Apparently a whole lot of people got an email from Rutgers-Camden's law school this week:
Prof. Campos:
Today my girlfriend received the email below from Rutgers. By way of background, she has never even thought seriously about going to law school, let alone registered or taken the LSAT, or even registered or taken an LSAT prep course. She has taken the GMAT, and scored moderately well. Apparently that is enough to get you into Rutgers Law School. Notice that the requirement is that you've scored in the 70th percentile on any single section of the GMAT, and a UGPA of 3.3. You can almost smell the desperation for new applicants… waiving the application fee and the deposit fee makes this even more clear. Their completely nonsense employment data regarding their class of 2011 is a far cry from their Law School Transparency profile, based on 2010's data, which boasted a $56k mean salary with fully 19% unemployed. Somehow their average law firm salary jumped $28k in one year, in the middle of the worst time for young lawyers in a generation. Anyway, just thought you'd like to see one additional facet of law school admissions offices' despicable conduct. You've got to keep getting the word out on this insanity; the ABA has completely abdicated its responsibility for keeping our profession credible. Keep up the good work and I really hope you're working on a manuscript…[Name]
From: admissions@camlaw.rutgers.edu
Date: May 17, 2012 5:40:21 PM CDT
To: Subject: Rutgers School of Law - CamdenDear __________,In the ever-volatile job market, you may be considering graduate school. Consider this - Rutgers School of Law - Camden is giving high-achieving students, such as you, the opportunity to enroll in the Fall 2012 class. The traditional law school program is a three-year program, which is extremely attractive to most graduate students given the difficult economy. The program is open to all students who have completed their undergraduate education with a 3.3 GPA or higher and scored in the 70th percentile or higher on any one core section of the GMAT. If accepted at Rutgers law School at Camden, you will join other bright, talented students who are pursuing their legal education at our law school. To encourage you to participate in the program, the Law School is waiving the application fee, and if accepted, the $300 deposit fee. Joint JD/MBA degrees with the Graduate School of Business are also possible. Scholarship awards and in-state tuition are available.The School is proud to carry on the tradition of excellence at Rutgers University, which is one of the oldest and largest public institutions of higher learning in the nation. As a direct result of the quality of legal education at Rutgers, of those employed nine months after graduation, 90% were employed in the legal field and 90% were in full time positions. Our average starting salary for a 2011 graduate who enters private practice is in excess of $74,000, with many top students accepting positions with firms paying in excess of $130,000. In a recent Forbes publication, Rutgers School of Law-Camden was ranked 18th nationally as one of the "Best Law Schools for Getting Rich". Rutgers is also ranked high in the nation at placing its students in prestigious federal and state clerkships.I hope that you will consider this opportunity and join this class. Please apply on-line at our web site at http://camlaw.rutgers.edu. We are a direct student loan institution so financial aid is easily processed. We also have newly constructed on-campus law school apartments available, adjacent to the Law School and the Federal Courthouse, and guaranteed for our law students.Sincerely,
Camille Andrews
Associate Dean of Enrollment
Let's look at some numbers. About 270,000 people take the GMAT each year. I don't know how many score in at least the 70th percentile on any one core section, but let's assume half do. How many of those people have undergrad GPAs of at least 3.3? With grade inflation and all this could easily add up to 60,000 or more targets candidates for Rutgers-Camden's innovative plan, which allows them to solicit law school applications from people who, like the above recipient, have never really even thought about going to law school, but who could well start her 1L year a few weeks after considering such a career path for the very first time.
Before doing so, she should take a very close look at what the salary numbers Rutgers is advertising actually look like. Rutgers is claiming that "our average starting salary for a 2011 graduate who enters private practice is in excess of $74,000, with many top
students accepting positions with firms paying in excess of $130,000." First, note that only 29% of the 84% of the class whose status was known and that was actually employed -- 58 graduates -- were in private practice nine months after graduation. But only 27 of those 58 people had their salaries reported by the school. The median salary for those 27 people was $60,000.
