Student Loans

The New Way To Pay Back Educational Debt: Sell A Kidney!

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I don't care how it works, just give me my degree.

My wife and I have made this proposal to our Harvard creditors: they forgive our debt, we give the school a baby. A “pure-bred” Harvard baby that Harvard can dress up or perform experiments on or whatever. It will have to be a black baby, which might underwhelm some Harvard officials, but that’s got to be canceled out by the fact that the media won’t much care about what Harvard wants to do to/with a black baby. The “where’s the justice of Caylee????!!!!!” crowd won’t be on their ass.

I think it’s an elegant solution. My wife thinks I’m getting off easy (because my “contribution” to this form of debt repayment would once again be de minimis). And our creditors say: “We only accept straight cash, homey.”

But I’m just ahead of my time. In the U.K., people are already suggesting that indebted students should be given the opportunity to barter down their loans with sacrifices of the flesh….

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Quote of the Day: If I could save just one lamb….

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I recently graduated from a state school in the California State University system as a Philosophy major. My original plan was to go to law school, but I am now thinking I may want to go into accounting instead (due to the terrible job market for lawyers and the 150k debt I’d be faced with).

Particularly, I would like to work at a Big 4 firm. Is this change possible?

— from a question sent into the advice column of Going Concern (the accounting world’s answer to Above the Law). Note the questioner’s less-than-stellar undergraduate GPA.

Debt Ceiling Deal Includes Last-Second Screwing Of Graduate Students

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The worst thing about being betrayed is the loss of innocence and optimism that forever changes the victim of the betrayal. The reality is so stark you can literally see it on people’s faces as they realize the extent to which an ally has turned on them. Robert the Bruce saw it on William Wallace’s face in Braveheart. My wife saw it on my face when Obama agreed to the debt ceiling deal. And you are going to see it on the faces of the young and educated when they realize that, once again, the president has sold them down the river for the cause of electoral expediency, even as Obama’s numbers drop so low that his heat can only be measured in Kelvin degrees.

In the total debt ceiling cave-in that will mark Barack Obama as the most successful Republican president since Ronald Reagan, there was one cut that really illustrates how little the president cares for his young, college-educated constituents. To save about $26.3 billion dollars, the debt ceiling deal eliminates the graduate student loan subsidy. That means that law students (and other grad students) will continue accruing interest on their non-dischargeable educational loans throughout their graduate studies.

I can see why they call education the “silver bullet,” because education certainly seems like a surefire way to kill one’s economic future….

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University of Baltimore Tries To Keep The Devil Way Down In The Hole

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HBO should make a show about law school. It should be called "The Faculty," and in the final season the law school should get sued.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to be playing Tommy Carcetti of The Wire. University of Baltimore President Robert L. Bogomolny has to be Clarence Royce. Outgoing U. Baltimore Law dean Philip Closius gets to be a disgruntled Cedric Daniels. All the UB Law students are the hoppers in Hamsterdam.

On Friday, Dean Closius blew the lid off the way the University of Baltimore has been making money off the backs of the UB Law School, despite the down legal economy. Evidently, the UB administration took the weekend to examine its motives. Then, on Monday, UB President Bogomolny struck back hard. He sent an open letter to the U. Baltimore community (and the media), disputing Closius’s claims.

Oh, the University still takes money from the law school. A lot of it. President Bogomolny just claims that the University retains less than Closius says it does.

Yes, these kinds of “juking the stats” discussions are usually handled behind closed doors, but now we all get to see it…

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A Resigning Law Dean Spills The Beans On The Fleecing Of Law Students

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Are law students being financially victimized by their universities?

It’s the not-so-veiled secret of the law school tuition game: law schools are the cash cows of the university system. University presidents, often feeling a budget crunch from a decrease in state educational funding or weak, recession-era fundraising initiatives, know they can get cash out of law schools. For some reason, law students always seem willing to pay more for the same education.

When the New York Times wrote its big exposé on law school funding, I highlighted this exact issue. The most interesting part of that Times article was the research David Segal did into how much money universities take from law school coffers. After the article went up, I wrote: “[N]obody in their right mind would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get additional education in some of this crap, because they know they’ll never make enough to justify the cost. The university needs to subsidize that education in some way — and so they turn to law schools.”

Apparently, we didn’t know the half of it. One brave law school dean has been asked to tender his resignation by his university president. On his way out of the door, the dean decided to shine a light on the whole ugly mess of law school economics…

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The Broken Law School Model: What Is To Be Done?

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Yale Law School

Here at Above the Law, we’ve been discussing problems with the current law school model for quite some time now. My colleague Elie Mystal, for example, has railed against the high cost of law school, the crippling debt taken on by many law students, and the scarcity of jobs waiting for them on the other side.

By now we’re all aware of the problems. What about possible solutions?

