Some Words

The NYTimes today has an article about an aspiring lawyer who amassed over four hundred thousand dollars of debt. The New York state bar denied him admission based, essentially, on the size of his debt. The story is itself sad, as reading it entails playing witness to a man who did what might not have been sensible, but was definitely determined and inspiring, in pursuit of his dream.

But it is my continuing obsession with comment threads that causes me to write. This article already has over three hundred comments on it. Now many of them are about the absurdity of his being denied, in light of the other transgressions that practicing members of the New York bar have gotten away with. Well, that seems like a pretty good point. But there are two other dominant types, the first being of the “this proves lawyers and judges are evil” variety, all too common I’m afraid. Lawyers and cops always get judged by their worst members, and both professions have a spotty record for policing their own.

The other group attack the student loan program and the cost of education. Now, I’ll be the first to say that the cost of education has gotten too high. We’re in a situation where other countries have arguably better secondary education, and the one real advantage the American educational system had was its colleges. Now we’re putting those out of reach, and the ones that remain in reach are often places where you have to get a good education in spite of those around you. I’m not saying a good education is impossible at a lower tier state school, but it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder to get it.

So people take out loans to afford it, and then many have trouble paying it back, because you have to take out the same damn loans whether you major in accounting or social work. We do want social workers, right? We don’t all want to live in some warped Ayn Rand nuthouse, do we? So we need the loans, and we should really consider how much we charge the people who will be working lower paying jobs that we really need done. (Also, anyone reading this who’s going to be doing social work or other public interest work, there is a public service loan repayment program. Check it out.) But who in the hell are these posters talking about when they refer to lawyers getting quarter million dollar loans and then expecting to pay them back? Are these K-J.D. people? Because I have no idea how it would get up that high. If this is a mix of Stafford and Plus loans, you’re looking at around 7.5% interest averaged out over all of them. That’s going to be just under $20,000 a year to hold even. Sure, you can pay it pre-tax, but it’s still a big pill to swallow.

I’m going to save some more rant for later though. First off, I want to talk a bit about undergrad. Second, for some reason every time I’ve tried to save this draft the past three times I’ve written it, I got cut off at 440 words.

Edit: And it turns out to be the connection on campus.