I was really hoping he'd respond to the law school student along these lines: "Well, where in your class did you graduate, and why did you think you'd have job prospects as a lawyer? Unless you're in the top 1/3 of your class at a good law school or top 5% of your class at an OK school, getting a job is hard in today's market. Part of the reason law school (and school in general) is so expensive is because we've removed a lot of the risk from the loan side of the equation. We give you 7% money, guaranteed against default, and the schools jack up the prices. That combines with faulty transparency in which some law schools hide employment rates. My guess is that a lot more people are going to law school than should be, and we need to fix the incentives to keep all parties honest about their prospects."
This redditor's reply to that student was along the lines of what you were looking for:
"Unfortunately you went to law school at a time when the job market for your prospective field was wildly oversaturated. I don't really feel like you can blame any politicians for that one.
Best of luck finding a job, though."[1]
Yup. I don't have much sympathy for him, considering he took out $160,000 in debt with only a 50/50 shot to pay it back (that's your chance to get a high enough salary coming out of a top law school to service that debt, outside of Harvard and Yale). His poor decision is further compounded by the fact that he decided to go to law school after the legal market crashed in 2008 and people started to realize how ridiculous first year associate compensation was getting. I'm not really sure why my tax dollars should be bailing out a guy with a college degree who took a six figure gamble (though I suppose we've already set the standard by bailing out those who took gambles much larger than that).
I don't disagree with a single thing you said - but I do find some irony in the fact that this community for the most part is centered around startups - some taking huge risks with either bootstrapped money, or angel money - and the failure rate is often estimated between 30% to 40%.
Sure, and the "woe is me" rate is estimated between 0% and "why don't you fire up that bong again" -- much lower than that of the (formerly) wealthy students that gambled on an expensive education.
The difference is who takes on the risk. With startup investment, the investors risk their money, and if the company dies, the investors take that loss. They do this because they can make a lot of money from the startups that make it big. With student loans, the risk lies with the student.
It's debatable how much the loan thing contributes to the overall price or rate of attendance. 7% sucks for a loan, it's not like they're supply-siding it. I'd put it more on students aren't the best decision makers when the choice is between "attend school or get a job". Not to mention that a large percentage of attendees at the ivies have parents who can pay the bill.
Also, it's worth noting that maybe not for this student, but for last year's class, starting law school in Sep 2008 looked like a great idea and graduating in 2011 looks terrible.
That said, I'm generally on board with the whole 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea sentiment. If this is a market correction, good.
