[eavesdropper]

[quote=walterwhite]Eaves, I’m with you. But why should the debt be nondischargeable. If you go to say a school for cobblers and you sign up for big loans based on the lies of the school, and there aren’t really any cobbling positions, how is it just to say, well, student, you’re dumb, so, pay up forever.

On the other hand, saddling a couple classes with crippling lifetime debt loads will send a strong market signal to future students that education is a scam.

But so will acfew thousand successful lawsuits againts law schools.

The system is rife with lies. It seems reasonable to me that a potential student should be able to rely on a law school brochures employment statistics. And I’m a pretty cynical bastard. But there should be no lying there. People are investingbyears of life and hundreds of thousands in debt. It’s a pretty material misrepresentation as they go.

The correct move is to go down swinging by establishing extraordinary credit prior to school, getting unsecured credit in the hundreds of thousands in credit cards. Then going solo, in massive debt, making payments on the loans but seining for the fences in your own practice.

I am willing to change my mind.

Personal resp. And due diligence… After a lifetime of lies from the educational system?

Not sure…[/quote]

Scaredy, I see what you’re saying, but at this point in time, I can’t endorse a discharge of the obligations unless it is at the costs of the financiers who made the loans. And that will never happen.

Once again, just as with housing, we’re seeing the cost of cheap money. Lending institutions were able to borrow the money at the incredibly low rates generously provided by the Fed, and the only roadblock to the phenomenally lucrative profits that could be generated from the ever decreasing prime rate was finding enough lending opportunities (aka, suckers). This is how school financing went from borrowing just enough to cover tuition, books, room and board to paying for luxury apartments, foreign travel, cars, and clothing. In fact, Octomom denied receiving “public assistance” in order to raise her (then) six children while keeping a local Toys-R-Us in business and paying for weekly acrylic nails, plastic surgery and in-vitro fertilization treatments; she, instead, stated that her expenses were covered by educational loans.

This was my first clue that, apparently, there was no oversight on the use of “school loans”, and pretty much no restrictions on the amounts. In fact, just as they were with housing and with equity loans, lending institutions were encouraging students to take ever-increasing amounts of funds for education. I was always under the impression that school loans were like grants: you had to show proof of expenditures/projected costs, and the checks were made out to the educational institutions themselves. While you could rack up a respectable amount of debt, it did not compare with what students are managing to incur these days. The universities themselves (and I’m talking about reputable brick-and-mortar institutions) are actively involved in programs that encourage greater student spending discretion, resulting in lucrative payoffs to the schools.

This should not be surprising. The baby-boomers were the first generation to send a significant number of its members to college, to be able to attend immediately after high school, to be able to attend four consecutive years of college, and to be able to send a large number of females to college. All of these factors resulted in tremendous growth of existing colleges/ universities, and the formation of others, in order to meet the high demand. However, since the 1980s, colleges have been struggling to attract adequate amounts of students to replace the boomers.

Many schools that should have been closed down or consolidated long ago have, instead, remained open, and now are being forced to compete with the for-profit schools. Most are having to make all kinds of claims and promises regarding the quality of their educational facilities and staffs, and about the potential for post-graduation employment, and most are not beyond outright lying in their claims, or at least creative manipulation and presentation of statistics. In addition, they are having to spend money on very expensive nonacademic facilities (student health clubs, shopping malls, gourmet food courts) with which parents can bribe their kids to go to college.

There needs to be fundamental changes in the way that Americans look at a college education:
(1) It IS an education. You are going there to learn. The primary purpose is not to meet your soul mate(s), to party, to have fun, to shop, to play sports, to have an opportunity to go on Spring Break, or to get chosen for an MTV reality show.
(2) It’s not a place to avoid adulthood for another 4 years. If that’s your goal, tell your parents to find a Montessori preschool for you, instead.
(3) It’s not a place to stash your kid because (a) you can’t deal with him anymore, or (b) you want to brag to your friends about your kid being in college. EVERYONE can get into college these days. He/she isn’t special.
(4) There is NOT the guarantee of a job when you graduate. This bears repeating: There is NOT the guarantee of a job when you graduate. Most of you will not be worth any more to an employer when you get out than you are now (and perhaps even less owing to brain cells lost from excessive drinking and stupid fraternity pranks). Even for the few of you that truly work hard and excel in your Ivy League institution, while your chances of getting a job are better, there’s no guarantee. Get used to it, and then go out and see some employers to find out what they look for in prospective employees, and take what they tell you seriously.

