Tuesday, January 10, 2012

An interesting piece of evidence

Law School Numbers is a social networking site, where people post their law school application numbers, the schools to which they apply, and the results of their applications, including any scholarship money they may have been offered.  I'm unclear as to what, if anything, the site does to verify the information users submit.  (Anyone who has used it is welcome to clarify this point in comments. Update: I've been reliably informed that the site doesn't verify any of the information posted on it.  I doubt this is a significant problem however: users are invariably anonymous, so it would be a very strange person who took the trouble to post false information).

This applicant took the LSAT in June 2011, and received a score of 147, i.e., in about the 33rd-34th percentile of test takers.  The applicant had an undergrad GPA, as adjusted by LSDAS, of 2.54.  She applied to three law schools on the first of July, and her application was complete four days later. She was accepted at one of the schools the next day, and at the two others two days after that, for admission into their 2011 classes. (The applicant lists her ethnicity as white, i.e., she was not eligible for affirmative action consideration).

153 comments:

  1. When I used it during my cycle there was absolutely no verification what-so-ever. I wouldn't put much stock in this (although it is believable).

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  2. These schools are just looking for warm bodies with an open credit line, it looks like. It's remarkable that they're still filling out their classes this late.

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  3. Do we dare dream that Cooley is having trouble filling seats?

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  4. Cooley (I mean Stooley; don't sue me) is looking for anyone with a pulse and valid Social Security number to hook up with sweet student loan spigot.

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  5. http://cooley.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1112/

    According to this chart, Stooley is admitting 141 LSAT's this cycle. According to the chart below, that puts the student in the FIFTEENTH PERCENTILE of all LSAT test takers (meaning, that 85% of test takers scored higher). There should be a floor below which schools are not allowed to accept applicants.

    http://www8.esc.edu/esconline/focused/prelawresources.nsf/db1a77fb2f6bcf2085256bfa005466b0/f6f479ed15e0764885256dba005f2d3f?opendocument

    Does anyone thing that these students have any shot at success in law?

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  6. Due to their bizarre behavior of the past year, I would place Cooley in a new tier - tier 5. I would choose any 4th tier law school over them, for example Charlotte or Ave Maria or Detroit Mercy just to avoid the Cooley factor.

    Thus it's entirely possible that they're having trouble filling their classes.

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  7. As someone who graduated from law school over 25 years ago, this kind of post clarifies the brain drain that this profession has suffered in the past 10 years. A 2.5 undergrad GPA would have placed anyone on academic probation at my alma mater. A 33-34 percentile score on the LSAT? I guess the stories about law schools taking anyone with a pulse and the ability to endorse a student loan check are true.

    Recently I have come to resent younger attorneys. They clog up the dockets with bullshit cases and waste other litigants' time due to their ignorance. I have lost hours of billable time in court hearing judges ream young lawyers who are incompetent dolts that have no business practicing law. Law licenses in this nation are being produced almost at the same rate as license plates. What a sad indictment of this profession.

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  8. Pretty soon anyone who takes the LSAT will be able to get into law school.

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  9. Damn. I want to be facetious and say my "can you read and write?" comment on the previous post was maybe too charitable.

    (But then I feel bad. A 147 on the LSAT and a 2.54 UGA is not *stupid* by the normal definition of the term--it's not terribly brilliant but it's not dumb--it's only in our insularity that we think it is. That said it's not very *good.*)

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  10. Yea, but look at the schools this person has been accepted to. Florida Coastal is a for profit, private school. All they want is to make some money...

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  11. "All they want is to make some money..."

    As opposed to the "not for profit" schools where the professors work for charitably low incomes.

    What happened to language? So many things are mislabelled these days.

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  12. Who knows what and why people post things? It is not good enough to say "I do not see why anyone would lie." I do not see why anyone is on the site at all.

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  13. 1:01: Are you a law professor?

    The value of LSN is that it allows people to make a very precise estimate of their chances of being admitted into various schools, and, even more important, their chances of extracting scholarship money out of schools that admit them. This is very valuable information, especially as schools come under greater competitive pressures in regard to recruiting highly qualified applicants.

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  14. If you click on the three law schools she got into, you can see that all three accept the considerable majority of people who posted their law school numbers, and two of them rejected only like two applicants each. Many of the other accepteds had statistics like her. It's pretty awful what these schools are doing, but it shows how low the lowest 4th tier places are willing to go in the applicant pool and in my opinion why they will continue forever unless they literally exhaust the entire applicant pool (i.e. can't fill their seats).

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  15. That just doesn't seem like a reliable way to make that kind of judgment. You just indicated that you were not sure about it because the numbers were not verified. And you are just on a blog. Why would you give your readers a heads up if the young people on the site should not be wary,too.These folks are involved in an incredibly serious process.

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  16. " I do not see why anyone is on the site at all."

    lol

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  17. It has to be a joke at these lower tier schools. I would love to see the work that students turn in at these gutter tier 4 schools. Incomplete sentences. Fragments. 7th grade writing style. At what point does it become a joke? Training lawyers? Give me a break.

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  18. This is another situation where private loans dischargeable in bankruptcy would solve the problem. Private lenders ask for things like grades and test scores, even for loans that have nothing to do with school (I had to supply my law school grades to my home mortgage lender). No lender in their right mind would loan a kid $30-50k / year based on the above-described academic record. Hence the schools that cater to students at the low end of academic preparedness would be faced with a choice: (a) dramatically lower their price; (b) dramatically reduce class size to a level that can be filled entirely by the wealthy's underperforming progeny, or (c) close.

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  19. Loved LSN when I was an applicant. Allowed me to see how much bullshit all the puffery about favoring "well-rounded applicants" really was.