So another way of phrasing this employment data would be this: "14 out of 237 graduates of the 2011 Rutgers-Camden class were reported to be making $60,000 or more in private practice nine months after graduation." The claim that "many top students accepting positions with firms paying in excess of $130,000" is based on . . . well we can't say exactly how many graduates, since the 75th percentile of reported salaries for graduates with firm jobs was $110,000, which means that at most six people in the entire class reported a salary of $130,000.
A careful search of the internet reveals that Rutgers-Camden is being remarkably discreet about the fact that it's trying to convince people who have never even thought about going to law school to enroll as 1Ls 12 weeks from now, on the basis of egregiously misleading employment stats. That's so . . . 2010. (The reference to this farcical Forbes "study" is also a nice touch).
Really Dean Andrews? This is May 2012. Did you actually think this kind of thing is going to fly under the radar at this point?
Update:
New Jersey Rules Governing Professional Conduct
RPC 8.4
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:
(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;
Lawyers who commit unethical conduct in this state are subject to discipline by the Supreme Court. Such discipline can range from an admonition, the least serious discipline, to a reprimand, censure, suspension from practice, or permanent disbarment from practice. The "Attorney Discipline" page describes the process. The attorney disciplinary process is usually begun by the filing of an Attorney Grievance form with the Secretary of one of the Supreme Court's 18 district ethics committees. To contact a district ethics committee Secretary call the toll free Ethics/Fee Arbitration Hotline at 1-(800)-406-8594. Be prepared to provide the five digit zip code of the attorney's address.
ANDREWS
|
CAMILLE
|
SPINELLO
|
CAMDEN
|
CAMDEN
|
ACTIVE
|
12/22/1986
|
Attorney Discipline: New Jersey
Note: I'm very pleased to announce that DJM will be blogging here for the next week (and hopefully beyond). As readers of this blog are well aware, DJM has been at the forefront of the battle for meaningful law school reform, and it's an honor to have her contribute in this way. Please give her a warm welcome.
New Jersey is a horrible place.
ReplyDeleteIt is mostly a place to pass through, and New Yorkers mostly roll their eyes anytime someone mentions New Jersey.
Damn, I almost had the first comment
ReplyDeleteSo another way of phrasing this employment data would be this: "14 out of 199 graduates of the 2011 Rutgers-Camden class were known to be making $60,000 or more in private practice nine months after graduation."
ReplyDeleteOh, Professor, what a lovely cross-exam question. Wish I had thought of it.
For those unaware, Dean Andrews is the wife of Rep. Robert Andrews (NJ-01). Rep. Andrews has the distinction of being one of the handful of Congressional Democrats who signed Grover Norquist's tax pledge.
ReplyDeleteWelcome DJM!
ReplyDeleteIt's likely that 75%+ of the people who score in the 70th percentile on any GMAT section have a 3.3 GPA or higher. The 50th percentile on the LSAT corresponds to about a 3.1 GPA.
ReplyDeleteOMFG
ReplyDeleteWhat starts as as a movement, becomes a business and then a racket. Eric Hoffer
ReplyDeleteWonder what stage legal education is in?
I preferred it when DJM commented. Gave her "woman of the people" street cred.
ReplyDeleteSo the first dominoes have finally begun to fall.
ReplyDeleteOnly Scott Bullock can deliver the smackdown that Rutgers deserves. Hopefully he comes out of retirement to make a guest post.
ReplyDeleteOh wait a second, would this strategy help them game the LSAT numbers somehow?
ReplyDeleteMaybe if instead of accepting relatively low LSAT applicants, they accept GMAT applicants, then that would raise their average and median LSAT right?
ReplyDeleteWow this is shameless manipulation. Something tells me this is deeper than just them begging for applicants. It's an attempt to manipulate their numbers.
