal loan spigot or place severe restrictions on tuition and class sizes. I don't really see any social benefit to what law professors produce that justifies subsidizing people's terrible life choices.Skye wrote:If you go to some of the TLS school sites there are those all excited because they think they have a good chance to get off some TT waitlist. It is mindboggling.timbs4339 wrote:The people who are on TLS, even those posting "NYLS v Touro v Hofstra have to decide today plz thx no retake" are a well-informed subset of all law school applicants.
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Why can't the Wyoming students go get jobs in California, and we can close down UCH, UCD and other 45-50K bloated institutions that also have ~50% employment rates?Regulus wrote:I was using Wyoming as an example, but the point holds true for any school that isn't up to par, whether public or private, reasonably priced or exorbitantly expensive. Either way, your argument is exactly what I am saying is wrong with the current way of thinking. You basically assume that if someone cannot go to law school in Wyoming, then they cannot become a lawyer in Wyoming. If the national market wasn't super-saturated like it currently is, then this just wouldn't be true. Graduates of law school have a hard time going to different regions because, among other reasons, each region already has its feeder schools and is saturated with graduates from those institutions.john7234797 wrote:This is missing the point. University of Wyoming Law School which currently charges $13,428 in resident tuition is not the problem with legal education right now. A far bigger problem is these second and third tier private schools that charge over $45,000 in tuition in the cities that have a demand for Big Law Attorneys. They are just completely flooding the market with a useless over saturation of "well-rounded citizens" that Lila C. Milford thinks is so critical. This carries over into the problem into these small state Law Schools have as well. I have no idea how many attorneys the state of Wyoming needs but it's probably more than 0. Not a bad idea to have a place for some locals to go if they want to stick around.Regulus wrote:See, this whole "unfair" shit is what is killing the legal industry. It "isn't fair" that some states wouldn't have accredited law schools? Why not? If you wanted to study Azerbaijan but no colleges in your state offered courses on that language, would it be "unfair" to expect you to leave the state if you so sought out that sort of education? Nobody is forcing you to study that particular thing, right? If we were saying that "the state of Wyoming isn't allowed to have any food" it would be one thing, but to remove accredited law schools from a region isn't unfair at all if the schools aren't meeting certain educational standards.
What isn't fair (to the legal community) is the fact that so many people think that everyone should "have a chance" to become a lawyer if they so desire, and at the same time expect to have the convenience of proximity to a law school so that they can receive a legal education locally. This type of idealistic thinking is complete and utter bullshit. Not every state needs an accredited law school, and it is okay for there to be more than one law school in certain states. Furthermore, everyone and their dog doesn't need to have a shot at law school just because they spent some time in college and a few hours (or maybe 0 hours) studying for the law school admission test.
Life doesn't need to be "fair." It needs to be "realistic."
Also, even if it is cheap, why should the University of Wyoming be accredited when it only has a 50% employment rate? No matter where you go to law school, and no matter the cost of tuition and living expenses, the investment of 2~3+ years of one's life is the same for everyone, everywhere. By accrediting institutions that have consistently been unable to perform, the ABA is basically condoning the scamming that has gone on for so many years now.
I think this is a fair point, however I think the attitude that a "free market" got us to this dilemma is a bit absurd. When people are being duped by misinformation and gov't subsidies are supporting individuals making poor decisions and the institutions that are profiteering a select few at the misfortune of others I think we can be skeptical that it's the abstract market doing its work...Skye wrote:I have come to accept the system, as is. Obviously, there is empathy for those who are duped by sales pitches claiming their TT school will make you a successful rich lawyer like the ones you see on TV. But c’mon, we live in the world of the internet where anyone with any sense can check out what is really going on. As incredible as it seems, the TLS threads are filled with those choosing schools that are obviously a road to nowhere. If people were just a tiny bit smart the schools with low employment would already be closing their doors.
The ABA isn’t about to close any schools —they won’t even stand in the way of new schools opening. For a variety of reasons the government isn’t likely to cut funding.
It gets down to the marketplace, as it always does.
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Well, when you close enough schools, the other schools will absorb some of those jobs.Regulus wrote:I am just speaking in anecdotes... I really don't care which specific schools lose their accreditation; I just think that those who have been performing the worst should lose their accreditation from the bottom up; just as an arbitrary example, any school that cannot put at least 65% of its graduates into full-time, long-term, JD-required positions within 9 months of graduation shouldn't receive accreditation.timbs4339 wrote:Why can't the Wyoming students go get jobs in California, and we can close down UCH, UCD and other 45-50K bloated institutions that also have ~50% employment rates?
If you pay $13K/year for a legal education, you learn some shit, you spend 3 years in school, maybe make some connections, maybe get a lawyer job. If not you go to a non-law job and make 40K and pay off the debt in 10 years, sooner if you get some raises.
