Been a while since I posted on the law school scam but here goes.
Across the country approximately 50,000 students have begun their law school education. Congratulations, idiots! You couldn't have picked a worse time in recent US history to attend law school as you're all buying into a overpriced product with little in potential yield. Back in the fall of 2006 when my class was beginning we at least had a booming economy (or so we thought) as a backdrop in support of our decisions. Scam blogs did not exist and the mainstream media was in love with law schools. Enter 2011 and there is a world of notice that attending law school at the present time is a terrible financial decision.
By simply googling "law school" you will see link after link trashing American law schools as a scam and a ripoff. Even conservative articles question the decision to attend law school at these nosebleed prices. JD Underground has been trashing law schools for years but most recently the word has spread to Top Law School Forums, a place where the lemmings congregate and discuss their futures as biglaw associates working on complex matters regarding intergalactic trade between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. But let me tell you inter-galactic space law is thought provoking and challenging. Han Solo was at my latest deposition and was telling me how the black-hole quasar Appeals Court was introducing new methods to assist with different languages amongst attorneys from different worlds. It was great.
Back to reality. In three years from now after you have graduated and taken the lovely bar exam, you will begin to get your first loan payment letter. And you better have the money otherwise you will be stuck in the terrible hell of student loan default where your credit will get shot and the only car loan you can dream of getting qualified for will be for one with 20% interest. Of course there is the option of IBR, but do realize that the government only subsidizes federal loans, not private loans. If you ever do make decent money, expect to pay a monster principal as the interest accrues during hard times. The other day I spoke with a old classmate that had his loans down to 80k, hit a 2 year rough patch of unemployment, and is now staring at 200k in debt. There goes any dream of buying a house or a decent car.
So have fun reading about the rule of perpetuities and future interests. Don't forget about the fun stuff you will learn in Civil Procedure I with "personal jurisdiction" being a personal favorite. The next time I file a rear end complaint I will add that personal jurisdiction requirements have been satisfied, in honor of you law school lemmings that will further enrich the pockets of the greedy professorship which thrives off your ignorance. And the next time you cower in fear over being "called" in class on a case, try reading lawprof's blog as he clearly states that half of them don't know much more about the subject they are teaching other than the information on the outline they have been reading from for the past decade.
For those that are attending the lower tiered schools with no scholarships or financial backing, you are by far the biggest retards of all. Have fun graduating with over $150,000.00 in debt with absolutely horrid job prospects. If you haven't taken your heads out of your asses, three law schools have already been sued in class action lawsuits for fraud and cooking the books re employment data and there will be more to follow. Surely you say to yourselves "well they must be losers, I am different and will succeed." Sure, some of you will, but many will join the dustbin of student loan default hell and in the end you will join the rest of us in bashing the system. I'm confident by the time you graduate that the law school cartel will be in complete disarray as federal funding will get cut when it is widely known that default rates at this third tier toilets are north of 30 percent, if not more.
Most of the members of my class did not have notice. You young fools on the other hand have a world of it. Just open your eyes and do some simple research and see that if you have to finance law school, especially a lower tiered one, you are not only wasting your precious time, but also are risking your financial and emotional well-being. All for what, to have your chance in the courtroom? Or to work as a director at a Fortune 500 company supported by your law school credentials? Give me fucking break. Instead, you will probably work on the low end of the legal caste system, not that there is anything necessarily wrong with that but with debt north of 150k you wont be able to pay back your loans. In fact, the only salvation this class will have is if the loans are obliterated in hyperinflation which high priest Bernanke may possibly bring upon us with his madness. But even then you will have wasted your time as demand for legal services in this country will continue to fall.
Congratulations for buying at the very top of the law school bubble. But there is still time to get the fuck out of the law school trap. Some will run for their lives. Most will stay. Economic Darwinism is at play motherfuckers.
You have been warned
Subprime JD: A blog dedicated to exposing the law school and higher education scam.
What if the lemmings end up as Notes Editor on their commode's tertiary Intergalactic Space Law and Entertainment Journal?
ReplyDeleteA fair amount of self-centered ass-hats will converge on law schools, for the foreseeable future. Such hard-headed cretins overstate their personal abilities, while downplaying the strengths of their competition. Cognitive dissonance at play.
The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qrriKcwvlY
I know a bloke who is considering getting an MBA.
ReplyDeleteAre there any MBA-related blogs?
"Of course there is the option of IBR, but do realize that the government only subsidizes federal loans, not private loans."
ReplyDeleteIBR accomplishes the following things:
1) Temporarily avoids default
2) Destroys credit
3) Incentivizes you to stay poor (Start making too much, disqualified, all that accrued interest comes roaring back)
When people sing the praises of IBR as the light, it's about time for a debtor's revolt
Excellent.
ReplyDeleteBack in 2006 there was only good press about $3000 per week SA's. Scamblogs were practically non-existent. NOBODY wrote about law school as a risk.
To 1L's:
ReplyDeleteIt's the last week of August.
There's still time to get out without paying a dime!
If you don't go to Yale, GET OUT NOW!
There are more than enough scamblogs than there were 2-3 years ago to wake you up before you continue on with this life-altering mistake.
You will be punished for your pride, blindness, and hardness of heart. Be humble now when you have the chance.
What are the odds of winning the LAW SCHOOL LOTTERY?
ReplyDeleteThe odds are close to zero: T2 with full ride, top grades (law school and undergrad), other creds, and I'm making less than a janitor.