"Really Dean Andrews? This is May 2012. Did you actually think this kind of thing is going to fly under the radar at this point?"
ReplyDeletelmao. Law school administrators must dream of the old days, before blogs and the internets.
Let's say normally Rutgers admits 10 applicants, five have 165 LSAT, five have 155 LSAT. Median/mean LSAT of 160.
ReplyDeleteIf they replace the latter five with GMAT applicants, then wouldn't that give them a 165 median/mean LSAT of 165?
Excited to see your first posts, DJM! Can't wait. And if you, Campos, and the rest continue to keep the pressure on, you can be part of a movement that closes law schools and restores some semblance of dignity to this profession. THIS is the "career-maker," not a law review article, not a book, not a treatise. This. I wish one of you were my prof, I'd be very proud.
ReplyDelete"And if you, Campos, and the rest continue to keep the pressure on, you can be part of a movement that closes law schools and restores some semblance of dignity to this profession"
ReplyDeleteIf you . . .
Write this post . . .
You're doing a good job . . .
The mantra of the deadbeat bum (such as people who can't get a job even though they have both a college degree and a JD).
This is out right fraud on the federal student loan program! It is also fraudulent inducement.
ReplyDeleteHoly crap, what the hell is going on?
Congress wake up!
This shit funds the Rick Hills, the Dan Markels, the Brian Leiters, the Ted Setos, and the fat ugly fucking Pace Law Bridget Crawfords, the Erwin Chemerinskys and all the rest of the clueless narcissistic rotten leeches.
And these assholes claim to be about liberal ideals? Social justice? Civil rights? Human rights? They are worse than JP FUCKING MORGAN!
Professors: how the fuck can you sleep at night knowing garbage like this is going on at your schools?
Mike Livingston, any thoughts?
8:58 and 9:09, I'm sure you're right that this also helps Rutgers-Camden game their numbers. The admissions dean told ATL that this "outreach program" is not new. If so, this may be a way that R-C has been massaging its LSAT scores for years.
ReplyDeleteThe aggressiveness in this year's email suggests that other factors--like desperation to fill the class--are now at play as well. But the ploy can't hurt their stats.
The technique reminds me of the Illinois admissions dean who, in addition to falsifying data, created a program to admit U of I undergrads with high GPAs before they took the LSAT. "That way, I can trap about 20 of the little bastards with high GPA's that count and no LSAT score to count against my median. It is quite ingenious," admissions dean Paul Pless bragged at the time. I remember LawProf blogging about this in the early fall.
Ever since, I've thought Pless's quote might make a nice addition to those lofty words that adorn so many law school facades:
Equal justice under law
No man is above the law
Trap the little bastards
Holy crap, they're waiving the application fee, deposit fee, and considering scholarships for people who've taken the WRONG DAMN TEST?
ReplyDelete1. How pissed are the in-state kids who paid a deposit and sticker-price tuition going to be?
2. If Rutgers is doing this with this applicant pool (http://rutgers-camden.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats), what kind of fun can we expect from somewhere like Florida Coastal (http://floridacoastal.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1112/)?
3. When can we expect the following:
a. whistleblowing/qui tam lawsuits;
b. bitter faculty members telling-all AFTER being laid off in a round of cutbacks;
c. changing/rescaling the LSAT so people aren't aware that people are getting into T2s who would've barely scratched the fourth tier in the mid-2000s;
d. the first special finding by a rogue bankruptcy judge that the law school system was so fraudulent as to make the debt dischargable;
e. law school scam: the movie ("everything was going well for this dude played by Zac Efron until [SCREECH] he enrolled in Thomas Cooley");
f. LawProf testifies on Capitol Hill at the Senate hearing;
g. the newspaper article that notes that former law professors and law school administrators are having a poor transition to private practice because their scholarly offerings cannot build a client base;
h. one of the most ardent supporters of the status quo does a complete 180 and starts pretending they were for meaningful reform the entire time;
i. traditional, higher-ranked law schools eradicate the LSAT and GPA requirements and embrace a "holistic" approach that makes the students "more than a number" in a rush to bring in as many warm bodies as possible;
j. law schools radically change curricula and their grading curves to ensure more people can float for three years;
k. the overweight fourth-tiers start to close.
