FixUC Stumbles onto Human Capital Contracts

Nanette Asimov, “Plan Would Eliminate Tuition to UC’s Benefit,” in SFGate.com Leanne Maxwell, “UC Considers Students’ ‘Delayed Tuition’ Proposal,” in sfist.com News outlets are reporting on a proposal (PDF) produced by a student organization, FixUC, which operates out of University of California-Riverside. More importantly, the university is actually considering it. The proposal is essentially the [...]

Two Worlds, Side by Side: ABA Journal & Letter from Law School

I received a letter from my law school subtly informing me that my name would be placed on “the permanent donor wall located near the entrance” if I gave a gift or commitment of $5,000. The same day, the ABA Journal published Bill Henderson’s article titled, “The Law School Bubble: How Long Will It Last [...]

Federal Student Loan Debt Will More Than Double by 2021; GDP, Not So Much

A few weeks ago I painstakingly projected where the federal government’s Direct Loan Program was going, and for the last several months I’ve been tracking growth in government holdings of nonrevolving debt as a proxy for the government’s Direct Loans balance to prove that. Here’s what I projected: Then a reader directed me to the [...]

The Law School Problem Is Vertical, Not Horizontal as Most Law Professors Believe

I take [the LawScam critique] to be that legal education is hoodwinking prospective law students into law school and conspiring to produce an oversupply of lawyers that face diminished job prospects and crippling debt loads. –Usha Rodrigues (Associate Professor of Law, University of Georgia), “ScamLaw: The Master’s Forum,” The Conglomerate So, if I’m right, then [...]

How to Make Transparency Work: The Sorting Hat

Introduction If U.S. senators are calling for transparency in law school statistics, it’s probably time to think through what a transparency regime would look like. By now, it’s become the sacred cow of legal ed reform. How can anyone be against it? Of course, no one can be—it would do a great deal of good—but [...]

Task Force to NYSBA and Law Schools: More Debate + Transparency Please

Instead of the clichéd approach of finger-pointing between and among law schools, employers and the bar, the Task Force recommends an approach in which the various sectors and stakeholders work together to undertake the professional formation of young lawyers. [Report from the NYSBA Task Force on the Future of the Legal Profession, Page 38] On [...]

The Law School Tuition Bubble: Tuition Increases Law School-by-Law School from 2005 to 2011, Part 3

[Read Part 1 (the setup) and Part 2 (the data)] Now is the time for modest changes in current federal student loan programs to increase the amount that law students may borrow. –Carolyn Lamm, former President of the American Bar Association, “Law School Educational Debt Has a Manageable Solution.” And modest changes President Lamm received. [...]

A New Year’s Resolution for Law Students: Organize.

Today, American law schools are like factories that no force has the power to slow down — not even the timeless dictates of supply and demand. So writes David Segal in his epic New York Times article on the crisis facing the legal profession. He’s wrong, though analysis pieces obviously aren’t the place for serious [...]

Thoughts on Human Capital Contracts

Okay folks, back from a break and ready for at least one good substantive post this week. A while back I promised my thoughts on the benefits and drawbacks of human capital contracts (HCCs). Richard Vedder, the first serious HCC advocate in higher education (I suspect it’d work even better far better for professional education, [...]

Quick Link– “Creative Hustler” Says Stuff about Law School Tobacco Warnings, Champions Creative Hustling

Ari L. Kaplan, “Would Law School Warning Labels Make Any Difference?” in National Law journal When someone opens an article with, “People smoke.  People speed.  They don’t exercise or get enough sleep.  They go to law school,” my eyes roll.  Mr. Kaplan, allow me to direct you to your comparison’s flaws: Tobacco is extremely chemically [...]