    I saw very few "fake" profiles and they were usually obvious jokes like "4.0/180 Rhodes Scholar hoping to get into Cooley" or anti-AA whiners.

    I went back a few months ago and looked at the profiles for my school's c/o 2012. It was very easy to out people (they used screen names with their own initials or the name of their UG school). While I know some people may have added +1 to LSAT or subtracted .05 from GPA for the sake of anonymity, it was still easy to out people based on just their handles. Given that, I'd say most of the profiles are real people, not puppets.

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  20. 1:18 again.. just want to correct myself.. they do (eventually) reject a fraction of their applicants(I missed that there was more than one page listed in the previous years). The standards are still amazing low though

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  21. I would be in favor of making PROSPECTIVE loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, but under no circumstances should the deadbeat who already got loans under the old system be allowed to discharge them.

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  22. Anyone know the MCAT equivalence to a 142 LSAT? Can anyone with such an MCAT get into any medical school, anywhere?

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  23. 1:34 - I propose a thought experiment. Let's imagine you have two people with 150K debt.

    Person 1: He accumulated his debt by purchasing a McMansion, a late-model Aston Marten, and by getting cash advances on six credit cards to spend on Las Vegas hookers, blow and blackjack.

    Person 2: She accumulated her debt by going to law school in the naive but honest belief that she could "make a difference" in the world.

    Both are idiots, but are you prepared to say the latter is more culpable and should suffer worse long-term consequences than the former? Because that's what you are saying when you suggest that student loans, and only student loans, should be non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.

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  24. The equivalent on the MCAT to a 142 LSAT is about 18.

    Per the Google:

    "For all intents and purposes an MCAT score below 25 will make it almost impossible for you to gain admission to allopathic (MD) medical schools."

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  25. Yes 1:43, because the former had the CREDIT SCORE AND PROOF OF INCOME needed to get the loan. The latter did not, and only got it because they agreed to non-dischargeability. Pay back your loan you deadbeat.

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  26. 1:50: You write remarkably well for someone born in 2008.

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  27. While I guess it's late in the cycle, I applied at this time four years ago, and got 5 acceptances (and 3 waitlists) out of 23 applications, by late April....so it's totally possible school's are still looking.

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  28. This all makes me wonder... how bad would an applicant have to be to get into NO law schools if he/she applied to say 8 bottom-level places?

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  29. 2:10,

    130's. But that could change.

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  30. I think this "deadbeat" guy is one or two more posts away from getting his own nickname.  

    Your argument is weak, it literally amounts to name-calling.  Bankruptcy is a system that forgives "deadbeats" on the basis of a societal judgment that people can and should be forgiven for mistakes.

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  31. I am an attorney in Las Vegas. You can literally go down to the casinos, open a line of credit and run up a $100,000 bill at the roulette tables- all in one weekend. And then you can turnaround and discharge ALL of that debt in bankruptcy. Tell why a degenerate gambler should be able to discharge and not a victim of the law school industry.

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  32. "Yes 1:43, because the former had the CREDIT SCORE AND PROOF OF INCOME needed to get the loan."

    Hahahaha. That is sooo funny!

    So all those subprime borrowers that defaulted and drove up and now down the housing market "had the CREDIT SCORE AND PROOF OF INCOME needed to get the loan". That's a good one!

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  33. In defense of 1:34 (who's probably also 1:50), he's probably right. I don't think you can apply a law retroactively. Even assuming such a law allowing student loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy passes (don't hold your breath), it's probably not going to apply to students who took loans before the effective date. Can any lawyer out there argue otherwise?

    Regarding LawProf's response to 1:50, "proof of income" was meaningless during the housing bubble (cf, liar loans). Nonetheless, the difference between a McMansion/Aston Marten and student loan is that the former is a tangible property that can be seized and foreclosed upon, which is why it is dischargeable in bankrupcty.

    As for credit cards, that issue is for the credit card companies to deal with, not taxpayers. Contrary to what the hypothetical seems to imply, credit card companies probably are rational enough not to allow a deadbeat to splurge on their dime without some kind of security (i.e. recourse).

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  34. As to the retroactivity of bankruptcy when it comes to student loans...the thing is that the nature of these loans (no regs on tuition increases, non-dischargeability) in large part created the tuition bubble. So please, spare me the sanctimony. Go after the schools that benefitted so much and not the students that suffered ALL the consequences.

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  35. Mortgages are SECURED loans, meaning they have a REAL ASSET backing them, which again distinguishes them from law school loans.

    Stop asking for a handout and pay back your loan deadbeat. I like how the same scumbags who want to end the education subsidy for future students also want to be handed a subsidy in the form of loan forgiveness.

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  36. 2:46,

    Non-secure debt is dischargable in bankruptcy. Your distinction is meaningless.

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  37. In the end, discharging the debts will probably be cheaper than writing them off in 25 years after two decades of capitalized interest has piled up. Additionally, it would give consumers more spending power and help the economy.

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  38. Idiot, by SECURED I meant that if you don't pay it back the bank can repossess your house.

    Mortgage - given to you if you give the bank a lien on your house.

    Aston Martin loan - given to you if you give the bank a lien on the Aston + proof of income etc.

    Student loan - given to anyone because they promised to pay it back, and because it's not dischargeable.

    Stop asking for handouts and pay your loans back, deadbeat scumbag freeloader. What's funny is that out of one side of your mouth you demand debt forgiveness for the loans that paid for your education, and out of the other side of your mouth you want to take loans away from all future students.

    So you get loans, and you don't have to pay them back - a double subsidy - and future students get nothing.

