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Law school graduate's case against law school will go to trial

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Mar 7, 2016.

  1. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    She's the first to successfully bring to trial a case that her law school inflated employment numbers.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/07/b...ng-law-school-of-inflating-job-data.html?_r=0

    She now has student debt of $170,000, with loan interest around 8 percent. Her law degree was not a ticket to a stable, well-paying career, but an expensive detour before she went on to work in a series of part-time positions, mostly temporary jobs reviewing documents for law firms.

    As her debt mounted and her job prospects faltered, she filed a lawsuit in 2011, arguing that she would not have enrolled at Thomas Jefferson if she had known the law school’s statistics were misleading.

    Thomas Jefferson’s average student indebtedness, then about $137,000 — higher than that at Stanford Law School the same year — was among the highest in the nation. She also pointed to her school’s bar passage rate as consistently lower than 50 percent, which was below the average in California.
     
  2. JohnHammond

    JohnHammond Well-Known Member

    Think she'll lose if she was really offered a $60k job with a law firm, as the law school claims?
     
  3. Mr. Sunshine

    Mr. Sunshine Well-Known Member

    This should get her a book deal, or at the very least a longform piece on her journey.
     
  4. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I definitely think that's a really bad fact for her. Even if she's correct, that the school fraudulently inflated employment statistics, she has to show that she was damaged by that fact.
     
  5. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    How is it that you can buy a car in this country with interest rates with 0 percent interest and student loan rates are 8 percent or more.

    Schools out to offer low interest loans themselves. Instead of offering a $5,000 scholarship to 100 people, offer a zero interest loan to 500 applicants.
     
  6. JohnHammond

    JohnHammond Well-Known Member

    Your math doesn't work.Why would schools take the risk of funding loans and take on collection services themselves?
     
  7. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    You can repossess a car.
     
  8. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I owe an astronomical amount. I'll never pay it all back. Or at least it's highly unlikely. I use the "Income Based Repayment Plan." If you have an economic "hardship," your payment is capped. After 20 years, the remaining amount is forgiven, though you are taxed on it as income for that year.
     
  9. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Right. One of the partners here and I were talking about this the other day. That's why you can't discharge student loans in bankruptcy, either. There has to be some incentive for you to have to pay. Otherwise, I could just file bankruptcy and, seven years later, have perfect credit without paying back a dime. In fact, I'd probably consider it. I don't need credit for anything any more.
     
  10. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    Instead of giving away $5,000, they can get it back.

    Right now, schools are relying too much on the government and banks to throw money at students to attend their schools. Take on some of that yourself.
     
  11. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    What's in it for them? As it is now, they've already been paid. Why should they take on the risk themselves if someone else is willing to do it?
     
  12. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    People are starting to look at college as a bad investment. Schools seem to be doing very little to lower costs or increase value.

    This would be a way some schools could help make it more affordable for more students.

    It makes your school more attractive. And pro-active.
     
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