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Noam Scheiber writes in The New York Times:Quote By most measures, John Acosta is a law school success story. He graduated from Valparaiso University Law School — a well-established regional school here in northwestern Indiana — in the top third of his class this past December, a semester ahead of schedule. He passed the bar exam on his first try in February. Mr. Acosta, 39, is also a scrupulous networker who persuaded a former longtime prosecutor to join him in starting a defense and family law firm. A police officer for 11 years in Georgia, Mr. Acosta has a rare ability to get inside the head of a cop that should be of more than passing interest to would-be clients. “I think John’s going to do fine,” said Andrew Lucas, a partner at the firm where Mr. Acosta rents office space. “He’s got other life skills that are attractive to people running into problems.” Yet in financial terms, there is almost no way for Mr. Acosta to climb out of the crater he dug for himself in law school, when he borrowed over $200,000. The government will eventually forgive the loan — in 25 years — if he’s unable to repay it, as is likely on his small-town lawyer’s salary. But the Internal Revenue Service will probably treat the forgiven amount as income, leaving him what could easily be a $70,000 tax bill on the eve of retirement, and possibly much higher. Mr. Acosta is just one of tens of thousands of recent law school graduates caught up in a broad transformation of the legal profession. While demand for other white-collar jobs has grown substantially since the start of the recession, law firms and corporations are finding they can make do with far fewer in-house lawyers than before.Read the whole thing. I knew things were not great for law school grads these days, but damn, not that bad. It’s almost like they were holders of journalism degrees, or something. ...
By most measures, John Acosta is a law school success story. He graduated from Valparaiso University Law School — a well-established regional school here in northwestern Indiana — in the top third of his class this past December, a semester ahead of schedule. He passed the bar exam on his first try in February. Mr. Acosta, 39, is also a scrupulous networker who persuaded a former longtime prosecutor to join him in starting a defense and family law firm. A police officer for 11 years in Georgia, Mr. Acosta has a rare ability to get inside the head of a cop that should be of more than passing interest to would-be clients. “I think John’s going to do fine,” said Andrew Lucas, a partner at the firm where Mr. Acosta rents office space. “He’s got other life skills that are attractive to people running into problems.” Yet in financial terms, there is almost no way for Mr. Acosta to climb out of the crater he dug for himself in law school, when he borrowed over $200,000. The government will eventually forgive the loan — in 25 years — if he’s unable to repay it, as is likely on his small-town lawyer’s salary. But the Internal Revenue Service will probably treat the forgiven amount as income, leaving him what could easily be a $70,000 tax bill on the eve of retirement, and possibly much higher. Mr. Acosta is just one of tens of thousands of recent law school graduates caught up in a broad transformation of the legal profession. While demand for other white-collar jobs has grown substantially since the start of the recession, law firms and corporations are finding they can make do with far fewer in-house lawyers than before.
As of this April, fewer than 70 percent of Valparaiso law school graduates from the previous spring were employed and fewer than half were in jobs that required a law license. Only three out of 131 graduates worked in large firms, which tend to pay more generous salaries.---By 2014, the limitations of the strategy had become apparent: The figures the school reported for the rate at which its graduates passed the Indiana bar exam, which had already been dipping, crashed to about 61 percent, from about 77 percent the year before. An enormous number of students wouldn’t be able to work as lawyers in the state even if jobs were theoretically available.---And this dynamic is very likely to continue, for the simple reason that there is still too much law school capacity chasing too few good students. While law school applications have dropped by nearly 40 percent nationally since 2010, enrollment has dropped by only about 30 percent, and the number of full-time faculty members has dropped by less than 15 percent, according to data compiled from A.B.A. filings by the law school analyst Matt Leichter. In such a world, schools like Valparaiso essentially face the following choice: Admit a large number of marginal students, or shut down.
Sounds like people going to college these days do not understand what a loan is.I don't think they sound like "college material"
Didn't they read the fine print? Do their due diligence?
You'd expect law students would have learned those things already
Yabbut, they don't teach them like they used to...
Common Core isn’t preparing students very well for college or career, new report says By Valerie Strauss June 9A new report that surveys curriculum nationally and reaches thousands of K-12 and college instructors as well as workplace supervisors and employees has some bad news about the Common Core State Standards: Many people in education and the workplace don’t think some of the English Language Arts and math standards — which are being used in most states — are what students and workers need to be successful in college and career. ...