If you pay 50K/year for that legal education, you learn some shit, you spend 3 years in school, maybe make some connections, maybe get a lawyer job. But even if you get a lawyer job you still have a mountain to climb because you have a shitload of debt at age 26 and no way to pay it off except IBR.
There have always been a substantial number of losers in the law school game. The difference in the last 10 years is that those losers, and many of the "winners" are graduating with 200K in debt and no conceivable prospects that could even begin to put a dent in that.
Nobody is closing any schools...ever.timbs4339 wrote:Well, when you close enough schools. . . .
Yeah, but the ABA can start taking accreditation away from these schools. That would probably hurt their profitability. Even someone who is thrilled to go to Cooley will likely be wary of attending an unaccredited law school.Skye wrote:Nobody is closing any schools...ever.timbs4339 wrote:Well, when you close enough schools. . . .
Understand this: Only the schools can close their doors (period)... that only happens when leaving the doors open becomes unprofitable.
Mexico will stop running drugs when people stop paying for drugs.
Apples to apples analogy.
I would love to be the attorney defending the schooleric922 wrote:Yeah, but the ABA can start taking accreditation away from these schools.Skye wrote:Nobody is closing any schools...ever.timbs4339 wrote:Well, when you close enough schools. . . .
Understand this: Only the schools can close their doors (period)... that only happens when leaving the doors open becomes unprofitable.
Mexico will stop running drugs when people stop paying for drugs.
Apples to apples analogy.
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It's a hypothetical.Skye wrote:Nobody is closing any schools...ever.timbs4339 wrote:Well, when you close enough schools. . . .
Understand this: Only the schools can close their doors (period)... that only happens when leaving the doors open becomes unprofitable.
Mexico will stop running drugs when people stop paying for drugs.
Apples to apples analogy.
Sorry to keep harking back to Wyoming. But let's realize here that in 2012, they had a grand total of 75 graduates. They're hardly flooding the market with hoards of JDs and you could say they've done what you would want in a Law School in keeping class sizes small with how bad the market is. Getting rid of Wyoming really would do nothing in terms of correcting the market. I would much rather close big diploma mills even if they have a slightly better percentage of students receiving legal jobs upon graduation.Regulus wrote:I was using Wyoming as an example, but the point holds true for any school that isn't up to par, whether public or private, reasonably priced or exorbitantly expensive. Either way, your argument is exactly what I am saying is wrong with the current way of thinking. You basically assume that if someone cannot go to law school in Wyoming, then they cannot become a lawyer in Wyoming. If the national market wasn't super-saturated like it currently is, then this just wouldn't be true. Graduates of law school have a hard time going to different regions because, among other reasons, each region already has its feeder schools and is saturated with graduates from those institutions.
Also, even if it is cheap, why should the University of Wyoming be accredited when it only has a 50% employment rate? No matter where you go to law school, and no matter the cost of tuition and living expenses, the investment of 2~3+ years of one's life is the same for everyone, everywhere. By accrediting institutions that have consistently been unable to perform, the ABA is basically condoning the scamming that has gone on for so many years now.
To use yet another analogy, let's say that you see a “Babe Ruth Rookie Card” on eBay for $300,000. You’ve wanted this card for a long time, and now is your chance, so you decide to buy it. Before finalizing the purchase, you notice that the seller has many less-than-stellar customer reviews, but there are also some customers who have left high ratings. You optimistically think “nobody can please everyone, and my purchase is guaranteed through eBay anyway,” and proceed to make the purchase. Three weeks later, you receive an envelope in the mail from the seller, and when you open it, you find a birthday card with a picture of young Babe Ruth cheaply printed on the front. “This isn’t what I paid for!” you think, but as you go back and look at the fine print on the product’s page, you notice that the seller specifically stated that they are selling “a card of Babe Ruth when he was a rookie.” You realize at this point that you’ve been scammed, and try to take action against the seller. Unfortunately, the court rules that after checking the seller’s review history, you shouldn’t have expected to get a real Babe Ruth rookie card; the wording on the product’s page also didn’t explicitly state that you would be receiving a valuable baseball card, so you were wrong to assume that you were buying such.
Interesting enough, I’ve seen an episode of Judge Judy () where a seller was taken to court because she was sending buyers pictures of cell phones when they thought they would be getting actual phones. Even though the wording on the product’s page was vague enough to not condemn the seller, Judge Judy still ruled in favor of the plaintiff because the defendant had the intention of deceiving. The point here is that yes, you would have to be some level of dumb to make sure a purchase, but that doesn’t mean that the sellers of shady products shouldn’t be held accountable for their sketchy deals.
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