???
I anticipate that we'll see 10 of the 11 within 3 years. Things that take years to build can crash pretty darned fast.
9:18--
ReplyDeleteLawProf was one of my law profs, and I am extremely proud. ;)
@Doc I think all of your predictions will come true, some quite rapidly. I have been predicting law school closures for a while, but the ones I expect to see go first are the money losers associated with larger universities - and the bottom tier if congress puts some underwriting standards in place for loans and loan guarantees.
ReplyDeleteHowever, one of your points I think might be a good thing - or at least in part a good thing:
...traditional, higher-ranked law schools eradicate the LSAT and GPA requirements and embrace a 'holistic' approach that makes the students 'more than a number'..."
Maybe they should look at GPAs and LSAT scores, but should also take a better look at candidate suitability for the practice of law. Admittedly this sort of question was dropped in the past because it was used to justify many racially, sexually and religiously discriminatory practices. However, there is a problem in the legal profession of people who should never have been allowed to become lawyers and even some who without the slimmest chance of passing the bar going law school. JD painter guy is an interesting example - fortunately for the public he did not pass the bar, but it only take a cursory read of his writing to see that he should never have been let into law school, nor should it seems (we only have his word for it) many of his classmates. But many appalling people, who are miserable to work with become lawyer. I am astonished at the number of posters on this forum and other who use the term "shitlaw," clearly despising ordinary people, and who describe the practice of law and meaningless drudgery, not to mention the law students who say the same thing. A better investigation of law school candidates would uncover many more people who should not be lawyers.
That said, the law schools would probably eschew considering whether a candidate is suitable to be a lawyer or would make a good one, or is genuinely interested in the law. After all, most of the professoriate ran from legal practice at the very first opportunity, or avoided any real practice at all; to judge a lack of aptitude for legal practice as a negative would cut too close to home. Moreover, if as the law deans tell us, law if a great grounding for any career (which is why I'm going to have my next surgery performed by the team of Tricia Dennis and Deborah Merritt - ladies start reading up now, it's probably a knee replacement), why should manifest unsuitability for legal practice be an issue - that JD might make you a great painter. Third, the huge number of "Law & [insert absurd topic] classes is a testament to the fact that many law professors find the subject of law tedious and boring and are desperate to switch the subject they teach to something, anything, else.
What we are seeing at Rutgers-NJ though is the final debasement of the admissions process - it has decided that no to care at all about the suitability of their intake to be lawyers. Rutgers has thrown out the basic criterion that a student show a remotely-serious interest in being a lawyer by taking the LSAT. The law school does not care about then interests of their intake or the profession they are training these student to enter, or the public, these student's future clients. Where is the ABA in all of this?
By the way, there is a reason to take combinations of the GMAT/LSAT - for example my wife took the LSAT and GRE to prep for the GMAT which she scored well enough on to get offered 'full rides' and 'half rides' for her MBA (it might also be her double major, completing UVa in 3.5 years, speaking six languages (four at native fluency and accent) and a jaw dropping resumé by 22. I am the family dolt (by birth and marriage) and I took the GRE general, physics and chemistry and later the LSAT, in part because my GRE general score was kinda high, as was my subsequent LSAT.
"Really Dean Andrews? This is May 2012. Did you actually think this kind of thing is going to fly under the radar at this point?"
ReplyDeleteThis like keeps making me lol. It's like the Rutgers Dean is some cockroach sneaking around for morsels in the middle of the night, and Campos walks in and turns on the lights.
You know - maybe someone in congress ought to call as a witness before a committee for example considering abuse of student loans .... etc. Comity be damned - I'd like to see how her congressman husband reacts...
