ATL hires hopeless unemployed 2012 law graduate as blogger Forum

[JCougar]

--LinkRemoved--

The only difference between this guy and your average below-median Georgetown, UVA, or NYU graduate that forks over sticker price is your odds. But the T14 odds are far from good these days. They're just better relatively to their peers. Close to 50% will not get a job from OCI, and will be scraping around for jobs just like all of the hopeless TTT graduates.

I've been worried lately reading this forum, as the "law school is a terrible decision" threads seem to have died down, and have been replaced by "it's a great time to go to law school since admissions standards are dropping" threads. And quality posters like areyouinsane have been banned (as much as his hyperbole may have irritated a few, his posts were generally pretty insightful to a desperately misinformed prospective law student population).

And our current discussion of this seems to have hijacked another poster's thread, so this may be a good point to continue.

The bottom line is that it's still a horrible time to pay sticker at any law school. Paying sticker at today's inflated prices means you are a sucker paying double tuition: once for yourself, and once to subsidize the scholarships given out to others. There is not a single law school in the US outside of HYS that offers you a good enough chance of paying back a $200K debt load to take on the risk. And the jobs that do offer you that chance (Biglaw) have extremely high attrition rates (up to 80%) over your first five years of work.

I know T6 graduats churning through document review at low-level plaintiff firms with no hope beyond IBR. I know Biglaw associates that "won the law school game" that want to quit to find a more decent job that makes them happpy regardless of money but can't because they are crippled by debt.

Some will go through this crazy process and come out happy in the end. But that doesn't mean they should be signing away their future to decades worth of debt payments to the legal education bureaucracy. And the ones that don't come out happy and/or are chronically un/under-employed are completely screwed.

[JCougar]

--LinkRemoved--

Here's a sad story about a GULC grad. His situation seems uniquely unfortunate, but probably not all that unlike many GULC students below median.

[sunynp]

You know that I agree with you.

What surprises me a bit is that I expected more "don't go to law school" threads as OCI is finished. Maybe people are still hoping to figure something out job-wise. There have been a few drop out threads, but I don't know if many of those folks actually drop out in the end.

I'm also surprised at the excitement and enthusiasm of the applicants to schools in the "Class of" threads that I have just read dismal employment stats about in another thread.

There is a lot of information on the forum from current students at many schools reflecting on their job search. Somehow there is a disconnect between the current students and the incoming students (from my perspective anyway.)

I know we can't (and shouldn't) troll threads for applicants. Maybe we should start threads explaining why not to go to specific schools and link to the OCI threads.

I am strongly against people taking on massive debt for law school. I'm not sure that I would advocate going to a lower ranked school for free either. People don't want to hear that they just shouldn't go at all.

I also feel that students really and truly don't understand the difficulties of the job market, how few biglaw SAs there really are out there nation-wide, and how impossible government and PI jobs are to get. I read yesterday that there are 30 SAs for all of Portland. I doubt many applicants know that number.

I know that transparency has been responsible for the shift that we are already seeing in applicants. When people understand the realities of employment to service their debt, they may be less likely to go. So keeping data out there and pressure on the schools to provide data is crucial.

So what is the best way to help applicants get data? Is it possible to make a sticky in each thread telling them to check LST, to calculate the COI with interest included and what their loan payment will be and to get them to research the number of SAs in their target markets, without getting into any debate about the school?

Maybe we could just link to Campos book, but that is probably not allowed.

I feel like a caution sign at the front of each "class of thread" might be appropriate.

Is it helpful to post how much tuition has gone up in the past few years correlated with decreases in jobs?

(just throwing out ideas)

edit to add: I want to keep discrediting IBR as an option to consider from day one. IBR really isn't relief if you are going to have massive debt hanging over your head for 25 years.

[TheThriller]

You know that I agree with you.

What surprises me a bit is that I expected more "don't go to law school" threads as OCI is finished. Maybe people are still hoping to figure something out job-wise. There have been a few drop out threads, but I don't know if many of those folks actually drop out in the end.

I'm also surprised at the excitement and enthusiasm of the applicants to schools in the "Class of" threads that I have just read dismal employment stats about in another thread.

There is a lot of information on the forum from current students at many schools reflecting on their job search. Somehow there is a disconnect between the current students and the incoming students (from my perspective anyway.)

I know we can't (and shouldn't) troll threads for applicants. Maybe we should start threads explaining why not to go to specific schools and link to the OCI threads.