    You're a bigger scumbag piece of shit than the law school deans.

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  39. Yeah, I don't want to resort to name calling here, buddy. Non-secure debt is dischargable in bankruptcy. You can go out, run up $100k on an AmEx and discharge the entire debt. Credit cards, like student loans, are not secured debt. Yet credit cards can be discharged in bankruptcy. That's why your distinction is meaningless. The criteria for bankruptcy IS NOT whether the debt is secured.

    And thanks for letting us know that you are neither a practitioner nor a law professor.

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  40. That's why banks wouldn't give you a credit card, dumbass. You got the student loan because it was non-dischargeable and now you want to change the rules. Deadbeat freeloader.

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  41. If "98%" of law school grads got the mythical "$100k median income" jobs, I am sure they would have the means to pay it back.

    But being unemployed or underemployed with $200k of debt makes it quite hard to pay back. You can't pay back debt WITH MONEY YOU DON'T HAVE.

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  42. Freeloader?

    Am I still a freeloader if the ride didn't get me anywhere?

    You must be fun at parties. That is, if you have ever attend a party.

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  43. "If "98%" of law school grads got the mythical "$100k median income" jobs, I am sure they would have the means to pay it back."

    Then sue the schools for fraud, but don't make the lender or taxpayers who were completely innocent parties pay for all of this.

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  44. Lender. . . innocent. ha. Just like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, they had nothing to do with the housing crisis. They were just like the good guy in "It's a Wonderful Life." Salt of the earth, really.

    Those poor bank's, if you default they'll have to underfund their CEO's 12 million dollar exit package.

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  45. "That's why banks wouldn't give you a credit card, dumbass."

    Because banks are SO selective about whom they issue credit cards to, right?

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  46. "You can't pay back debt WITH MONEY YOU DON'T HAVE."

    This is why we need to bring back debtor's prison. It would force these deadbeats to get five jobs like a new immigrant to pay back their loans.

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  47. OK, bankruptcy's not that complicated:

    1. Secured Debt (debt for which collateral is pledged, it could be accounts recievable, a house, whatever)

    Secured creditors get their collateral back (or if it's been impaired, they get to dip into the unsecured funds)

    2. Unsecured Debt: (all other debt of whatever kind e.g. credit cards, many civil actions)

    Unsecured Creditors stand behind the secured creditors, and take pro rata whatever is left.

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  48. "You can go out, run up $100k on an AmEx and discharge the entire debt."

    All credit card companies have limits. It's unlikely that you can run up $100,000 because Amex will probably set a limit of $10,000, assuming it gives you a credit card at all.

    Lenders aren't innocent parties. They're responsible for making sure that whoever they lend money to will be able to pay them back.

    Unlike Amex, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae apparently did not need to deal with this responsibility, because they were backed by the government, which of course resulted in the taxpayers getting soaked.

    And, this is the exact same problem with student loans. Allowing bankruptcy discharge for student loans only shifts the loss from one group (students) to another group (taxpayers, whom it can be argued are more innocent).

    Sue the law schools if you want justice (which has already started), but don't think that student loan dischargeability somehow results in justice for all, unless by "all" you exclude taxpayers.

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  49. Colorado Law StudentJanuary 10, 2012 at 3:46 PM

    It seems to me that Professor Campos should grade his classes before tomorrow's due date instead of indulging in the blogosphere.

    Especially since he is one of few law professors who actually CARES about law students. Correct?

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  50. The people pushing for bankruptcy discharge are just venting about their loans. There's really no need to talk about it because it will never happen. Moveon.org got about a million signatures on a petition to President Obama and it died right there.

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  51. heheh at 3:46. If only I had a way to anonymously attack my professors. Oh the things I'd write.

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  52. Reminds me, I need to fill out my IBR forms.

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  53. Dischargeablity of past loans won't happen but that doesn't mean its amusing to knock down the troglodyte moron who doesn't seem to understand how bankruptcy works or the reasons why you don't want to hand out non-dischargeable loans (ever hear of the term,price bubble?).

    Hey boy genius who wants debtors prison - you do know that loans are a risk shared by both parties, right? WHich is why an interest rate is charged? So please tell us, genius, what risk does the student loan issuer carry?

    You don't seem to grasp that the very nature of the loans (wholly asymmetrical) were immoral n the first place and caused a pricing bubble.

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  54. I think we should bring back debtor's prison + a form of indentured servitude, whereby you will be someone's property for a certain number of years for a sum of money.

    $170,000 in loans that you can't pay back, and you don't want to go to jail? No problem. Mr. Smith is willing to take you on for three years for $170,000. Assuming a 24 hour work day, that's like $9 bucks an hour which is more than fair.

    All this bankruptcy and debt forgiveness crap has made us a risk taking society. Time to bring the pain to these young punks.

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  55. DEADBEAT SCUMBAG PIECES OF SHIT! PAY WHAT YOU OWE!

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  56. 4:04 = True American

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  57. This is yet another reason to avoid law school. If you are a 22 year old with zero debt, you have the dignity that comes from knowing you don't owe anyone anything.

    Why ruin that by taking on a bunch of debt?

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  58. 22 year olds don't think that way.....they are constantly sold the education improves your chances myth.

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  59. no, we're all Americans. 4:04 = the ignorant American stereotype

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  60. Victoria, you're not stupid, but you don't understand this issue very well and could benefit from reading more of the posts on this blog and their comments. Law schools are lying about the employment and salary outcomes of their students. Like false advertising or fraud, this creates victims out of people who rely on the false information in making what they think are educated decisions. If you aren't familiar with the type of misleading claims law schools make about employment and salary, check the archives, Campos has written extensively about it.