ReplyDeleteHow did the law school get the email addresses of people who took the GMAT?
ReplyDeleteIs this information for sale?
I second the qui tam suit idea.
ReplyDeleteGet the feds bounty hunting for student loans.
They make a false statement; encourage students to obtain student loans, and boast about easy financial aid; uncle sam is on the hook for the fraud.
To me that spells False Claims Act. Come on Justice Department Qui Tam Lawyers, let's go.
Welcome aboard, DJM!
ReplyDelete"I'd like to see how her congressman husband reacts..."
ReplyDeleteThis scoundrel is married to a congressman? That tells you all you need to know about our Congress and their 10% approval rating. He probably gave her the idea!
Are you kidding me? Camille Andrews is the wife of Congressman Rob Andrews?
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Andrews
WTF. This whole thing is RIGGED. Look at the part in the Wikipedia entry re: her conflict of interest.
This is frustrating for oh so many reasons. Including the obvious. But also because there's reason to believe (and research to show) that the LSAT is a very imperfect test of lawyering competencies. It tests a few skills - and it tests them very well. But there are so many aspects to lawyering that it doesn't speak to. Medical school and business school are slowing moving to models where admission requires more than the paper-and-pencil-smarts tests. Those schools acknowledge that medicine and business require people smarts, too. Judgment and communication skills, etc. And they're trying to find ways to test for them. But law schools have been slow to move, down right stuck in the mud on this point. Wow is law married to the LSAT as the only test necessary (instead of including other measures, too). My point isn't to debate the merits of the LSAT. But rather to point out that there are good (for students, for the profession) reasons for lessening its importance, all law schools know this, and yet nothing has changed. But once the LSAT makes it hard to fill seats? At least this one school jumps.
ReplyDeleteIt's rich.
To be fair, he's a congressman in New Jersey - which is basically a moral cess pool and the nation's toilet.
ReplyDelete***As a direct result of the quality of legal education at Rutgers, of those employed nine months after graduation, 90% were employed in the legal field and 90% were in full time positions. ****
ReplyDeleteTo me the key phrase in Rutgers' come-on is "of those employed nine months after graduation."
Let's say Rutgers' class is 100 people. But only 10 of them are "employed nine months after graduation." Who really cares what those 10 -- or 90% of those 10 -- are doing?
It's the fact that the other 90 are UNEMPLOYED that I'd be focusing on.
9:24:
ReplyDeleteDoes not matter where the Congressional vote comes from, it is still a Congressional vote.
There's also this little gem:
ReplyDelete***"our average starting salary for a 2011 graduate who enters private practice is in excess of $74,000, with many top students accepting positions with firms paying in excess of $130,000." ***
Just because a firm PAYS $130,000 doesn't mean a Rutgers grad is one of the ones RECEIVING that salary level. That could be the salary paid to grads of "good schools" and/or ones who had clerkships, were on law review, whatever. [And notice there's no out-and-out claim that a Rutgers grad does receive this amount.]
Parsing Rutgers' claims closely shows that there's lots of room for misrepresentation. I'm sure it's just an accident.
Everybody ought to read about Dean Andrews, a former private equity lawyer. The skills obtained in her prior work are obviously crucial to her new efforts to game the numbers regarding admissions. And her husband! What a fine upstanding man! They should both move to Greece--they could really make it big time there.
ReplyDeletePlease read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Andrews
"You know - maybe someone in congress ought to call as a witness before a committee for example considering abuse of student loans .... etc. Comity be damned - I'd like to see how her congressman husband reacts..."
ReplyDeleteMacK your posts are usually excellent, but why on Earth do you keep expecting Congress, of all entities, to be the savior to this situation?
Congress is corrupt, and to give on pertinent example, Virginia Foxx, a NC Senator who is on the Senate Committee overseeing Higher Education, receives campaign contributions from Student Loan companies.