My opinion is, that if the above sentiments were broadcast in PSAs on a round-the-clock basis, we would have about 1/10 of the number of college freshman entering in September as are now projected. Costs would be a lot lower, taxpayers would save a lot more money as would parents, and employers would be no worse off than they are now.**

However, as this is unlikely to happen, I’m hoping for (as mentioned in my earlier post) serious government overhaul of student financing. This should include mandatory consumer counseling for both students and parents. They should also make students borrow all the money at one time. Let’s face it: most people would hesitate to go on a $20,0000 shopping spree at the mall. But how many people have $20,0000 or more in consumer debt. It’s the sort of thing that just creeps up on you. Students and their parents are much more likely to be conservative when made to come up with one overall number for the cost of an education. There can be stringent guidelines under which the number can be revised at a later date.

There were millions of people in America who, in the late ’90s and early aughts, bought waaaay too much house, incurred far too much consumer debt, took out too many HELOCs, and bought vehicles that were way out of their league. They did this with the full endorsement and assistance of the “smart guys” in the finance industry, because there was seriously big money to be made in “making loans” (collecting on them turned out to be not so lucrative…). This happened to the little guy on the street who was a 9th grade dropout, but it also happened to a shitload of guys and gals with advanced business degrees. The excuse they all cited was, “The bank wouldn’t have loaned me the money if I couldn’t afford it.”

This is the exact same situation as the one facing education loan recipients and their parents. I’m sorry for what they are facing, but nothing takes the place of due diligence. It doesn’t take long to figure out how much you can afford to borrow, especially now with the loan payment calculators available online. As I mentioned in my post the other day, $300K of debt translates into payments of $3,000 to $4,000 per month. Is it that difficult – especially if you are law school-eligible – to figure out that this is going to be an extremely difficult nut to cover? Also, it’s not that hard to look up actual employment figures: everything you need is available from the Department of Labor. It’s quite easy to determine trends in various employment sectors (cobblers, for instance).

Yes, I was born with a healthy amount of hard-wired skepticism (legend has it that I asked the delivering obstetrician if he was board-certified). I don’t take anyone’s word as gospel. However, when a $300,000 (that can easily grow to 2 or 3 times that amount) loan is involved, you bet I do a minimum amount of homework. When you tell me that a student of the law, of all professions, is bellyaching about the school lying to him, about paying too much for law school, about not knowing the particulars of his loan arrangement (including the amount), about the amount owed increasing because he hasn’t made payments or contacted the lender, I’m thinking that maybe the biggest mistake he made was in his choice of a profession. If there is anyone that should know better than to blindly take someone’s word as truth or to trust advertising, it’s a lawyer. And I would hope that, after 3 years in law school, he’s at least somewhat acquainted with contract law.

I do believe that the lenders should be prohibited from their (seemingly) arbitrary assessment of usurious interest, penalties, and late fees on education loans (actually, on all lending, but I won’t go there…). I think that, like all other cases of legal highway robbery, this is designed solely to engender huge profits for the lender and harass the borrower. However, I cannot endorse the abdication of responsibility for debts incurred by an intelligent and mentally competent adult.

For a textbook example of why education should not be considered an automatic right, check out the author’s story on the “Esquire Painting” website: http://esquirepainting.blogspot.com/ This is a guy lamenting his five-figure law-school loan balance from the early ’90s, who, IMHO, never should have gone to law school. He’s either refreshingly honest, or just clueless, but he’s very open about his experience, including his transcripts from Touro Law School, and grades from the Bar Exam he never passed.

**I am NOT against education. As a matter of fact, I firmly believe that we Americans need to acquire a helluva lot more. It’s a disgrace that a nation with so many resources has a population that is as undereducated as we are. And before anyone gets on my case about money and privilege, let me state that I’m including most of the college educated among us in that assessment. We go to school, and incur a lot of debt doing it. Yet we are, for the most part, not educated. Studies of college graduates are consistently showing that many are reading at no more than a fourth grade-level. We not only are far behind other nations in advanced math and science, but many of us can’t perform basic arithmetic functions without a calculator, such as division or percentages. To me, that’s the biggest lie being sold us by the university/college establishment. Instead of demanding that students function at the appropriate level, schools are “dumbing down” on their curricula, and pressuring instructors to grade students unfairly in order to raise their school’s ranking. They are not only sending uneducated and unqualified workers into the labor force, but workers that expect similar preferential treatment on the job.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=walterwhite]Eaves, I’m with you. But why should the debt be nondischargeable. If you go to say a school for cobblers and you sign up for big loans based on the lies of the school, and there aren’t really any cobbling positions, how is it just to say, well, student, you’re dumb, so, pay up forever.

On the other hand, saddling a couple classes with crippling lifetime debt loads will send a strong market signal to future students that education is a scam.

