My School is Raising Tuition Again!

It may not matter too much to me as my school is already quite expensive, but it might matter to those who are just starting law school.  The truth is, however, the school is raising tuition once again.  I got the e-mail the other day, and it said the following:

The administration has worked to keep tuition increases to a minimumthis year.  Rising costs have made some increase unavoidable, but, bycontrolling costs, we have been able to hold the increase to 2.9% for3F, 3P, and 4P students and 3.2% for 2F and 2P students. 

Full-Time2F $49,6303F $49,486 

Part-Time2P $37,2223P $37,1144P $36,758 

Student Fees will increase to $346 for the coming year.

The truth is, this is not gonna be cheap.  And every year it goes up.  My school is not the only school that raises its tuition.  In fact, tuition increases are happening everywhere.  In fact, I would like to see a law school that is not raising its tuition.  That would be a site huh?

One final year and I am done with law school.  Sally Mae will come to my door, in all her splendid glory and ask for her money back.  Only time will tell if I will have any money to give her.

Will I find a legal job?  Will I find a non-legal job?  Will I be working at a decent law firm, at a non-profit, or at a fast food restaurant?  Will I be living back with my parents (which, to be honest, I don't consider an option).  For a person such as myself, the future is very scary.

My school is raising tuition again... Is yours?

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I honestly CAN NOT BELIEVE that my school has the AUDACITY to RAISE it's tuition again!  How the H E L L do these people think we can pay this amount.  Is the government this STUPID that they allow schools to keep raising prices.  Are people so stupid that they think that the economy can sustain itself on people taking out HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars in student loans.  Where is all this money coming from?  Do these idiots honestly think that everyone is going to be able to pay it back in this economy?  I don't understand it.  How can people just sit by and watch this happen.  It's like the housing bubble all over again -- yet I think this is going to be worse.  Much worse.  I think that it's going to implode and I wonder where the economy is going to be.

This is the BABY BOOMERS LAST STAND.  One final way to screw us over before they finally leave this planet.  GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH!!!!!!!

They want to keep you in school forever...

A friend of mine was recently talking to me.  She was telling me how that her liberal arts program of study will now take an extra semester to finish.  Further, she has been in school for almost four years now full time.  Further, the last semester she has been taking 18 credits, which is the maximum allowed for her school, unless she can get permission from the dean to take more credits.  Yet, she will have to take another full semester of classes, at 18 credits, after the four years, in order to graduate.

She is worried about her loans as well.  She will not get a Pell Grant.  Further, since she goes to a private school, all her loan money will be going to towards tuition.  She has nothing left over for housing or food.  In fact, she tells me that she will actually owe some after her maximum government loans are taken out in order to pay tuition.

I recently was talking to an aunt of mine who went to a private school many years ago.  This aunt is a Baby Boomer.  Wikipedia defines baby boomer as:

A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom between the years 1946 and 1964, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even within a given territory. Different groups, organizations, individuals, and scholars may have widely varying opinions on what constitutes a baby boomer, both technically and culturally. Ascribing universal attributes to a broad generation is difficult, and some observers believe that it is inherently impossible. Nonetheless, many people have attempted to determine the broad cultural similarities and historical impact of the generation, and thus the term has gained widespread popular usage.

United States birth rate (births per 1000 population). The red segment from 1946 to 1964 is the postwar baby boom.

Baby boomers are associated with a rejection or redefinition of traditional values; however, many commentators have disputed the extent of that rejection, noting the widespread continuity of values with older and younger generations. In Europe and North America boomers are widely associated with privilege, as many grew up in a time of widespread government subsidies in post-war housing and education, and increasing affluence. As a group, they were the wealthiest, most active, and most physically fit generation to that time, and amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time. They were also the generation that received peak levels of income, therefore they could reap the benefits of abundant levels of food, apparel, retirement programs, and sometimes even "midlife crisis" products.