I am strongly against people taking on massive debt for law school. I'm not sure that I would advocate going to a lower ranked school for free either. People don't want to hear that they just shouldn't go at all.

I also feel that students really and truly don't understand the difficulties of the job market, how few biglaw SAs there really are out there nation-wide, and how impossible government and PI jobs are to get. I read yesterday that there are 30 SAs for all of Portland. I doubt many applicants know that number.

I know that transparency has been responsible for the shift that we are already seeing in applicants. When people understand the realities of employment to service their debt, they may be less likely to go. So keeping data out there and pressure on the schools to provide data is crucial.

So what is the best way to help applicants get data? Is it possible to make a sticky in each thread telling them to check LST, to calculate the COI with interest included and what their loan payment will be and to get them to research the number of SAs in their target markets, without getting into any debate about the school?

Maybe we could just link to Campos book, but that is probably not allowed.

I feel like a caution sign at the front of each "class of thread" might be appropriate.

Is it helpful to post how much tuition has gone up in the past few years correlated with decreases in jobs?

(just throwing out ideas)

edit to add: I want to keep discrediting IBR as an option to consider from day one. IBR really isn't relief if you are going to have massive debt hanging over your head for 25 years.

Being a current applicant, I wouldn't mind a link to oci threads.

[sunynp]

You know that I agree with you.

What surprises me a bit is that I expected more "don't go to law school" threads as OCI is finished. Maybe people are still hoping to figure something out job-wise. There have been a few drop out threads, but I don't know if many of those folks actually drop out in the end.

I'm also surprised at the excitement and enthusiasm of the applicants to schools in the "Class of" threads that I have just read dismal employment stats about in another thread.

There is a lot of information on the forum from current students at many schools reflecting on their job search. Somehow there is a disconnect between the current students and the incoming students (from my perspective anyway.)

I know we can't (and shouldn't) troll threads for applicants. Maybe we should start threads explaining why not to go to specific schools and link to the OCI threads.

I am strongly against people taking on massive debt for law school. I'm not sure that I would advocate going to a lower ranked school for free either. People don't want to hear that they just shouldn't go at all.

I also feel that students really and truly don't understand the difficulties of the job market, how few biglaw SAs there really are out there nation-wide, and how impossible government and PI jobs are to get. I read yesterday that there are 30 SAs for all of Portland. I doubt many applicants know that number.

I know that transparency has been responsible for the shift that we are already seeing in applicants. When people understand the realities of employment to service their debt, they may be less likely to go. So keeping data out there and pressure on the schools to provide data is crucial.

So what is the best way to help applicants get data? Is it possible to make a sticky in each thread telling them to check LST, to calculate the COI with interest included and what their loan payment will be and to get them to research the number of SAs in their target markets, without getting into any debate about the school?

Maybe we could just link to Campos book, but that is probably not allowed.

I feel like a caution sign at the front of each "class of thread" might be appropriate.

Is it helpful to post how much tuition has gone up in the past few years correlated with decreases in jobs?

(just throwing out ideas)

edit to add: I want to keep discrediting IBR as an option to consider from day one. IBR really isn't relief if you are going to have massive debt hanging over your head for 25 years.

Being a current applicant, I wouldn't mind a link to oci threads.

I think that many people would. I'm not sure how to do it under the forum rules. And I respect the forum rules because they are designed to keep threads on topic instead of devolving into fights. I think OLs need help with getting this data but they can't post in the employment forum. Maybe post a request for OCI information about the schools you are considering in the ask a law student/grad thread?

[Paul Campos]

One of the things that prospective applicants should keep in mind is that many people in the legal profession today went to law school when going to a good state law school was basically free, if you lived in one of the many states that had at least one. Such people tend to be a really bad source for advice, as they often literally won't believe you if you try to get them up to speed on the current economics of the profession. Check out these stats for Hastings, which just raised tuition 15% to more than $46,000 per year:

Ten years ago annual in-state tuition at Hastings was $11,409. Twenty years ago it was $3,161. Twenty-five years ago it was $1,222. Here are these figures in inflation-adjusted 2012 dollars: 2004: $25,489; 2002: $14,610; 1992: $5,910; 1987: $2,478.

[JCougar]

The real problem is that these issues have been apparent for 4 years now. And very few are taking leadership roles and addressing the problem. The ABA has done nothing on this issue, and has only made some somewhat nominal changes to the way schools report employment info that some schools are already abusing. Politicians have either done nothing, or made things worse. Naive prospective students, who don't know any better, are still being taken advantage of.