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  61. Victoria, like 4:04, is stupid because they both place a personal political/philosophical viewpoint ahead of a cold hard look at facts. This is why their views are so narrow and shallow.

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  62. Is Victoria on this thread?

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  63. The scumbags asking for debt forgiveness are dealing with their victimization by trying to victimized another party. rather than confronting their law dean, grabbing him by the lappelle and demanding restitution, they are trying to force the damages on the lenders.

    just goes to show you that the only true victim of the law school scam are the taxpayers. the students are, in reality, coconspirators of the law schools.

    any reform proposal needs to recognize that there are two bad actors here.

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  64. @5:52 Do you spot for Bench Press Guy?

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  65. What would be hilarious are the consequences that would immediately ensue if they really did bring back debtor's prison or true debt slavery.

    Seems to me that twenty or thirty million Americans--many of them young men, almost all with vehicles and access to firearms--facing jail time or involuntary servitude would probably be a lot more expensive to deal with than permitting dischargability.

    Hey, Randroid, have you ever seen what millions of motivated free people are capable of doing when faced with tyranny? Or did they not cover that shit in the same clown college where you learned what "secured debt" meant?

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  66. Oh, and by "hilarious" I mean "awful and apocalyptic." That was a bit of sarcasm. Sometimes it's hard to tell, I know!

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  67. @5:32 Do you spot for Bench Press Guy?

    Blackberries suck.

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  68. See "Why Student Loans Are Riskier Bets" by Matt Wirz in the November 12-13 issue of the Wall Street Journal Weekend.

    The article points out that "in the current economy, it may make more sense to enter a technical college than go to law school." And "Law school...can end up being a sucker's bet in periods of high unemployment, experts in student loan-backed bonds say."

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  69. In the next couple of years, practically the whole fourth tier and maybe the third tier will be Cooleyed.

    by Cooleyed, I mean that a JD from these places won't simply be worthless, it will have substantial negative value, like a dishonorable discharge from the military or a felony conviction.

    Employers, including nonlegal employers, will look at the degree and see somebody like this applicant in mind's eye. They will see: college screw-up, probable low IQ based on LSAT score, sucker who spent borrowed money on a sham school, fantasist who failed to realize he or she was not fit for the profession.

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  70. The November 12-13, 2011, issue.

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  71. Debtor's prison boy needs to realize that bankruptcy is not the same thing as simple debt forgiveness, and there are significant disadvantages that come with bankruptcy, as well as obstacles which might prevent a person from qualifying in the first place. It's not like all law grads would suddenly be given a free ride if their loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy.

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  72. You're an idiot making a pathetic attempt at lawyerly semantic games. you agreed to pay the money back. you knew it wasn't dischargeable. you knew the taxpayers were giving you the gift of subsidy.

    stop trying to steal and pay the loan back you deadbeat thief pos. scumbag rent seeking creep.

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  73. YEAH SON! THAT'S THE KIND OF GUMPTION WE NEED IN THIS COUNTRY.

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  74. 7:05 for president. I'm so tired of punks asking for handouts. Get a job.

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  75. 7:05 - perhaps you need to go after all the billions in unsecured loans that went into bankruptcy. Tell us how it works out for you.

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  76. "You knew the taxpayers were giving you the gift of subsidy."

    A subsidy is sum of money GRANTED to support an arts organization or other undertaking held to be in the public interest. This discussion is concerned with LOANS, not subsidies. Loans accumulate INTEREST, and are expected to be REPAID with the same.

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  77. Debtor's prison boy, this is 6:51. I'm Canadian, my law school debt is dischargeable in bankruptcy. I don't even have a horse in this race, I just think you're an ass.

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  78. This thread really sucks! Where did you fools come from? Please go back.

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  79. Canada apparently, land of no educational loans and - surprise surprise - really shitty schools! Funny what happens to an industry when you remove a subsidy. It dies.

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  80. This is further confirmation of the need to abolish lending without clawback or performance metrics. These schools will reach down into the pit of the applicant pool and begin enrolling the homeless, mentally ill, felons, and even mentally disabled if they are allowed.
    Last year an article was written on for profit schools trolling homeless shelters for students. The highlight of the article was a homeless man who clearly saw through the scam and said what was the point, I'd just end up in debt. I'd like to see more 0Ls think like that.

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  81. Actually not a bad deal for a homeless person. Borrow up to the cost of attendance (don't buy books, etc.) and live super cheap and they can squeeze an extra year or two out of those loans.

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  82. 8:02 - while I generally agree with your distinction between loans and subsidies, a percentage of federal loans are subsidized, i.e., the government pays the interest on them while people are enrolled. So there is some overall between the two.

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  83. Law School Numbers is just like an ordinary social networking with some features related in enrollment process and some list of available courses to take.

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  84. If the deadbeats are done begging for handouts, maybe we can get back to the topic of the thread.

    Any way, in the old days they used to say you went to law school if you were too dumb for medical school. Based on these stats, I think you go to law school if you're too dumb for Hamburger University.

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  85. Yeah 8:48, us Canadians are so very envious of Cooley and UDM. We only wish we could have unlimited nondischargeable government handouts so that all our citizens could have access to schools of such a remarkably high standard. Your TTTs are secretly the envy of the world.

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  86. Cooley is still probably better than any Canadian law school. I honestly can't name one Canadian law school. That's how irrelevant you are.

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  87. As usual, you only succeed in demonstrating your own ignorance.

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  88. This thread is dead.