One feature of Boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before. In the 1960s, as the relatively large numbers of young people became teenagers and young adults, they, and those around them, created a very specific rhetoric around their cohort, and the change they were bringing about.^[5] This rhetoric had an important impact in the self perceptions of the boomers, as well as their tendency to define the world in terms of generations, which was a relatively new phenomenon.

The baby boom has been described variously as a "shockwave" and as "the pig in the python." By the sheer force of its numbers, the boomers were a demographic bulge that remodeled society as it passed through it.

The term Generation Jones has sometimes been used to distinguish those born from 1954 onward from the earlier Baby Boomers.  (Source: Wikipedia.org)

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My aunt told me that her tuition at a private four year college was free of charge.  Further, she told me that she was done with her four year program in three and a half years.  I could not help but shake my head at this.  Of course, when tuition is free they will rush you out.  When you pay close to $35,000 a year, they will try to keep you forever.

The truth is, four year college programs are taking people far longer than four years.  Further, people are told that it is alright to change their majors halfway into the program.  In fact, they are told that it is not only okay, it is normal.  I know of some people who change their majors like they change their underwear, once every few months.  It's quite crazy.

Shouldn't college take less time if it is more expensive?  Young people are getting screwed over with high tuition costs and at the same time being told that they have to spend another six months to a year in school in order to finish their program of study.  If you drop out you'll be another person with 'some college' experience, which society tells you is bad.  If you finish that degree you started, you will be another college graduate in a world saturated with grads.  Colleges want you to finish and they will milk you like a bovine every step of the way.

Boomers tend to have no clue the price of an education these days.  They went for free, yet think at the same time, we should all be able to pay our loans.  Some may say: go to a public college.  That's not cheap, either.  In fact, some public schools charge more than private schools used to charge a couple of decades ago.  Maybe less.  

Further, we are told that since there are so many regular four year graduates out there that we need a graduate degree.  Like undergraduate schools, law schools are taking anyone with a pulse.  LSAT scores, once necessary to enter law school, have been relaxed.  Now a GMAT might get you into some schools.  The barriers to entry are being knocked down all in the name of the almighty dollar.  A legal education is not about creating lawyers.  It's about making money -- for the schools.  As I speak, a handful of schools are preparing to become accredited.  Chances are that they all will be.  Further, there are talks of ABA law schools popping up in other countries, such as China.  Outsourcing law schools?  Is this for real?  (Law.com -- Law Schools in China?).

Higher education reform will have to happen.  But who will pay the price?  The boomers?  Unlikely.  It will probably end up being those who are being pumped into the educational system right now.  It will probably be us who are taking out six figure loans in order to finish our education.  It will be those who were conditioned and fed that education was the path to the American dream.  And while it could be argued that nobody had a gun to our heads, and that we have free choice (which is true), the punishment is quite harsh.  Why should schools be allowed to create four year programs that run on for five years and charge insane amounts of money for it?  Why should there be more law schools than the legal economy can support?  Why should legal education be outsourced just as e-discovery? 

Bankruptcy for Student Loan Debt?

It has been said that bankruptcy should be allowed for student loan debt.   When I first heard this, I was not sure what to think.   However, as time passed by and I started to think of the situation regarding student loan money being granted to individuals and how this debt plagues some very hardworking people, I started to understand the case for allowing students to declare bankruptcy in order to remove their student loans.

People go to college, generally, to gain the skills to enter the workforce.  Some individuals go to college for seven years or more.   This is the case with law students.  However, due to the current economy, many law students are finding that there are no jobs for them.  Yet, what is there for them is six digit student loan debt.  Furthermore, many students were sucked into the higher education system as a result of being told all their lives that college was not an option, but a necessity.  That in order to be even remotely successful in life, you need a college education.

Sadly, many students are finishing college, expecting to land a good job that allows them to be a productive member of society and reap the rewards for their labor.  However, many students will never have home ownership (or will have to defer it) or will not be able to secure credit for their own business.   Many will be stuck with a very limited income after college, barely able to pay back these massive loans.