My favorite solution is to have schools underwrite a portion of the debt they create. Therefore, the more they raise tuition, the more risk they take on. It would no longer be an economically wise decision to charge students what they couldn't concievably pay back given the school's placement. This would also incentivize failing out students that perform so poorly that they will be unemployable when they graduate instead of stringing them along for the final two years and sucking up their government loan money. This would also incentivize other creative solutions, such as making 1L cheaper overall to give students a chance to "try it out" for cheaper before they build up such a high sunk cost that they feel like they can't drop out (1L classes are mostly large lectures that don't require faculty-intensive resources, so why not have it be cheaper?).

[bk1]

Though they are subjective terms, I wouldn't call T14 odds "far from good." I'd call them okay, but that is just semantics.

The odds difference is huge. Yes in the end people might end up in far different places, but there is a clear objective difference between somebody betting 300k on a 50/50 bet and someone betting 300k on a 10/90 bet (these aren't meant to be reflective of school odds just to illustrate that there is a difference).

My problem with these threads that point out that something like "most people out of law school, even successful ones, are miserable" is that it acts as if there is a realistic alternative. Working fucking sucks. Deal with it. Would you rather be a barista/bartender/salesclerk/whatever? Fine go do that. But in general you are not going to be happy working. Is biglaw an order of magnitude worse? Maybe, but it's all relative. My general suggestion: stop trying to find happiness/fulfillment in a job.

Is taking on 300k risky? Of course it is. But risk does not make something inherently bad. Some people would take a 90% billionaire/10% death bet. Others wouldn't. I question whether we can create a universally satisfactory assessment of how much risk of debtpwnedness is okay (e.g. some people would prefer 10% of debtpwnage with 90% amazing outcomes, whereas others would prefer 100% chance of mediocre outcomes and 0% debtpwnage). I tend to think there are certain levels that are pretty much unacceptable across the board but even then I'm a bit skeptical when I think about it a bit.

/ramblingpost (and of course I likely have many biases, as someone attending at sticker, but as I pointed out in another thread: people like sunynp who have the opportunity not to take out significant debt for a good school have their own biases)

[bk1]

Being a current applicant, I wouldn't mind a link to oci threads.

Look at the OCI results threads (this year and last year). These will be biased in favor of good outcomes since people w/o offers are less likely to post.

Look at individual school OCI threads. These can be a bit hard to piece together due to the sheer amount of anon use, but you will likely see more of the dark side (people who are struggling).

[JCougar]

And thanks to Professors Campos and Tamanaha, among others, for helping to bring legitimacy to this issue. It is far too easy for people who live comfortably off the system to dismiss law students who complain as "whiney losers" who "don't know how good they have it"--a somewhat ironic criticism.

No generation anywhere ever has had to deal with this kind of cost of education. It's easy to ignore because few are really feeling the long-term negative consequences, and many people who feel victimized by the current system are probably to embarrassed to speak out, and many others will instinctively blame themselves.

There are some economic decisions that people should take full responsibility for. Getting an education, however, shouldn't be a life-altering gamble.

[JCougar]

My problem with these threads that point out that something like "most people out of law school, even successful ones, are miserable" is that it acts as if there is a realistic alternative. Working fucking sucks. Deal with it. Would you rather be a barista/bartender/salesclerk/whatever? Fine go do that. But in general you are not going to be happy working. Is biglaw an order of magnitude worse? Maybe, but it's all relative. My general suggestion: stop trying to find happiness/fulfillment in a job.

I actually agree with you 100% on this. Work generally does suck, and my previous industry wasn't any better than law (I actually think it was worse). Work is simply a duty you have to get done that helps build character.

The problem is the debt: it severely limits your freedom to chose your poison even if you "win," and, if you end up strking out on the law school gamble, it significantly curtails your freedom to buy a house, live a life with a reasonable amount of stress, etc.

There's no justification for tuition being where it is. $200K in tuition is beyond the cost it takes to educate a law student. A lot of that money goes to subsidize either other student scholarships, or worse, other non-law university programs.

[JCougar]

And the other thing is, even if some think T14 is a reasonable gamble at sticker, other law schools will never reduce their tuition unless the T14 do the same--as other schools are incentivized to keep it high in order to compete. If there's going to be change, it's got to start with the T14 and work its way down.

This will never happen if people keep voluntarily paying sticker. I'm not singling anyone out here, either. I'm paying about 75% of sticker at a non-T14, so I might also be part of the problem.

