Is offering the Hamilton morally wrong? Forum

[LexLeon]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkrau ... olarships/

What would be the downside, to a reasonable person behind the veil of ignorance, if every school offered only need-based aid?

Edited (the title).

[sublime]

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[guano]

merit scholars will tend to be more intelligent and from tonier zip codes

poorer, less well-educated students ... richer, better-educated students

I love the implication that more intelligent people come from richer backgrounds

[xRON MEXiCOx]

merit scholars will tend to be more intelligent and from tonier zip codes

poorer, less well-educated students ... richer, better-educated students

I love the implication that more intelligent people come from richer backgrounds

That's not what the author is saying, you idiot. He is saying that people from richer backgrounds have access to higher quality education (which is true).

[n1o2c3a4c5h6e7t]

If the two options are:

1.) have academically inferior/lazy students subsidize the academically superior/harder working students

2.) have the middle class/rich subsidize the poor

I will always support 1 over 2 because I believe in meritocracies. Plus, it's not like this concretizes and further stratifies socioeconomic statuses. The academically inferior/lazy students can always go to slightly lesser ranked schools for full tuition scholarships. That they sometimes don't is a choice.

I suppose an argument could be made for having everybody pay the same rate, but that would give students far less control over their financial situation. If someone is stupid enough to take out more debt than they can swallow, that is their own damn fault. Don't pity ignorance.

[FOM]

merit scholars will tend to be more intelligent and from tonier zip codes

poorer, less well-educated students ... richer, better-educated students

I love the implication that more intelligent people come from richer backgrounds

That's not what the author is saying, you idiot. He is saying that people from richer backgrounds have access to higher quality education (which is true).

[TigerDude]

The author leaves out what he (or she?) thinks is the alternative. Law schools compete on price alone? Columbia would cost $80k per year and Cooley would be $8k? That just lets rich kids go where they want.

Before the LSAT, law admissions was a class game where top undergrads admitted legacies & top law schools took top undergrad schools.

[PrideandGlory1776]

No - merit scholarships are what makes the system worthwhile - everyone getting the same scholarship or getting no scholarship sounds about as American as a one party government controlling all the means of production, labor and private property - wonderfully communist and incredibly stupid.

[sublime]

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[LexLeon]

No - merit scholarships are what makes the system worthwhile - everyone getting the same scholarship or getting no scholarship sounds about as American as a one party government controlling all the means of production, labor and private property - wonderfully communist and incredibly stupid.

So, you believe that the financial aid practices of Harvard, Yale, and Stanford are "incredibly stupid" and, with respect to them, "the system [is not] worthwhile"?

I'm unsure whether you understood an implication of my first post. If all the relevant schools switched to providing only need-based aid, all students would inevitably not receive the the same amount of aid.

[prezidentv8]

The 'Murica and "meritocracy" shit is entertaining and sad.


The most reasonable alternative would be need based aid only.

[Gooner91]

No - merit scholarships are what makes the system worthwhile - everyone getting the same scholarship or getting no scholarship sounds about as American as a one party government controlling all the means of production, labor and private property - wonderfully communist and incredibly stupid.

I think the alternative was need based aid not everyone getting the same scholarship, FYI. But this is 'merica not communist Russia works too...

[manu6926]

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[PotenC]

I think it's fairly reasonable to assume that SES tends to positively correlate with academic performance, the latter of which includes performance on the LSAT. --ImageRemoved--

[Iroh]

No - merit scholarships are what makes the system worthwhile - everyone getting the same scholarship or getting no scholarship sounds about as American as a one party government controlling all the means of production, labor and private property - wonderfully communist and incredibly stupid.

So, you believe that the financial aid practices of Harvard, Yale, and Stanford are "incredibly stupid" and, with respect to them, "the system [is not] worthwhile"?

I'm unsure whether you understood an implication of my first post. If all the relevant schools switched to providing only need-based aid, all students would inevitably not receive the the same amount of aid.

The financial aid policy of Harvard, Yale and Stanford make sense for those schools because they are the elite of the elite. If schools ranked lower than HYS were to adopt the same policy, how could they expect to attract students of HYS caliber? It seems like they would have to be content with attracting a lower caliber of students. The students it would graduate would, overall, be less successful, reducing the desirability of the institution both to future students and employers.

While the current financial aid policy of most law schools is not egalitarian in nature, I don't believe it is the responsibility of law schools to promote egalitarianism.

[09042014]

Merit scholarships are a huge waste of money. Schools throw huge money at students barely more qualified than their average student just to game USNEWs. It's stupid.

The fact that they do this by using Federal PLUS loan money should be, but isn't currently, criminal.

However, need aid is pointless for the professional level. Everyone has a college degree. That puts them at an equal footing, especially since families don't typically pay grad school tuition. A person whose mom is poor as fuck has just as much need as someone whose parents make 150k and live in Northern Virginia. Probably 75%+ of students aren't getting any help from family, at all. So need aid just doesn't make sense.

The cost of legal education is so damn high than only really wealthy students can really get significant aid from their family.