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  89. Tell you what, prison boy, I have a solution to your problem of taxpayers covering student loans, give me the same deal as the banks - let me borrow unlimited money from the Fed at .25% and buy treasuries paying 2% I'll have the whole balance paid off by the end of the year. And no one has to build any prisons with taxpayer money.

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  90. Dumbass, the 0.25% is a short term rate and the 2% is a long term rate. Try to learn about duration you dirty Canadian parasite. Get out of my country and go back to your shithole land of no opportunity.

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  91. yeah. . . you're not too smart.

    The free lending from the fed and banks buying debt from the treasury is the only thing keeping the zombie banking system afloat.

    Paddy Hirsch Whiteboard - How Banks are Making Money

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  92. Thought experiment:

    What about the generation of people who were able to discharge student loan debt- and go on to have decent lives, start families, start over, etc? These people could be your parents or grandparents.

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  93. They borrowed under a regime that allowed debt discharge, thus they didn't attemp to change the rules after receiving the benefits of the loan.

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  94. They lets revert back to that system. Maybe its not about the people with debt today.

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  95. Fine, PROSPECTIVELY, but you ain't getting a free ride. Pay back your loan deadbeat.

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  96. *Then* lets revert back to that system. Maybe its not about the people with debt today.

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  97. *Fine*, PROSPECTIVELY, but you ain't getting a free ride. Pay back your loan deadbeat.

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  98. I haven't posted here in a while, but I feel compelled to do so. (By the way, great job Professor Campos).

    Preamble: I have no educational debt because of scholarships and work, even though I do not make a lot of money.

    8:30, aptly named “prison-boy,” even if he is a troll, reflects a hidden danger that will probably operate as a central contributor to this nation going into the toilet. You see, his alleged concern about the “taxpayer” is merely a ruse for his true desire: he likes the fact that people that attempted to take advantage of a social-paradigm for success are getting destroyed.

    If he really cared about the tax-payer he would primarily advocate for prohibiting this racket from going forward, irrespective of what happens to previous borrowers. This would be what he would emphasize, and as an aside, he might make his other more inflammatory points.

    The reality is that, going forward, these kids borrowing these sums will not pay the loans back and the taxpayer will foot the bill. Debtor’s prison, indentured servitude, and remedies of the like are not going to happen, (he knows that) if for no other reason than that would cost too much. (If a cop with a less than 1% chance of sustaining injury wants to make, and makes, 150+k with a 100k pension, what is that cop going to want to get paid to go round up a large number of people that will fight back in the process)?

    The truly sick thing is that 8:30 and his ilk want to pay more taxes for the loans these kids take out and cannot pay back. They want to pay those taxes because they like the idea that someone who tried to do something with his/her life in a way that conforms to a social-paradigm is getting punished, whereas 8:30 did not attempt to conform to this social-paradigm, or he/she did so at a time when doing so was ok, i.e. boomer.

    The non-boomer, non-educated types, like that this is happening because they were made to feel bad ever since they were little about not having academic ability. Now that the political class protects them, so that said class can loot this nation on the way down, by dishing out six-figure jobs to them for shit like toll-collecting, they really want to punish those whose conduct and ambition offends their ego. They want to inflict this punishment while blocking out one harsh truth from their minds: the government that has supplied them with position by using force against the citizenry has granted them a greater boon than the poor sap who took out a 100k in student loans to better himself/herself. But for the government’s intervention on their behalf they would not be in a position to live the life-style they do, let alone condemn their betters (as 8:30 is doing).

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  99. continued from 9:25:

    The self-entitled and egotistical boomer class hates any attempt to disturb its once privileged position in this society. It hates the young class of professionals that will attempt to, or actually will, take their place. I will not say more on this, but if anyone wants to know why they feel this way, I suggest watching a short clip by George Carlin on the matter. It is about 3 minutes long, and it sums it all up.


    This is the beginning of the end for America. Why? Because in a few years people will stop going to school, not only to become lawyers, but for more important things like STEM and medicine. If one can make 100k as a toll collector in NYC, 200k as a Nassau Cop, 80k as a janitor in the public school system, 100k as a bus driver, etc., why should I send my kid to, not only law school, but any school? If I had kids, and they were not just smart, not just geniuses, but uber geniuses with a personality suitable for I-Banking that can go to Princeton or MIT, then I would not send them to college for any type of major. The risk is too great in relation to the reward, particularly with what is not available in the public sector.

    The political class will not be able to do anything about it either because they need votes to sustain their looting. So, eventually, after they enslave the capable, rob the industrious, and paralyze the remaining number of motivated people (irrespective of their actual intelligence) to supply people like 8:30 with their ego-fix, they will set their sights on the sacrosanct rentier/investor class. That will be the end of America. And for what? To satiate the dark evil in the souls of people like 8:30 because make no mistake, even if 8:30 is a troll, I know plenty of protected blue-collar types, small business owners, and old-age boomers that take this position.

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  100. 9:27, Are you new to the internet? This isn't a law review article. On the internet long winded verbeage will not be tolerated. I didn't even read you post. There's a reason twitter has a 140 character limit.

    If you want to repost twitter style, then I'll read it.

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  101. I think the solution might be that the government should not five loans to students who aren't going to make it. The government needs to start using some discretion as a lender. If people can't get the loans in the first place to go to schools that they know don't graduate employable students, then it ends most of the problem.
    If itwas much harder to get loans for law school, maybe the tuition would come down to approximately the actual cost of attending. I can't believe that law school costs so much more than it did when I was in school in the early 90s.

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  102. "blue-collar types, small business owners, and old-age boomers"

    These groups will never understand... Its a shame that they make up the majority. I suppose it is what it is...

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  103. Approximate (I mean).

    What I think is that the lender has some major role in this whole debacle.