Law school tuition, driven by the US News rankings, no-risk government backed loan money, and greedy universities, is part of an academic arms race where competition actually creates inefficiency rather than driving down costs.

[sunynp]

My problem with these threads that point out that something like "most people out of law school, even successful ones, are miserable" is that it acts as if there is a realistic alternative. Working fucking sucks. Deal with it. Would you rather be a barista/bartender/salesclerk/whatever? Fine go do that. But in general you are not going to be happy working. Is biglaw an order of magnitude worse? Maybe, but it's all relative. My general suggestion: stop trying to find happiness/fulfillment in a job.

I actually agree with you 100% on this. Work generally does suck, and my previous industry wasn't any better than law (I actually think it was worse). Work is simply a duty you have to get done that helps build character.

The problem is the debt: it severely limits your freedom to chose your poison even if you "win," and, if you end up strking out on the law school gamble, it significantly curtails your freedom to buy a house, live a life with a reasonable amount of stress, etc.

There's no justification for tuition being where it is. $200K in tuition is beyond the cost it takes to educate a law student. A lot of that money goes to subsidize either other student scholarships, or worse, other non-law university programs.

I agree wholeheartedly with the debt being a burden for life.

And I honestly don't care if people who think they know what they are doing, or are somewhat informed, choose to roll the dice and go to school, I always wish them well.

What bothers me is that 0Ls aren't getting information that is posted even right here on this board about employment.

When people post about being happy to go to NYU at sticker, I want to be sure they understand the job situation, the number of summer jobs out there that will allow them to service their debt, how much the payment will be, and what happens if they don't get or keep a job that allows them to repay that debt.

I do understand that some people feel that have no alternatives. But going to law school doesn't mean you wont go back to being a barrista, only now you are carrying 6 figures of debt. Going to law school is no guarantee of a better employment situation for at least 50% of the grads and probably more.

[bk1]

The problem is the debt: it severely limits your freedom to chose your poison even if you "win," and, if you end up strking out on the law school gamble, it significantly curtails your freedom to buy a house, live a life with a reasonable amount of stress, etc.

There's no justification for tuition being where it is. $200K in tuition is beyond the cost it takes to educate a law student. A lot of that money goes to subsidize either other student scholarships, or worse, other non-law university programs.

I agree tuition shouldn't be this high but we can't change that. It is what it is.

I agree that being debtpwned is stressful, but that's part of the risk I mentioned above. Would you take a bet where you had a 90% chance of getting a $1mill and a 10% chance of owing $1mill? What about 70/30? 60/40? I agree that law school shouldn't be that risky, but it is so instead of starting at the point "what should it be" we should be starting at the point of "well it is that way, what decision should be made."

For people who miss biglaw and are debtpwned, do you think they could have bought a house had they just not gone to law school? I think the problem with that specific idea is that people generally aren't willing to accept that maybe not everybody (or even not most people) will be able to or should own a home.

And the other thing is, even if some think T14 is a reasonable gamble at sticker, other law schools will never reduce their tuition unless the T14 do the same--as other schools are incentivized to keep it high in order to compete. If there's going to be change, it's got to start with the T14 and work its way down.

This will never happen if people keep voluntarily paying sticker. I'm not singling anyone out here, either. I'm paying about 75% of sticker at a non-T14, so I might also be part of the problem.

Law school tuition, driven by the US News rankings, no-risk government backed loan money, and greedy universities, is part of an academic arms race where competition actually creates inefficiency rather than driving down costs.

As noted above, I think this is useless discussion. While objectively true, I am highly skeptical that anything will change.

[bk1]

When people post about being happy to go to NYU at sticker, I want to be sure they understand the job situation, the number of summer jobs out there that will allow them to service their debt, how much the payment will be, and what happens if they don't get or keep a job that allows them to repay that debt.

This might be just me, but I think you misinterpret happy for the well-informed. I am happy to go to a T14 at sticker versus going to a lower ranked school at sticker (or even a lower ranked school at decent schooly). Am I objectively happy about it? Possible. On the whole, I consider it a net positive. That doesn't mean I am particularly effusive about attending a T14 at sticker.

[sunynp]

The problem is the debt: it severely limits your freedom to chose your poison even if you "win," and, if you end up strking out on the law school gamble, it significantly curtails your freedom to buy a house, live a life with a reasonable amount of stress, etc.