Because of the "lobbying", these hearings become farces. To give a current example, the Senate Banking Chair, Tim Johnson, has said his panel would call Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase Chair, to testify before Congress.
Now who, pray tell, has been Tim Johnson's biggest campaign contributor from 2005-2010?
JP Morgan Chase
Something that puzzles me is why Camille Andrews et. al., aren't being reported to their respective state bar associations, assuming she and her fellow administrators are members. Attorney regulation committees bust people for far less egregious behavior than soliciting unwary people who haven't even thought about going to law school with employment statistics that are obviously intended to mislead. That's a serious ethics violation, and it should be reported as such.
ReplyDeleteLawProf, the professional discipline situation here is even worse in light of her official statement to Above The Law. Her explanation there was that this applies only to dual degree candidates, because a dual degree student can gain admission to one school by meeting the admission requirements of the other.
ReplyDeleteBut the email does not say that this applies only to dual degree candidates. It talks about a three-year program. It says that a dual JD/MBA is "also possible."
Lying to lure in students can be written off as marketing, but lying about the email when asked directly can only be called a cover up. Or, more to the point, "dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation."
@9:48
ReplyDeleteThere are a small number of congressmen and senators making an issue about loans - they might call her ... god knows it would cause fireworks.
"Ms. Andrews has also served as a Managing Director of and Counsel to Context Capital Partners, a private equity firm. Between 1986 and 1996, Ms. Andrews was a Partner with the Philadelphia-based law firm of Dilworth Paxson LLP, and between 2006 and 2008, she was Of Counsel to that firm where her practice focused on securities, antitrust and other complex commercial litigation. "
ReplyDeleteThere goes the "we need experienced lawyers in academia" mantra.
12:10:
ReplyDeleteNot really. The "we need experienced lawyers in academia" applies to law professors, not deans. She is a dean ya fool.
I love that this shit is being exposed on a daily basis. Admissions officers have got to be sick everytime they send something out for fear that it will end up in Prof. Campos' inbox!
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work, Prof. Campos!
Regarding reporting this to the bar, what if we, as members of the bar, drafted a letter documenting and complaining of these practices? WE could then invite other members of the bar (across the nation) to sign the letter and then submit it to the NJ Bar and local press.
ReplyDeleteWe could keep doing this for every school that violates RPC 8.4
"We could . . ."
ReplyDeleteMeaning you should, because the commenters here are all lazy do-nothing bums (let me let you in on a little secret: that's why they're unemployed).
3:13, you note that the commenters here are "all" lazy, do-nothing (and, by extension, unemployed) bums. i'll assume that includes you, since you are part of the referenced "all." so sorry to hear about the state of your life, but hey, it's all your fault anyway.
ReplyDeleteLearning about Witchcraft and how it somehow relates to law in a jurisprudence class at Touro law school.
ReplyDeleteFederally backed taxpayer dollars pay for all such scholarship be it high or low, frivolous or serious.
But I really do think it is very logical, in that a witch has placed a curse of lifetime debt upon my life somehow.
I agree that this email raises serious questions under NJRPC 8.4. There's also NJRPC 7.1, which governs "communications concerning a lawyer's service." We're used to reading that rule (or its MRPC equivalent) as applying to traditional services to a client, but it's not drafted that narrowly. The NJ rule, in fact, is broader than the model one. NJ declares: "A lawyer shall not make false or misleading communications about the lawyer, the lawyer's services, or any matter in which the lawyer has or seeks a professional involvement." I would say that Dean Andrews clearly has a "professional involvement" in admitting students to R-C law school. One advantage of this rule is that disciplinary committees take a particularly dim view of lawyers who mislead for professional advantage.
ReplyDeleteAnd then we shouldn't forget NJRPC 5.1 and its analogue in other states. That rule imposes ethical obligations on lawyers with "direct supervisory authority over another lawyer." Deans can be responsible for ethical breaches of an employee, just as senior lawyers can be held accountable for the misdeeds of junior ones.