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  104. There are three roles:

    1. Law school: Induces students with fraudulent job placement numbers.

    2. Students: Had thousands of choices, but chose law school. Induces lender to pay for it, by promising to pay the loan back.

    3. Lender: Wanted to invest his or her money. Had literally millions of places to invest it. Stupidly invested it in a deadbeat student who now doesn't want to pay it back.

    Lender is the least culpable.

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  105. The equivalent on the MCAT to a 142 LSAT is about 18.

    Per the Google:

    "For all intents and purposes an MCAT score below 25 will make it almost impossible for you to gain admission to allopathic (MD) medical schools."


    After a decade of teaching the MCAT and LSAT, when people ask me "which is harder" or "which is a better test" I just have to laugh. They're not even remotely comparable. The MCAT is a thorough, difficult exam that weeds out a huge portion of unqualified applicants. The MCAT requires at least two (and more commonly three) years of science education, followed by months and months of review, study, and practice.

    The LSAT, by contrast, requires the ability to read English.

    Aside from the simple content differences, they also serve a big difference in applications. Unlike the LSAT, which keeps out basically no one, and merely sorts you into a particular tier of Law School, the MCAT serves as a flat-out bar to MD programs for something like 50-60% of potential test takers. Keep in mind, there are LARGE numbers of students who never even take the MCAT because they realize in the course of their prep that they just can't hack it. (Those kids can still try to become doctors, but they'll have to go DO or overseas).

    To put it in LSAT terms, imagine a system where 15-20% of potential test takers practice and give up and never take the LSAT, and then after taking the test you simply could not get in anywhere without a score above the 60th %ile (say a 155ish). That would certainly put the Stooleys and their kin out of business right quick.

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  106. The great majority of People don't lie when posting on Law school numbers because the predictive ability of the site depends on accurate numbers. I don't know why it is hard to believe that people want to help others while at the same time helping themselves.

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  107. It is not hard to believe, but that does not assure the accuracy, or near accuracy of all the numbers.

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  108. 11:10 AM,

    I could not agree more. If the ABA were a true advocate for the profession and the public, they would mandate that no school could accept a student with less than a 155.

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  109. 9:25 here,

    In response to 10:23,

    The lender is the least culpable because he/she is induced?

    Ok, let us examine this a little deeper. First, let us examine who the lender is. In the overwhelming majority of circumstances, the lender is the Federal Tax Payer because the Federal Government has guaranteed all the loans.

    Let us examine who the Federal Tax Payer is, shall we?

    Half of the country does not pay taxes (or so they tell me). So let us examine the demographic composition of the remaining half shall we.

    The tax-paying half primarily consists of: 1) the protected blue collar class, 2) white collar boomers (and to some smaller extent Generation Xers), and 3) those born with money and/or part of the financial elite. The remaining, extreme minority consists of: 4) a small percentage of the working poor and 5) a small demographic of graduates that have essentially hit the lottery in obtaining decent employment.

    Lets examine categories 1-3, which comprises the majority of the tax base shall we? The protected blue collar class wants there to be Federal Guaranteed loans, in addition to what I said in my previous posts, because they want their kids to go to college no matter what, including if they blow all their money. This class, no matter how much money they make, do not want their kids to do that kind of work because the media tells them white collar people make all the money, irrespective of what reality and other factors indicate. They also want Federal loans so that they can tell less fortunate people that this is a meritocratic society. They are consciously disregarding the risk associated with the loans because they like the ego-appeasing of believing that if their kids make it, its pure merit, and they like the irrational hope that even if they blow their inflated salaries and pensions, their kids will have a chance to make it.

    Categories 2-3 are basically the same, with the exception that they know that there is a protected blue collar class that makes more money than many white collar people, but they look down upon that work. Yet, they still want the illusion of a meritocracy AND the assurance that their kids will have access to it no matter what. Particularly the boomers, who cannot conceive of any other way than college for their kids. They are even more culpable than category 1 because they are deliberately disregarding the risk of loans.

    Categories 1-3 also control the institutions that brainwash people since birth that education is the most important thing in the world.

    Categories 4-5 do not have any power. They keep their mouth shut working.

    Categories 1-3 which compromise the majority of the paying tax base want this irrational system to continue. They could end the system tomorrow by pressuring the looting political class, not for past graduates, but at a minimum, for future people. This has been the truth for a while. They do not do so, and as such, the loans accumulate, they are VERY RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAS HAPPENED AND WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN.

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  110. 140 characters, douche, or no one is reading your posts.

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  111. 11:21,

    The bottom line is that lenders had literally millions of places to invest their hard earned savings. They could have purchased stocks, they could have invested in a business, . . . I could go on and on and on.

    They chose to lend it to you, a scumbag liar who told them you would pay them back when you had no intention of doing so.

    Tell me, asshole thief, where do you invest your money, and how would you like to see that money disappear because some deadbeat piece of shit like you decided not to pay it back?

    Fuck you parasite.

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  112. (Oh right, you don't lend anyone money. You just borrow, by lying.)

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  113. 11:45 - you are laughably ignorant and simplistic. What TTT dod you crawl out of?

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  114. You're a scumbag. You want YOUR investments to be paid back, but when someone else invests in you - because you lied to them about your ability and willingness to pay them back - you want them to lose their money.

    You're a thief and a scumbag.

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  115. Fuck you parasite.

    While it certainly feels good to vent your spleen at someone in situations like that, I'm always struck by how profoundly pointless it is. You're interacting with someone whose value structure is so fundamentally different than your own that effective communication is somewhere between difficult and impossible.