There's no justification for tuition being where it is. $200K in tuition is beyond the cost it takes to educate a law student. A lot of that money goes to subsidize either other student scholarships, or worse, other non-law university programs.

I agree tuition shouldn't be this high but we can't change that. It is what it is.

I agree that being debtpwned is stressful, but that's part of the risk I mentioned above. Would you take a bet where you had a 90% chance of getting a $1mill and a 10% chance of owing $1mill? What about 70/30? 60/40? I agree that law school shouldn't be that risky, but it is so instead of starting at the point "what should it be" we should be starting at the point of "well it is that way, what decision should be made."

For people who miss biglaw and are debtpwned, do you think they could have bought a house had they just not gone to law school? I think the problem with that specific idea is that people generally aren't willing to accept that maybe not everybody (or even not most people) will be able to or should own a home.

I agree with the "well it is this way, so what is the best move for the future." There remains a huge information disconnect even though it is massively improved over even a year ago. (remember when schools didn't disclose fellowships and,once the numbers were released, people were shocked at the number of them from top schools? We still don't know how much these fellowships even pay across the board.")

I just want people to think hard about that debt. Repaying so much money is a long hard slog, even if you are making $160,000. Most grads will not be making that much, so what will they do? I remember bitching about all the 0LS who posted budgets on repaying debt based on biglaw, but no one posted a budget of what would happen if they were unemployed or on IBR.

[JCougar]

I really do know quite a few T14 graduates that are boned. One of my friends just graduated from Michigan near the bottom of the class. His fault? Maybe, but he's a smart guy, and everyone that goes to that school is smart. Can you really blame him for not beating such a flat curve? Just not good at law school exams. I think he's doing public interest on a stipend temporarily.

And I don't even want to begin discussing my school.

[bk1]

I really do know quite a few T14 graduates that are boned. One of my friends just graduated from Michigan near the bottom of the class. His fault? Maybe, but he's a smart guy, and everyone that goes to that school is smart. Can you really blame him for not beating such a flat curve? Just not good at law school exams. I think he's doing public interest on a stipend temporarily.

Knowing quite a few T14 people being screwed is normal and I wouldn't blame his performance on him due to the curve. That's because around 1/4 (possibly more) will be objectively fucked (though maybe not if they're debt-free). But just because they are large in number (there are hundreds of people graduating in the bottom 1/4 of T14s every year) doesn't mean that T14s at sticker are a bad bet. They might be a bad bet, but it isn't because of the high absolute number of people who are boned.

[JCougar]

Knowing quite a few T14 people being screwed is normal and I wouldn't blame his performance on him due to the curve. That's because around 1/4 (possibly more) will be objectively fucked (though maybe not if they're debt-free). But just because they are large in number (there are hundreds of people graduating in the bottom 1/4 of T14s every year) doesn't mean that T14s at sticker are a bad bet. They might be a bad bet, but it isn't because of the high absolute number of people who are boned.

I can't disagree with what you are saying here. My point is that a T14 at sticker is fare from a "safe" bet. It may be a "good" bet for some, or a risk some are more than willing to take, but it's not safe.

Also, it seems like more than the bottom 25% of most T14s are boned these days. Seems like it's creeping up toward the bottom 50%, especially if you are in the schools ranked 7-14.

[sunynp]

I really do know quite a few T14 graduates that are boned. One of my friends just graduated from Michigan near the bottom of the class. His fault? Maybe, but he's a smart guy, and everyone that goes to that school is smart. Can you really blame him for not beating such a flat curve? Just not good at law school exams. I think he's doing public interest on a stipend temporarily.

And I don't even want to begin discussing my school.

See, I think this person who is good enough to get into Michigan but not beat the curve is a more common example than we see here on TLS. He probably is smart enough to have worked until he found something else instead of law school. Or gone back and into another field altogether.

It is frustrating to me because i feel like in addition to trying to explain to people why law school is bad, I also have to find them another career. There are jobs that aren't being a barrista (not that there is anything wrong with that). I know there was one girl last year who went to American over strong TLS objections because she couldn't find a job in her field. What else did she consider?

I understand that if you live in rural Ohio, like my cousin, law school looks like a better option that being a manager at the local chain ice cream store. But my cousin can only get into the University of Dayton. So, does that mean she should go because she can't find another option immediately where she lives? Does that argument hold here? She can't find a job she wants now but law school won't give her one either. How is that different from the vast majority of grads?