An ethics complaint about Dean Andrews should be filed with the New Jersey bar immediately. It's virtually impossible to construe her demonstrably false and misleading written communications to students in a manner that does not violate NJRPC 8.4 and NJRPC 7.1. Honestly, this should be grounds for disbarment, as well as civil liability for fraud.
ReplyDeleteContrast Dean Andrews with the dean of UC Hastings, who has actually been (gasp) honest with students.
The New Jersey schools were all left off the Anziska/Strauss lawsuit target list, while almost all the NY schools are on it. Presumably because of where the plaintiff's lawyers are located. This gives the NJ schools such as this a competitive advantage.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete"Wow this is shameless manipulation. Something tells me this is deeper than just them begging for applicants. It's an attempt to manipulate their numbers."
ReplyDelete^^^I think this comment is absolutely correct!^^^
Also, the comment about when we'll see whistleblowers. The answer is we will not see any while law schools are paying out large "severance" packages for disgraced administrators who take the hit on behalf of the school. The lone wolf, not the wider conspiracy...
"The New Jersey schools were all left off the Anziska/Strauss lawsuit target list, while almost all the NY schools are on it. Presumably because of where the plaintiff's lawyers are located. This gives the NJ schools such as this a competitive advantage."
ReplyDeleteThere's only three law schools in New Jersey and only one of them is private (the Anziska group is not filing against public schools). I assume they will go after Seton Hall at some point.
Real Time Economics
ReplyDeleteEconomic insight and analysis from The Wall Street Journal.
May 19, 2012, 5:00 AM
Number of the Week: Student Loan Bubble
Article
Comments (39)
REAL TIME ECONOMICS HOME PAGE »
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By Phil Izzo
368%: The jump since 2007 in the measure of consumer credit held by the government comprised primarily of student loans.
If a student loan bubble were to pop, the government, not private banks, would be the one standing around with gum in its hair.
Issuance of student loans has soared in recent years, hitting $867 billion at the end of 2011, according to an analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, more than credit cards or auto loans. The jump has led some to classify the student-lending market as a bubble, comparing it with the housing mess that nearly brought down the banking system in 2008.
But there are some big differences between student loans and housing. For starters, mortgage credit absolutely dwarfs lending for higher education — by nearly a 10-to-1 ratio. Troubles in an $8 trillion market pose a much higher systemic risk.
The other big difference is who holds the loans. Commercial banks and investment firms held the bulk of the mortgages that were going sour when the housing bubble burst. But that’s not the case with student loans. Despite some recent signals of banks getting back into the student-loan business, private lending has been pretty much stagnant since the recession hit. Since December 2007 nonrevolving consumer lending by commercial banks — a measure tracked by the Federal Reserve that includes student loans as well as auto and other personal credit — is up less than 11%. Over the same period, total consumer loans owned by the federal government — a measure that includes loans originated by the Department of Education under the Federal Direct Loan Program — has more than quadrupled.
The good news in all of this is that if a student loan bubble pops, there’s little chance of a systemic crisis similar to the one that hit in 2008. But there’s still a lot of bad news to go around.
For one, though banks likely wouldn’t take a big hit, the government — meaning the taxpayer — would. That’s not great news for the deficit, but the numbers aren’t large enough to be a huge concern. At the same time, it’s much harder for the borrower to discharge a student loan than a mortgage. You can’t get rid of student loans in bankruptcy, for example. So there’s a much higher chance that the government would get its money back eventually.
The bulk of any burden from a student-loan debt bubble bursting is likely to fall on the borrowers themselves. While that means the broader economy can avoid a systemic crisis, it will struggle with a younger generation whose spending power is constrained limiting growth for years.
That new hit banjo song everyone is talking about: "Walter Winchell's Funeral" is now on my blog.
ReplyDeleteHappy Graduation!
Your blog sucks.
