Lemmings: Why Bother with Tuition?

I know that many of the die-hards believe that the one and only goal of scamblogs should be the dissuasion of all prospective students from law school.  I do not disagree that such a goal would lead to victory, as it would empty the bank accounts of the law schools once and for all.  However, I recognize that in reality, many people will still attend law school for various reasons, including those people with connections in government or big law or rich families.  Also, those people who get into the higher-ranked schools and achieve top grades will probably survive the post-law-school financial wasteland (although Con Law explains why even those graduates often become miserable and leave the law).

To help those young people who will attend law school despite the scam warnings, perhaps because many of the major facets of the scam do not affect them in the same way, there are additional messages that we should advance that will still help to destroy the Law School Industrial Complex.  For example, Campos (remember him) recently reported on Lawyers, Guns, and Money that he emailed with a student matriculating to a higher-ranked T1 school this year who received an unsolicited tuition discount of 60%.  To be clear, this was not a contingency scam-scholarship—this was a straight tuition cut given to a student with below-median LSAT/GPA. 

If the schools are desperate enough to retain a below-median student without any negotiation whatsoever for only 40% of sticker price, the end is nigh.  Think about what would happen if he did negotiate.  This begs an even better question: could all above-median students receive a full-ride for all three years?

I agree that attending law school will harm the majority of people no matter what.  Even those people with initial connections to government or big law may find themselves out in the cold after a few years, especially as things get worse as the overproduction of new lawyers continues.  Also, the scammers always find new ways to scam, whether they target freshman undergraduates or the middle-aged unemployed.  So, yes, the primary goal of scamblogs should be education and dissuasion.

However, educating prospective lemmings about tuition discounting can also help to accelerate the collapse of the Law School Industrial Complex because it keeps the money away from the scammers.  Sure, some of these students may still face lifelong consequences for attending a school even at a fraction of the sticker price: unemployment, the J.D. resume stigma, three years of lost income, etc.  However, if these lemmings pay only a fraction of the tuition, at least they will not face the same problems of debt servitude.  Most importantly, they will have taken profits away from the scam deans. 

If the application numbers continue to tank, leaving the schools with slim pickings, and the lemmings who matriculate from these slim pickings still only pay a fraction of the sticker price, the schools will have to face the following choice: 1) downsize (or microsize) or 2) accept the same number of students but face a dramatic USNWR ranking drop as they admit mouth-breathers from further down the short bus aisle.