But so will acfew thousand successful lawsuits againts law schools.

The system is rife with lies. It seems reasonable to me that a potential student should be able to rely on a law school brochures employment statistics. And I’m a pretty cynical bastard. But there should be no lying there. People are investingbyears of life and hundreds of thousands in debt. It’s a pretty material misrepresentation as they go.

The correct move is to go down swinging by establishing extraordinary credit prior to school, getting unsecured credit in the hundreds of thousands in credit cards. Then going solo, in massive debt, making payments on the loans but seining for the fences in your own practice.

I am willing to change my mind.

Personal resp. And due diligence… After a lifetime of lies from the educational system?

Not sure…[/quote]

Scaredy, I see what you’re saying, but at this point in time, I can’t endorse a discharge of the obligations unless it is at the costs of the financiers who made the loans. And that will never happen.

Once again, just as with housing, we’re seeing the cost of cheap money. Lending institutions were able to borrow the money at the incredibly low rates generously provided by the Fed, and the only roadblock to the phenomenally lucrative profits that could be generated from the ever decreasing prime rate was finding enough lending opportunities (aka, suckers). This is how school financing went from borrowing just enough to cover tuition, books, room and board to paying for luxury apartments, foreign travel, cars, and clothing. In fact, Octomom denied receiving “public assistance” in order to raise her (then) six children while keeping a local Toys-R-Us in business and paying for weekly acrylic nails, plastic surgery and in-vitro fertilization treatments; she, instead, stated that her expenses were covered by educational loans.

This was my first clue that, apparently, there was no oversight on the use of “school loans”, and pretty much no restrictions on the amounts. In fact, just as they were with housing and with equity loans, lending institutions were encouraging students to take ever-increasing amounts of funds for education. I was always under the impression that school loans were like grants: you had to show proof of expenditures/projected costs, and the checks were made out to the educational institutions themselves. While you could rack up a respectable amount of debt, it did not compare with what students are managing to incur these days. The universities themselves (and I’m talking about reputable brick-and-mortar institutions) are actively involved in programs that encourage greater student spending discretion, resulting in lucrative payoffs to the schools.

This should not be surprising. The baby-boomers were the first generation to send a significant number of its members to college, to be able to attend immediately after high school, to be able to attend four consecutive years of college, and to be able to send a large number of females to college. All of these factors resulted in tremendous growth of existing colleges/ universities, and the formation of others, in order to meet the high demand. However, since the 1980s, colleges have been struggling to attract adequate amounts of students to replace the boomers.

Many schools that should have been closed down or consolidated long ago have, instead, remained open, and now are being forced to compete with the for-profit schools. Most are having to make all kinds of claims and promises regarding the quality of their educational facilities and staffs, and about the potential for post-graduation employment, and most are not beyond outright lying in their claims, or at least creative manipulation and presentation of statistics. In addition, they are having to spend money on very expensive nonacademic facilities (student health clubs, shopping malls, gourmet food courts) with which parents can bribe their kids to go to college.

There needs to be fundamental changes in the way that Americans look at a college education:
(1) It IS an education. You are going there to learn. The primary purpose is not to meet your soul mate(s), to party, to have fun, to shop, to play sports, to have an opportunity to go on Spring Break, or to get chosen for an MTV reality show.
(2) It’s not a place to avoid adulthood for another 4 years. If that’s your goal, tell your parents to find a Montessori preschool for you, instead.
(3) It’s not a place to stash your kid because (a) you can’t deal with him anymore, or (b) you want to brag to your friends about your kid being in college. EVERYONE can get into college these days. He/she isn’t special.
(4) There is NOT the guarantee of a job when you graduate. This bears repeating: There is NOT the guarantee of a job when you graduate. Most of you will not be worth any more to an employer when you get out than you are now (and perhaps even less owing to brain cells lost from excessive drinking and stupid fraternity pranks). Even for the few of you that truly work hard and excel in your Ivy League institution, while your chances of getting a job are better, there’s no guarantee. Get used to it, and then go out and see some employers to find out what they look for in prospective employees, and take what they tell you seriously.

My opinion is, that if the above sentiments were broadcast in PSAs on a round-the-clock basis, we would have about 1/10 of the number of college freshman entering in September as are now projected. Costs would be a lot lower, taxpayers would save a lot more money as would parents, and employers would be no worse off than they are now.**

However, as this is unlikely to happen, I’m hoping for (as mentioned in my earlier post) serious government overhaul of student financing. This should include mandatory consumer counseling for both students and parents. They should also make students borrow all the money at one time. Let’s face it: most people would hesitate to go on a $20,0000 shopping spree at the mall. But how many people have $20,0000 or more in consumer debt. It’s the sort of thing that just creeps up on you. Students and their parents are much more likely to be conservative when made to come up with one overall number for the cost of an education. There can be stringent guidelines under which the number can be revised at a later date.