Or could she consider some more training or doing something else? Her sister got a masters in some kind of counseling and now works for the probation department. She got that degree at some TTT school in Ohio for not too much and went on Saturdays for a couple of years (her job might have even help her pay for it.) She isn't making a ton of money, but she has no debt and is supporting herself at a more than decent level for rural Ohio income.

How is the argument about why my cousin shouldn't go to Dayton any different with other law schools at sticker? If you go to a T14 and end up unemployed with a school fellowship, you are not in any better shape than my cousin would be. It is simply a matter of the odds you will get a job. If you don't get a job you will be just as fucked financially as my cousin if she ends up going to Dayton Law School. You will both be on IBR for 25 years.

Just because an immediate better option isn't obvious right now, that doesn't mean going to law school now is a good move.

[JCougar]

Two of my three best friends both have advanced degrees in engineering. One had his Master's paid for by his work, the other had his PhD paid for plus a cost of living stipend by a grant from NASA. Both had their parents pay for undergrad.

They were both making 6-figures before they were 30 with zero school debt. They both own large homes already. One just refinanced his 30-year mortgage to a 15-year one because he is in such good financial shape.

I am not sure I will ever own a home for as long as I live.

[bk1]

How is the argument about why my cousin shouldn't go to Dayton any different with other law schools at sticker? If you go to a T14 and end up unemployed with a school fellowship, you are not in any better shape than my cousin would be. It is simply a matter of the odds you will get a job. If you don't get a job you will be just as fucked financially as my cousin if she ends up going to Dayton Law School. You will both be on IBR for 25 years.

It is extremely different. That being said, you're basically advocating an extremely cautious approach to choosing a school (which is fine). For some people, the only acceptable amount of risk of death life-ending debtpwnage is 0, but you have to realize that this is inherently subjective. Some people would easily take a 99% chance at $1mill with a 1% chance of death, others would not.

[JCougar]

http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot. ... ssets.html

I think this may have already been posted, but it belongs in this thread.

George Washington, Michigan, and even Columbia are padding their employment stats with programs like these. At least these people are able to learn some practical skills.

[sunynp]

How is the argument about why my cousin shouldn't go to Dayton any different with other law schools at sticker? If you go to a T14 and end up unemployed with a school fellowship, you are not in any better shape than my cousin would be. It is simply a matter of the odds you will get a job. If you don't get a job you will be just as fucked financially as my cousin if she ends up going to Dayton Law School. You will both be on IBR for 25 years.

It is extremely different. That being said, you're basically advocating an extremely cautious approach to choosing a school (which is fine). For some people, the only acceptable amount of risk of death life-ending debtpwnage is 0, but you have to realize that this is inherently subjective. Some people would easily take a 99% chance at $1mill with a 1% chance of death, others would not.

Please explain to me how it is extremely different if they both end up unemployed at graduation? Where is the T14 grad getting a job? (this is a sincere question because they seem to end up at small firms or doc review or possibly some in-house gig? They aren't getting biglaw and what midlaw firm is hiring someone who is past their sell-by date? ) I don't know where these unemployed T14 people eventually get jobs, but I think almost all of them will be on IBR.

How different is this from a similar small firm that my cousin could possibly get with her ties and connections to Dayton? The head of one of the PD offices was in her parents wedding; her step-father was a minor city councilman or something like that and knows the local politics; they belong to the local TTT but exclusive country club and know people from there; her sister has connections to lots of small firms through defense attorneys; she teaches riding lessons to kids of some well-connected to small firms Dayton lawyers; the headquarters of Lexis/Nexis is there and some large firm has one of their off-site offices in Dayton

What better job is the unemployed T14 grad getting after 9 months or more of unemployment?

At the end of the day, they will probably both be making payments on IBR and possibly living at home.

[bk1]

Please explain to me how it is extremely different if they both end up unemployed at graduation?

Uhh, I wasn't saying that if they both end up unemployed that they would be different. I was responding to what you said (pertinent part enlarged):

How is the argument about why my cousin shouldn't go to Dayton any different with other law schools at sticker?

We are talking about going, which is a pre-law school decision. You're basically claiming that because both have a chance of screwing you that they are the same thing and completely ignoring the fact that how large or small the chance is makes a very large difference. As I said above, you are arguing that the only amount of risk of debtpwnage acceptable is 0. I can understand that, but that doesn't mean that Dayton/T14 are the same thing (though if you are arguing that the only acceptable amount of risk is 0 then the same argument cuts against both of them at sticker).

I think we can respectfully disagree about whether the acceptable amount is 0 or nonzero.