Many people go to college in order to do something better with their lives.   The opportunity cost of college is high.  One must defer the earning of income in order to attend college.  This income could be used to pay for a down payment on a house, to start a new business, or to be invested towards retirement.  The person who does not choose college will not have to worry about student loan debt. The person who goes to college feels that he or she is making a responsible choice.  A choice that will benefit them and their family in the years to come.  However, upon graduating, many students are inundated with student loan debt (some also have credit card and other debt, which I will ignore here). This debt is often crippling.  The student can try to enter the workforce with their college degree, but often they will realize that the jobs are just not there.   Therefore, the graduate schools make their siren calls, offering the life of glitz and glamor.  Come continue your education, and reap even greater rewards than your peers.   Young men and women fall for this.   Our parents, teachers, and the rest of society tells us that this is the right choice.  More school is always good.   The more education you have the better off you will be.  However, the reality is, if you can not find work, you will only be in more debt.

Six figure debt is said to be life crippling.  Many people have years of depression ahead of them when they realize that the rest of their youth will be spent trying to pay off this debt instead of doing the things, such as starting a family, buying a home, starting a business, etc. etc. that their less educated friends are able to do.   They were told to go to college, that it was the responsible thing to do, and in the end their reward is a life of desolation.  And they are told, unlike their less educated counterparts, that they can not discharge that debt.  They are told that, even though they worked for years on getting a degree, that the debt is there to haunt them for the rest of their life.

Some individuals are unable to pay such debt, and are saddled with extra payments.  Payments that spiral out of control due to compound interest.  Other individuals flee from the United States, feeling that the only way to escape the debt is to leave their homeland behind.  They become known as the student loan debt pariahs.

One reason that this debt has got out of control is that student loan amounts have grown like crazy.   A person should not be allowed to take out over $200,000 in loans for higher education.   In fact, an individual should not be allowed to take out over $100,000 in loans.  Why?  Because when the loan rates are increased, the tuition increases in step with it.  In fact, college tuition has risen faster than the cost of medical care, yet which of the two gets the most media attention?  Most of the college students I have spoken to have no idea how fast college tuition increases!

The higher education system is one of the biggest businesses in the United States.  It is truly a business in every sense of the world. Ride the New York subway system and see the trains plastered with ads from schools you have never even heard of.  Watch television and see advertisements from multitudes of schools.   Drive around the country and see billboards advertising colleges.  Anyone can join now, thanks to the ease of student loan debt.  If student loan debt was capped, the schools would be forced to reduce their tuition.   Society now thinks that education is a right for all, and people would be angry at the idea that their kids could not go to college, so schools would be forced to reduce their tuition in order to allow everyone to go to college.  To have to pay $40-50,000 for a year of education is ludicrous.  As I said in a previous post, one could go from New York or Los Angeles to Cancun or another tropical locale for the same price as a week of class at some schools.  It truly is out of control.

Well meaning parents tell their children that they have to go to college.  They give up much time that they could be earning money in order to learn to be a better member of society.  They are told what they are doing is great.  Their families celebrate their choice.  They endure 4-7 years of higher education, and then, as a result, are not able to partake in the joys of humanity.  There is something wrong with this picture.   I say let there be some kind of bankruptcy protection for student loans. Maybe after five years.  If a person is unable to find work, why should they be a slave to debt for the remainder of their life?  Why should a well meaning individual not be able to partake in the ability to own a home or start a business?

I say this, because I imagine I will never own a home or property.  At one time I thought I would, but now I realize that the course I have chosen will be to my detriment.   I don't know if I would file for bankruptcy if given the choice, I have come to terms with the reality of the situation and use this blog to warn others and to express myself.   While there is a stigma with filing for bankruptcy, there are some cases in which bankruptcy for student loans is necessary.  Why should the college graduate who worked hard for almost a decade be told that he can not file for bankruptcy, when the higher education system is to blame for the insane and out of control prices of college and graduate school?