There were millions of people in America who, in the late ’90s and early aughts, bought waaaay too much house, incurred far too much consumer debt, took out too many HELOCs, and bought vehicles that were way out of their league. They did this with the full endorsement and assistance of the “smart guys” in the finance industry, because there was seriously big money to be made in “making loans” (collecting on them turned out to be not so lucrative…). This happened to the little guy on the street who was a 9th grade dropout, but it also happened to a shitload of guys and gals with advanced business degrees. The excuse they all cited was, “The bank wouldn’t have loaned me the money if I couldn’t afford it.”

This is the exact same situation as the one facing education loan recipients and their parents. I’m sorry for what they are facing, but nothing takes the place of due diligence. It doesn’t take long to figure out how much you can afford to borrow, especially now with the loan payment calculators available online. As I mentioned in my post the other day, $300K of debt translates into payments of $3,000 to $4,000 per month. Is it that difficult – especially if you are law school-eligible – to figure out that this is going to be an extremely difficult nut to cover? Also, it’s not that hard to look up actual employment figures: everything you need is available from the Department of Labor. It’s quite easy to determine trends in various employment sectors (cobblers, for instance).

Yes, I was born with a healthy amount of hard-wired skepticism (legend has it that I asked the delivering obstetrician if he was board-certified). I don’t take anyone’s word as gospel. However, when a $300,000 (that can easily grow to 2 or 3 times that amount) loan is involved, you bet I do a minimum amount of homework. When you tell me that a student of the law, of all professions, is bellyaching about the school lying to him, about paying too much for law school, about not knowing the particulars of his loan arrangement (including the amount), about the amount owed increasing because he hasn’t made payments or contacted the lender, I’m thinking that maybe the biggest mistake he made was in his choice of a profession. If there is anyone that should know better than to blindly take someone’s word as truth or to trust advertising, it’s a lawyer. And I would hope that, after 3 years in law school, he’s at least somewhat acquainted with contract law.

I do believe that the lenders should be prohibited from their (seemingly) arbitrary assessment of usurious interest, penalties, and late fees on education loans (actually, on all lending, but I won’t go there…). I think that, like all other cases of legal highway robbery, this is designed solely to engender huge profits for the lender and harass the borrower. However, I cannot endorse the abdication of responsibility for debts incurred by an intelligent and mentally competent adult.

For a textbook example of why education should not be considered an automatic right, check out the author’s story on the “Esquire Painting” website: http://esquirepainting.blogspot.com/ This is a guy lamenting his five-figure law-school loan balance from the early ’90s, who, IMHO, never should have gone to law school. He’s either refreshingly honest, or just clueless, but he’s very open about his experience, including his transcripts from Touro Law School, and grades from the Bar Exam he never passed.

**I am NOT against education. As a matter of fact, I firmly believe that we Americans need to acquire a helluva lot more. It’s a disgrace that a nation with so many resources has a population that is as undereducated as we are. And before anyone gets on my case about money and privilege, let me state that I’m including most of the college educated among us in that assessment. We go to school, and incur a lot of debt doing it. Yet we are, for the most part, not educated. Studies of college graduates are consistently showing that many are reading at no more than a fourth grade-level. We not only are far behind other nations in advanced math and science, but many of us can’t perform basic arithmetic functions without a calculator, such as division or percentages. To me, that’s the biggest lie being sold us by the university/college establishment. Instead of demanding that students function at the appropriate level, schools are “dumbing down” on their curricula, and pressuring instructors to grade students unfairly in order to raise their school’s ranking. They are not only sending uneducated and unqualified workers into the labor force, but workers that expect similar preferential treatment on the job.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=AN]Thanks for the background of the story. So in essence, she didn’t get kick out of the house. I didn’t know about this story and the OP said she was kicked out.

You still didn’t really answer my question. Would you kick out your kids if they’re deadbeat? I know plenty of people who live with their parents until they get married and are not deadbeats. I also know plenty of people who got their college education covered by their parents. They’re not deadbeats either and they’re still quite close to their parents. Some even move back in with their parents till they got married to save for a house. So, I don’t see anything wrong with parents choosing to support their kids when they need help. Just like kids choosing to support their parents when they need help in their old age.[/quote]

AN, I and several others on this thread have tried to establish that we have no issues with adult children living at home who are not “deadbeats”. Our description of a “deadbeat kid” does not necessarily mean one who is unemployed. Nor is an unemployed adult living at home with their parents necessarily a “deadbeat”.