ReplyDelete368%: The jump since 2007 in the measure of consumer credit held by the government comprised primarily of student loans.
ReplyDelete-----------
Holy shit. Well now we know where all that real estate money wound up!
LST Calls for Dean's Resignation and ABA Investigation http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/2012/05/lst-calls-for-deans-resignation-and-aba-investigation/
ReplyDeleteNice. Good work LST.
ReplyDeletehttp://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2012/05/lst-calls.html
ReplyDeleteAs a Haddon Heights resident, and an associated of Angela Baker, Camille Andrews is closely associated with a multi-decade criminal culture operating out of Haddon Heights - including one female pedophile who was a member of the Haddon Heights Women's Club and Haddon Heights Junior Women's Club.
ReplyDeleteWhat is fascinating about the nexus is that a substantive faction of the Haddon Heights culture embezzled government funding from an impressive number of state governments as well as the federal government. Children of this same social group also have gone on to embezzle Camden County tax dollars by working on Camden County Freeholder election campaigns and then billing that campaign work to their public salary.
In 1987, the social culture in Haddon Heights deteriorated so badly that the United States Department of Justice announced a criminal investigatino in December of that year. The State of Florida attorney general named Haddon Heights residents in a June 1988 embezzlement indictment.
What was the community response to being named as a target of that Department of Justice investigation? A cross-county Congressional check writing spree. And who's name sits on that list as a donee? Robert Andrews. State and federal funds embezzled by Haddon Heights residents dutifully found its way into fellow Haddon Heights resident Robert Andrews' bank account.
Coincidence?
And who oversees admissions at the local law school?
Coincidence?
A substantial amount of the embezzled money found its way into Commerce Bank accounts.
Coincidence?
A son of one Haddon Heights embezzler suddenly found himself as a public employee in Camden County.
Coincidence?
And after embezzling more money by working on freeholder election campaigns, the same son of an embezzler turns up as an accounting executive at Commerce Bank - in charge of electronic banking/internet services at Commerce Bank.
ReplyDeleteCoincidence?
And Commerce Bank subsequently finds itself under criminal investigation by the federal government for financial fraud?
Coincidence?
How many children and relatives of political party campaign donors find themselves enrolled at Rutgers Law School?
Are transcripts falsified at Rutgers Law School to aid these "developmental admission" enrollees who are "politically connected" to financial donors to political party members?
If your name is Perr, can you rearrange your examination schedule anyway that you want?
Exactly what is the unemployment rate for Rutgers-Camden Law School graduates who are not politically connected, whose parents donate money to no political campaign, make no deposits at politicallly affiliated banks, and donate no money to political party alligned charities?
Then again, what is the unemployment rate for all minorities induced to enroll at Rutgers-Camden Law School under Ms. Andrews' financial seductions?
Answer: the unemployment rate is extraordinarily high, comparatively. And it remains extraordinarily high years post-graduation.
Ms. Andrews is supervising an embezzlement operation that defrauds the federal student loan program and provides, depending on minority, little to no reasonable likelihood of meaningful employment post-graduation.
The most horrific example of the federal student loan embezzlement was the financial raping of a blind student named Michael Corman whose father, entre nous, operated a pharmacy in Haddon Heights.
While Ms. Andrews' office exploited Michael Corman for media purposes (to woo more enrollments so more federal student loans could be siphoned off) yet she provided Mr. Corman with no meaningful career placement services. As Mr. Corman's father put it: "They took his money and didn't do a goddamn thing for him to help him find a job. But they did take his money."
Yes, that's Camille Andrews. And, no, nothing has changed in over 20 years.
Rutgers is what is has been for decades: an elaborate ruse to embezzle federal money and place that money into private pockets. It is no more complicated than that.
You are dealing with lawyers: you better toughen up in your appraisals.
Anonymous, you clearly know nothing about New Jersey, the quality of its schools and suburbs, the wealth of the state and it's successes or anything else for that matter. Find a new hobby.
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