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  116. 3. Lender: Wanted to invest his or her money. Had literally millions of places to invest it. Wisely invested it in a student was is prevented from discharging it in bankruptcy, ensuring that repayment will continue in perpetuity. Reaped an even bigger windfall from the federal government's guarantee of the loans.

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  117. Obviously 12:29 is just a troll. How does someone who takes out a student loan "lie" to the lender at that moment about their ability and willingness to pay the lender back? I'm quite sure that when the first-year law student signs that contract, he has every expectation in his ability to pay back that loan, and that he'll be able to do so. And spare me the crocodile tears about those poor government lenders who've invested in students...something tells me they sleep just fine at night. And since there are what, a trillion dollars of outstanding student loans, a huge amount of which are in default, I guess we just have a nation a large part of which is comprised of twenty-something year-old criminals. You're not doing yourself any favors by antagonizing them, assuming you do so outside of the lofty and safe position of an anonymous comment board...so watch your back.

    And let's hear your success story, you waste of life. And before you give me your shopworn "thief, deadbeat, scumbag" nonsense, I took out no student loans for 2 graduate degress, so spare us your wit. I really wonder how a moralizing, self-righteous jackass such as yourself, who clearly is mentally unstable and uncommonly angry for someone of obviously low intellect, who spends an entire day policing this comment thread and responding furiously to all comers, actually does that makes him such a paragon of integrity. You are a poseur and a fraud. Pathetic.

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  118. 12:29 - are you talking to a Wall STreet banker? Sounds like it. WHats it like to be an uneducated angry redneck? I've always wanted to ask.

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  119. Very few law students "lied about their ability and willingness to pay back their student loans". If anything they believed that they would get a renumerative job that would allow them to do so based on lies and fraudulent or misleading law school advertising.

    Most would not go if they knew with near certainly that they would not have the ability to service their loans after graduating.

    People who have $200k in loan payments but are unemployed or underemployed don't have the money to pay it back, its that simple.

    As for completing discharging student loans, that's never going to happen. "debtorsprison" troll is clearly a troll but lots of people think like him. And it wouldn't be totally fair to grads that somehow "made it", say into biglaw, but dumped most of their earnings to pay back their loans while others got their just wiped out.

    So that is why I support IBR. They pay something but its related to how much they make and more "fair" to everyone. Then the govt needs to study the IBR data and start limiting loans to schools where too many grads default or go on IBR. Govt provided student loans is an investment and if it isn't paying off, then it needs to limited to only those students and schools where the investment, in general, generates a positive return.

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  120. 11:21 here,

    The guy using the profane language is probably a troll; however, he conveys an attitude shared by many in this country. Also, as I said above, the lenders in this case are not the banks, or whoever else that formally issues or issued the loan. The real lender is the American Taxpayer who wants this program to continue for evil reasons. The American Taxpayer deserves what is going to happen as a result. When an investor sees that an investment is going sour the first thing he/she should do is stop investing in that bad item, then he/she can start to figure out how to minimize the damage that was already done.

    Lobby the political looters to get rid of this program if you are so concerned about thieves. The money cannot be paid back under the present circumstances. However, you are not going to do that because you like it that people’s lives are getting ruined. You like it enough that you will pay the inflation and actual taxes so this can go on.

    FYI: I do not have Student Loans. I care about this issue not just because of the moral travesty of destroying lives, but because I do not see why my tax dollars have to finance law professors and administrators, while producing cheap and desperate labor for rentier interests in this country.

    Continue my trollish friend.

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  121. 1:04 - Im not going to punish the thousands and thousands of people suffering because of the few success stories. Bankruptcy is a serious hit on your life and what you want to do with it. Sure some people will be taking advantage of it but that line of thinking would limit almost every form of bankruptcy. And bankruptcy laws could be written specifically for student loans so that abuse could be limited (clawbacks, income based limits, etc.) In any case, its important that dischargeability becomes part of the future and present if not the past.

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  122. You. are. ignorant. thieving. lying. parasitic. scumbags. ALL OF YOU!!! Get jobs, get several, and pay back your loans. Or prepare to reap the whirlwind.

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  123. Is this just Transparency Boy or Steroid Boy in the form of a new persona? Are you creating multiple personalities to respond in an insulting manner regardless of the discussion? It doesn't really matter, but you must be really bored. I'd like to say that many of us in the movement are paying our loans and I'm getting tired of reading you insulting the perceived freeloaders that you believe to frequent the site. We enjoy and encourage adult discussions, not yelling matches. Add value or shut up.

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  124. He can't add value because his arguments are full retard, as the kids today would say.

    He ignores the asymmetry of the loans and he ignores how the banning class get these kinds of favors all the time. He's just a simplistic moron. I find him amusing.

    And when you say "whirlwind", debtors prison boy, I think you mean a fart in the wind. Like your comments.

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  125. I've heard the "student loans are excepted from bankruptcy discharge" line time and again. But doesn't the bankruptcy code allow some student loans to be discharged in cases of undue hardship? Read 11 U.S.C. 523(8) and please tell me if I'm missing something.

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  126. lol, yeah you have to be in a coma though. Forget the code, look at the case law.

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  127. The application of "undue hardship" is so narrow that it may as well not be in the code at all. You literally have to be a quadripeligic AND have ZERO chance of recovery.

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  128. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to discharge their law school loans based on false certification of ability to benefit? Perhaps someone slammed by C+F for events which occurred prior to admission (legal status keeps the student from benefiting); or, more relevantly, one who had terrible admissions stats, was let in anyway, and failed the bar over and over (mental status keeps the student from benefiting).

    I'm guessing not, but maybe it's worth trying for people who were even more scammed than most.