ReplyDeleteSubprime:
ReplyDeleteThese kids have too much working against them to listen to anyone. Even if you were able to sit them down and tell them in person, I doubt they would listen. Part of the reason why all higher education is so high is because of the demand...just like the housing market. It is not until they get out do they realize the mistake. It is sad.
At this point, if people do not want to head the warnings, I just feel sorry for the taxpayers that will most assuredly have to fit the bill here.
ReplyDeleteat 12;04 PM....
ReplyDeleteI don't think the taxpayers will ever have to foot the bill. There may be mass defaults on federal student loans but the debt will still always be paid by the borrower in one form or another. The government is in no position to waive defaulted debt or debt in good standing. They don't have the money, plus the public would never stand for it. Outside of the circle of the disgruntled, how many people really care or know about the problem?
Furthermore, while the housing market bubble and student loan/higher ed situations share similar issues, I don't think the bubble popping for the latter will be similar to the former. I am unsure as to what the higher ed bubble burst will look like. Again, mass defaults may occur but I believe the government will extract that money from the borrower.
I'm 12:04
ReplyDelete@12:21
Defaults are happening. IBR, among other things, is a default.
They do not have the money to pay it back pure and simple, you cant get blood out of a stone.
Also, I feel bad for these kids, and I do not want to see them suffer a more horrific fate than other people who made a bad financial decision (everyone should be able to go bankrupt).
As such, at a minimum the rules should change for those going forward.
At 2:24 PM:
ReplyDeleteA few things. I hope that everyone will be able to bk these loans (as an option). Past borrowers as well. It would be a travesty to not let the nearly one trillion in debt already accumulated by borrowers bk-able. I also think re-financing post-consolidation should be allowed as well as capitalization abolished.
FYI: IBR is not a default. Under federal rules, a default occurs when no payment has been received for 270 consecutive days. IBR does require payments. About IBR: It is still not a deal. The borrower will get taxed at the end once the debt is waived. If they slip out of the program for whatever reason (job loss, higher paying job) the "waived" debt comes due. This is scary. It is another program designed to give the borrower a sense of security when in reality, it is just another road to serfdom.
I feel bad for these kids, just like you. I don't think the current system can exist much longer.
@ 3:01, the Federal definition is there to ensure that the what is actually a default is not classified as such. The IBR mechanism is the same thing. Illusions to deal with the real issue that there is a mass default now.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, we agree.
@ 3:07
ReplyDeleteGot it. I see what you are saying.
It would be interesting to see what percent of student loans are on IBR now combined with the actual default rate over the life of all current federal loans. In other words, no cohort default rate. I would bet, even now, the default rate is near 40% when the two are combined. Scary to think what the default rate will be in three years when more people have signed up for IBR. I think, as you say, it is an illusion. The true scary part is that college costs keep rising and yet post-college job wages are stagnating-assuming a graduate can even find a job!.
Alan Collinge, on his website, goes into an interesting analysis of the actual default rate vs. the cohort default rate. So many lobbying groups want to keep the cohort default rate at two years. When it is moved out to three or five years, the results are mind-blowing.
Subprime: I think I understand what you're saying when you state that if hyperinflation hits, then student loans may be "obliterated." But I just want to make sure I have it correct as I'm an economics neophyte. Here's my understanding:
ReplyDeleteIf hyperinflation hits, all of a sudden the value of the dollar goes in the toilet and the money that the banks lent to students is suddenly worth nowhere near as much as it was when it was lent. This fact makes a return on the bank's investment (the loan plus interest which gives the bank a profit) impossible, so the loans are forgiven because there's no longer any profit incentive in it for banks.
Am I understanding this correctly? Thanks and love the blog!
@ 6:47 above
ReplyDeleteHyperinflation occurs when there is a loss of faith in the currency, when no one wants to carry it anymore. In the event the USD suffers from hyperinflation (low probability but highly catastrophic event) all debts will be wiped clear. If you read up on German hyperinflation it constituted a wealth transfer from creditors to debtors.
"Part of the reason why all higher education is so high is because of the demand...just like the housing market. It is not until they get out do they realize the mistake"
ReplyDeletewhoever said that line on this board is spot on.
SubPrime
ReplyDeleteWould the default rates on student loans out of law school, particularly 3rd/4th tiers serve as the real actual figure, or at least a very strong indicator of the bleakness in the job market within this profession?
I think this figure alone could tell prospective students tons about what is really going on after you get licensed.
Check out amazon mechanical turk. Neat idea. I calculate that, if I really worked hard, I could make about $.50/hour, or $5 for a 10 hour day. That is where wages are heading folks. We are now in competition with Bangladesh.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the smart thing to do is come up with something similar to Amazon mechanical turk. Hire yourself out to Americans while prices here are still fairly high here, outsource the work to Bangladesh. Be sure to save as much as possible of the profits while there still are profits, because eventually the spread will disappear due to competition.
Go to nursing school...two year associates in science...$55K right out of school...very small loan :-)
ReplyDeleteTotally agree. But most of these people don't find nursing to be prestigious enough for them. They'd rather owe 200K in student loans while working an unpaid internship. Gotta laugh at that.
DeleteThis is a bemusing rant by a failed lawyer, thanks for the laugh. Class of 2013 by the way, so slightly off kilter from your focus. Did smashing at OCI, bids placed nicely, will be enjoying that 185k come June. I agree with your points, but calling people "retarded" is a bit extreme, ignorant would be more apt. Anyways, enjoy your failure of an existence.
ReplyDelete-Stanford Grad 13
Do something of real value to society. We don't need more lawyers, even if they come from Stanford.
Delete