Well of course not.

I think the lawsuits may have some merit in that Tier 4 schools, including mine, publish quite a bit of misinformation about their employment statistics in that to the school, you are considered employed after law school whether you are an associate in a top firm or whether you are a barrista at the Starbuck's on the first floor of the building where that other graduate works.

I still don't think the suits have much merit. The information about law school being a gamble if you don't have a plan is definitely out there. Law students tend to be pretty sophisticated people. Expecting to make $150K upon graduation from a Tier 4 school (unless nepotism is involved or you're some kind of prodigy) is just not realistic.

There aren't too many. Kaplan operates one. I'm pretty sure they send out promotional literature to everyone who does poorly on the LSAT. Some states will even license you if you graduate from a non-ABA approved school.

My remarks about my school weren't that it is for-profit per se, but it is being run as a cash cow to subsidize other aspects of the university.

The same issue is happening in veterinary medicine. We are pumping out too many vets. More schools are opening up and many schools have increased their class sizes. There are many undergrad students that don't get into a state side school so now they are going overseas to vet school where their debt can easily reach 250,000 to 300,000 (for example Ross university which is a for profit school). Try paying 250,000$ off with a 60,000$ a year salary-and this is if you can get a job. I have tried to educate some of these pre vet students on the student doctor network message board-but they don't want to hear it. Many think they won't have any problems getting a job or that it is all rainbows and unicorns once they graduate. They are in for a big surprise. I was talking to a 4th year vet student this May and she said 60% of the 2012class did not have a job yet. My class (1997) had at least 3 job offers each by early spring. We could pick and chose where we wanted to go.

I have trried to warn them and have gotten nothing but rude responses. At this point I don't give a rat's ass if they drown in debt.

Does anyone have any opinions on the income based repayment that the government is now offering? Many of these students are saying they are just going to depend onthis when they graduate but I have a feeling this program will not last.

Not to come to your school's defense, but external forces put that system in place. The ABA, USNews, and NALP have rules about how employment stats are reported; schools must publish them that way.

Schools that really care about transparency will ALSO publish more detailed stats about who's working outside of the legal field, part-time, etc. So I'm not saying the schools are blameless. They just didn't come up with the idea of including the Starbucks baristas as "employed" -- they were asked to do that.

Even when schools are up front about the bad job odds, students ignore the ugly stats or think they'll be in the lucky group. It's just what aggieAXO is saying about the new vets. You can tell them that 90% of the grads are starving...a whole lot of people think, "But I'll be in the 10%."

Remember that cool thread about online degrees that turned into a thread about for-profit schools? :) Deja vu.

Interesting 2007 article that lists a few for-profit "schools of law":
http://stayviolation.typepad.com/chu...or-profit.html

(I do not necessarily agree with him but I am amused by his word usage errors that any amount of proofreading could have caught.)

Warning the world about all for-profit schools, one thread at a time. This is a list of the majority of for-profit schools and does not include every for-profit "school of law":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...s_and_colleges

IBR is a good thing considering the limited alternatives that most people have.

Yes, you can go to med school in the Carribean and do a residency here. The AMA keeps a pretty strict cap on the number of seats in medical schools, to the point where some would argue there are not enough doctors being trained.

I have no idea why the ABA doesn't do the same.

My mom went back to work in 1999 after more than a decade out, and they needed SPED teachers so she taught SPED. There was such a shortage that they were totally cool with that as long as she enrolled in night school within a few months. Teaching SPED and getting another degree at her age was not easy, but that's what was available.

BUT...once you teach SPED for a few years, if you really want, you have the seniority move to non-SPED. My mom never did (and she retires today from the Chicago Public Schools!), but a 22-year-old who wants to get a job should really consider putting in the grunt work.

Money.

--that and the fact that for-profits which aren't licensed by the ABA are popping up and some states are allowing their graduates to take the Bar. This could render the ABA impotent.

Caribbean medical schools do serve an important niche. Here in NYC, there's an Urban Doctors Program that will provide scholarships to students to study at Caribbean medical schools with the understanding that they'll work at one of the underserved public hospitals in the city for a number of years after their residencies (which they'll also do here). Some people pick those schools specifically because they want to do public health and don't necessarily want/need to take on the debt of a major medical school. The vast majority of the people in Caribbean medical schools WANT to be in places like Rwanda or the South Bronx.

It's kind of like Kevin's situation--he knew he'd have a job right out, so he needed the JD--not the name on the JD. The problem lies in the people who think they'll have all of same opportunities as those who went to a more prestigious school.

I think the problem of too many lawyers actually stems from the economy as well. Being from MI and just happening to graduate college the year the state's economy took a major dump I know way too many people who furthered their education (Mostly Masters programs but a few going to law school) simply because they couldn't find work with their 4 year degree and had assumed that the economy would've recovered by the time they graduated. I assume that this phenomena is pretty much going on nation wide now.