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  129. I think it must be transparency boy. I still can't quite tell if this guy is for real or just a troll. He is consistent in his responses, which is odd. If you suggest that current student loan debt will be forgiven, he will immediately call you a deadbeat scumbag, he's done this in a few comment threads prior to this one.

    If you say something about student loans as the source of the problem, he will immediately say that you are an insignificant nobody, jealous of Harvard grads, stupid, and have no right to have any opinions on anything.

    I wish Lawprof would just ban this guy. He's made his contribution to the discussion, there is really nothing more for him to say other than to repeat himself. I know nothing about blog hosting, but certainly there is a way to identify this guy and confirm that its always him. Just ban him.

    All of the highest quality blogs eventually end up with a strict comments policy. As appealing it might be to allow an unregulated exchange of ideas, trolls always end up winning. The only way to beat them is to ban them.

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  130. You'd almost think he made his living making student loans or something. He gets extremely defensive about the idea that the should end or go unpaid, and shows a far greater emotional investment in the idea than any normal person would. He's either insane or just trolling for fun. Ban him!

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  131. Or, you'd almost think he has morals or something and doesn't like it when some scumbag deadbeat steals money that he or she got under the premise that they would pay it back.

    You people are such thieving scumbags. I guarantee that if anyone borrowed money from you and didn't pay it back you would scream bloody murder. If a company took your investment and squandered it you would be upset.

    But you have no problem stealing other people's money, that you got only because you promised to pay it back.

    You disgusting thieves have ZERO credibility or authority on the issue of scams, because you're the biggest attempted scammers of all. Except you're a dumb and transparent scammer, who will fail.

    Now let me tell you the bottom line: 90% of the country thinks like I do, and we will never let any of you deadbeats get away with stealing money. Can't pay it back? Fine, but it will be on your credit history for the rest of your life and as soon as you get any money we'll rush in and make sure you pay back your debtors.

    If you don't believe me, huff, cry and moan about debt forgiveness until you putrid thieving heads explode. Filthy dogs.

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  132. P.S. What's funny is that a very powerful organization - Moveon.org - attempted to lobby for a student loan bailout with the support of hundreds of thousands of scum like you, and they got beaten down hard by the political process.

    THERE WILL BE NO STUDENT LOAN BAILOUT, EVER. STOP SPENDING ALL DAY POSTING ON THIS BLOG. EVERY POST YOU WRITE HERE IS MONEY STOLEN FROM YOUR DEBTORS. GET A JOB - JUST LIKE EVERY MEXICAN IMMIGRANT IS ABLE TO DO A FEW WEEKS AFTER COMING HERE - AND START PAYING YOUR DEBT BACK.

    LEARN NOT TO BE A LAZY, OPPORTUNISTIC THIEVING SCUMBAG. IT WILL BE GOOD FOR YOUR SOUL.

    GOT IT? GOOD.

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  133. 3:37 is a real American.

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  134. I kinda enjoy it :)

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  135. The entire "law school scam" movement is just a bunch of punks trying to skip out on their loans.

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  136. If he's not transparency boy, he's equally as stupid. And you just know his entire life has been filled with one kind of subsidy or another.

    HEY FUCKHEAD...IBR BASICIALLY IS A WAY OF NOT PAYING OFF THE DEBT. SO TOO LATE. You should get your pitchfork out now I guess.

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  137. IBR will be over in five years max.

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  138. @ 3:35 - keep your posts smaller or I won't read them. What's your message again? Debt repayment good or bad? I can't remember.........

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  139. If Ron Paul wins or even influences the election, IBR could be over next year.

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  140. "The entire "law school scam" movement is just a bunch of punks trying to skip out on their loans."

    You seem really dumb. I believe that I have a moral obligation to pay off my student loans. But I also feel that I have a moral obligation to help expose the massive, tax-payer-backed fraud that is legal education.

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  141. You know, I actually have no problem with carrying the loans I used for living expenses.

    Sure, arguably people were cheated of that too (but for law school, I'd have been working and would have had a household income of like $50k, not rich but well surpassing the income + loans of about $30k my houehold had at the time).

    At least that money was used to purchase real items of value.

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  142. In other news, colleges and universities are continuing to open yet more new law schools (er, cash cows). It's possible that one day we might even have 2 million JDs who will have graduated within the previous 40 years. See:

    http://flustercucked.blogspot.com/2010/10/2-million-attorneys.html

    http://flustercucked.blogspot.com/2010/10/2-million-attorneys-not-as-far-fetched.html

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  143. I say we just stop talking about debt forgiveness. (1) It won't happen and (2) It just leads to bitter and angry arguments.

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  144. At 6:12

    1) Yes it will (gotta keep dem Americans spending and 2) so what.

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  145. You think student loan forgiveness will occur, when mortgage forgiveness has far more political support and yet has gone absolutely nowhere?

    Rather that get your hopes up I say you accept the fact that your loans are not going anywhere. And anyone on IBR should get ready for it to be phased out.

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  146. I'm seriously worried .... Campos didnt post anything new today.

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  147. He probably got sick of you losers.

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  148. This is going to come off completely the wrong way, but I'll ask it any way because it sincerely puzzles me.

    Why is it that blacks and hispanics have been largely immune to the law school scam? Blacks and hispanics are poor, and as shown above they can easily get into law school, so why are they smart enough to avoid it?

    The law school scam is entirely a white people problem.

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  149. 7:14, don't worry. He's still around.

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  150. Someone said yesterday grades were due today, probably what he's doing.

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  151. How long does it take to throw papers down stairs?

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  152. 8:22, lol re: staircase.
    http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/12/a_guide_to_grad.html

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