In the wake of David Segal’s most recent New York Times exposé on law school shenanigans, the Times’s Room for Debate section solicited perspectives from a number of experts — including yours truly — on whether and how to reform legal education.

The responses are quite interesting. Let’s check them out, shall we?

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Thomas Jefferson Law: Is The Answer Worse Than The Allegations?

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Ever since Anna Alaburda sued Thomas Jefferson School of Law over its allegedly misleading employment statistics, we’ve been waiting for TJSL to respond. Today is that day, and the school’s answer does not disappoint.

The school has filed two documents in response to Alaburda’s complaint. We’ve uploaded their demurrer and their motion to strike. They are not long; you should flip through them.

Thomas Jefferson makes a solid defense of itself. But in the process of trying to quash Alaburda’s lawsuit, the school offers some pretty damning admissions that seem to support Alaburda’s underlying moral, if not legal, point…

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Law Schools Head To The Bunker To Avoid New York Times Fallout

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And now comes the part in our story where law school administrations, stung by the criticism they just received in the New York Times, start spinning. Yes, yesterday the Times exposed the law school business model to a horrified public of non-lawyers. Today, law schools are obligated to say, “No, no, no, that’s not our business model.”

It’s a perfect response. Law students already believe that they are special and will somehow overcome various odds stacked against them, and so they are particularly susceptible to the argument that while other law schools might have problems, the school they picked is the honorable school standing apart from the disreputable actions of others.

It’s like when women say “I have the best husband in the world.” Sure, 90% of husbands hate chick flicks, wish there was a way to get a hot meal without listening to your BS, and would bone Angelina Jolie 30 times in a row before they even remembered your name, but you found the best husband evah! Because you are so damn smart and discerning.

A bunch of law schools have tried to distinguish themselves from New York Law School since this weekend’s article, but the most outstanding example of this kind of distancing comes from: New York Law School….

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The Times ‘Unearths’ The Law School Scam, But Still Can’t Explain It

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Over the weekend, you may have noticed that the New York Times suddenly figured out that law schools are cash cows despite offering dubious value to the students attending law school. We pulled out a fun quote from the article on Sunday.

You know the game: we talk about the danger of going to law school a lot, but because the New York Times is talking about it now we all have to talk about it again.

If you haven’t been paying attention to how law schools operate, the Times article is very, very good. It should be required reading that they send to you when you sign up with LSAC. But even if you have been paying attention, you should still read it. The article, by David Segal, contains a brilliant case study of just how New York Law School goes about generating cash. It’ll make good people sick to their stomachs.

But while the Times takes a critical look at law school deans and university presidents and even U.S. News, one constituency escapes the NYT’s glare: law students themselves…

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And Now The ABA Has Bi-Partisan Pressure To Actually Regulate Law Schools

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When Republicans start asking an organization to make more use of its regulatory authority, you know that organization has grossly failed its mandate.

We’ve documented the pressure Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has been putting on the ABA. Yesterday, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) decided to join the party. He also wrote a letter to the ABA asking it to “account for its work on behalf of both law students and taxpayers.”

Grassley’s on the Senate Judiciary committee. I bet the ABA will want to stay on his good side….

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Non-Sequiturs: 07.12.11

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* TLC’s Sister Wives are challenging Utah’s bigamy laws. More power to these polygamist people, especially the men. They deserve some credit for tolerating a handful of wives. [Jonathan Turley]

* Screw law students, we need to keep our professors employed. This is definitely the most important thing the ABA needs to worry about right now. [TaxProf Blog]

* Even though the fan who caught the ball on Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit is swimming in student loans, he may still have to pony up taxes on all of his new Yankees loot. [Going Concern]

* We all know Julian Assange doesn’t want to get extradited to Sweden because no one understands zeeur phuenteec lungooege-a boollsheet. Börk, börk, börk! [Constitutional Daily]

* A PA restaurant is banning kids under 6 because they are LOUD, NOISY a-holes. Parents, WHY do you think it’s okay to bring your kids to a restaurant if they can’t behave? I’ll never get this. [CNN]

* Crackpot Law, starring Herb Titus and Michele Bachmann. You better get armed and dangerous in God’s Law and “normal people values” if you know what’s good for you. [Religion Dispatches]

* If you think that your law school loans ruined your credit, you should try being “dead.” [ABA Journal]

Private Funding of Public Law Schools = Bad News For Future Law Students

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Do you know an easy way for moderately priced public law schools to make even more money? Charge more for tuition. Do you know an easy justification for jacking up tuition rates? Say that you are moving to a “private funding model” while you bemoan the lack of public support for your institution.

After that, it’s all profit baby!

The big news in the law school hot stove league is that another major public law school is toying with moving to a private funding model. The logic for eschewing public funds for an increase in private dollars is, as always, disingenuous. But hey, as long as the law school keeps paying its tithe to the university, few will object to increased gouging of prospective law students…

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