[Cinderella]

Cutting merit scholarships could disincentivize doing public interest work. If you go into law school knowing you want to do PI, you can take a scholarship at a lower ranked school. If you don't have that option, you'll go to the highest ranked school, and then probably pursue biglaw to service the debt.

[SFrost]

However, need aid is pointless for the professional level. Everyone has a college degree. That puts them at an equal footing, especially since families don't typically pay grad school tuition. A person whose mom is poor as fuck has just as much need as someone whose parents make 150k and live in Northern Virginia. Probably 75%+ of students aren't getting any help from family, at all. So need aid just doesn't make sense.

You completely miss the point of need-based aid. Someone who never met their father and has a disabled, unemployed mother assumes more risk going in debt than someone with a huge fall-back system in the form of family.

Even if your family doesn't intend to help with law school, if you come from an upper middle class background (which a large portion of law students do) then you assume less risk than someone with no support system.

[SFrost]

Cutting merit scholarships could disincentivize doing public interest work. If you go into law school knowing you want to do PI, you can take a scholarship at a lower ranked school. If you don't have that option, you'll go to the highest ranked school, and then probably pursue biglaw to service the debt.

Cutting merit scholarships does not mean you can't have PI-based scholarships. Apples and oranges.

[Cicero76]

I like how his article said "Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc." can afford not to offer any merit aid. Who the hell is the "etc?" Does he not know of the existence of the Hamilton and Ruby?

[UnicornHunter]

Merit scholarships are a huge waste of money. Schools throw huge money at students barely more qualified than their average student just to game USNEWs. It's stupid.

The fact that they do this by using Federal PLUS loan money should be, but isn't currently, criminal.

However, need aid is pointless for the professional level. Everyone has a college degree. That puts them at an equal footing, especially since families don't typically pay grad school tuition. A person whose mom is poor as fuck has just as much need as someone whose parents make 150k and live in Northern Virginia. Probably 75%+ of students aren't getting any help from family, at all. So need aid just doesn't make sense.

The cost of legal education is so damn high than only really wealthy students can really get significant aid from their family.

Exactly. Need based aid is stupid for professional schools. There's no reason a middle class student should end up with six figures of non-dischargeable debt to subsidize the legal education of another student. Tuition could be reduced for everyone if schools just stopped giving all forms of scholarships.

[burtmacklin]

Merit scholarships are a huge waste of money. Schools throw huge money at students barely more qualified than their average student just to game USNEWs. It's stupid.

The fact that they do this by using Federal PLUS loan money should be, but isn't currently, criminal.

However, need aid is pointless for the professional level. Everyone has a college degree. That puts them at an equal footing, especially since families don't typically pay grad school tuition. A person whose mom is poor as fuck has just as much need as someone whose parents make 150k and live in Northern Virginia. Probably 75%+ of students aren't getting any help from family, at all. So need aid just doesn't make sense.

The cost of legal education is so damn high than only really wealthy students can really get significant aid from their family.

EXACTLY. Who's to say who truly needs aid more than others? If my parents make an average income and I'm being compared to someone whose parents make below average income, but neither of us are receiving help from our parents to mitigate the cost of LS, then why should that person graduate with less debt than I do? Just because my parents might be better suited to take me in once I'm jobless and suicidal and another student's aren't?

[09042014]

However, need aid is pointless for the professional level. Everyone has a college degree. That puts them at an equal footing, especially since families don't typically pay grad school tuition. A person whose mom is poor as fuck has just as much need as someone whose parents make 150k and live in Northern Virginia. Probably 75%+ of students aren't getting any help from family, at all. So need aid just doesn't make sense.

You completely miss the point of need-based aid. Someone who never met their father and has a disabled, unemployed mother assumes more risk going in debt than someone with a huge fall-back system in the form of family.

Even if your family doesn't intend to help with law school, if you come from an upper middle class background (which a large portion of law students do) then you assume less risk than someone with no support system.

Not with the federal loan repayment options based on income (IBR and PAYE). That eliminates people from getting their wages garnished and from not being able to afford basics.

[Cinderella]

Cutting merit scholarships could disincentivize doing public interest work. If you go into law school knowing you want to do PI, you can take a scholarship at a lower ranked school. If you don't have that option, you'll go to the highest ranked school, and then probably pursue biglaw to service the debt.

Cutting merit scholarships does not mean you can't have PI-based scholarships. Apples and oranges.

How do you decide who gets a PI scholarship? Everyone who wants one? If not, then it still disincentivizes PI for those who don't get one, and possibly becomes a de-facto merit scholarship.

[09042014]

Cutting merit scholarships could disincentivize doing public interest work. If you go into law school knowing you want to do PI, you can take a scholarship at a lower ranked school. If you don't have that option, you'll go to the highest ranked school, and then probably pursue biglaw to service the debt.

Cutting merit scholarships does not mean you can't have PI-based scholarships. Apples and oranges.

How do you decide who gets a PI scholarship? Everyone who wants one? If not, then it still disincentivizes PI for those who don't get one, and possibly becomes a de-facto merit scholarship.

Schools already have ridiculously generous LRAP programs.

Hell just the public interest debt forgiveness is all the encouragement PI folks need.