I think that UCGal, bearishgurl, and CA renter agree with me (sound off if you don’t, girls!) when I say that we see nothing wrong with adult children living in their parents’ homes under the following conditions:
(1) It is something with which the parents are truly in accord; and
(2) The adult kids are fully contributing members of the family unit.

If the adult children are unemployed, they should be actively searching for paid employment on a steady basis. They should be covering their own expenses to the best of their abilities Translation: if they have money to buy beer, cigarettes, unnecessary purchases, or to go partying with friends, but are not paying for their food, basic clothing needs, their personal credit card and cell phone bills, or contributing toward rent and utilities (i.e., expecting/demanding that their parents cover these things), there’s something wrong with their priorities. When this type of behavior persists for months or years, it qualifies as “deadbeat” behavior. This is ALSO the case when the adult children are employed.

Adult children should also be doing their own laundry, keeping their personal living quarters neat/clean, picking up after themselves in common areas, and participating on an ongoing basis in the regular cleaning and maintenance routine of the household.

Adult children should treat their parents with respect (as should children of all ages). They should not be demanding that their parents do something for them, or telling them to “shut up”, or cursing them out. I’d like to think that the behavior of children (of ALL ages) as depicted on television reality shows is exaggerated or sensationalized, but I’ve seen too many cases of even worse behavior in real life.

Adult children should also observe any rules of the house that the OWNERS (typically the parents) deign to set. Arriving at the age of 18 does not relieve a child of this responsibility.

This really comes down to whether the situation is one in which both parties are happy with the status quo. If the parents are completely happy on an ongoing basis with the presence of their adult children in the home, and have *no* concerns over their children’s behavior, spending habits, cleanliness, laziness, etc., more power to them. I think that successful intergenerational family living is a wonderful and heartwarming phenomenon. Sometimes, this enables both generations to live life of a higher quality because of sharing of funds, and housekeeping, home maintenance, and child-rearing responsibilities. Often, young adults who live with parents are able to save more money faster than if they lived alone, money that can be used to later buy a home of their own, establish a business, go back to school, or make an investment. The key to the success of such an arrangement is that each party treats the other with respect and is concerned with their happiness.

The problem today is that one-half of the intergenerational unit is usually very unhappy, and, typically, it’s the older parent. Even those parents who encourage their child to move home after graduation from college or loss of employment tend to become stressed and unhappy when that child is lazy, sloppy, self-centered, loud, abusive, and costs them money (often, a lot of money!). Things that were annoying but expected when your kid was 16, (traffic tickets, damage to the family car, failure to mow the grass because it interfered with sleeping until 3 pm, stacks of dirty dishes in the sink and on the bedside table, mountains of smelly laundry, etc.) are not so charming or humorous when he or she is 24 or 28 or 32.

I think that if you interviewed the parents in most of these situations, you’d find out that, even among the ones who encouraged their children to come home, they were becoming increasingly unhappy and extremely stressed over the situation. And, very often, the party that is benefiting from the situation, will try to put a good face on it, such as “My mom loves to wait on me” or My mom doesn’t want me to have to do housework,” or “My parents don’t want me to have to pay my own bills,” or “My dad loves to spoil me.” A childlike attitude, to be sure. But many were never raised to move beyond early childhood. They live in a constant fantasy, of being able to justify any behavior – which, incidentally, may be why many become unemployed and unemployable.

If both parties in an intergenerational living arrangement are content with all but the most minor aspects of it, there’s no problem. But if one part is unhappy, it is not a good situation. And a situation where one party takes and takes and take, and the other is expected to give constantly, is not a “family” relationship. It’s a “master-servant” situation. While there are some psychologically-unhealthy individuals who seek out this type of dynamic with their kids, most do not.

The problem is that many of the parents that are unhappy in situations like this are powerless to change it. The situations arise because the kids weren’t raised with the tools and the skills to go out on their own or to deal with adversity. So the parents who were afraid to “parent” when their kids were young, are still afraid to do so. They thought that they were protecting their children by shielding them from work and responsibility; instead, they were putting them at extreme risk. They can see that risk first hand now as they find themselves unable to force their abusive deadbeat children to leave home and fend for themselves. Very often the parents have also put themselves at extreme risk by remortgaging their homes to the point of foreclosure, depleting their retirement savings, and maxing out a dozen credit cards to deal with their child’s demands and financial screw-ups.

As I’ve mentioned, my children grew up expecting to fend for themselves as adults, and received the education and skills they would need to do this. It would have been so much easier to spoil them, and smooth every step of the road. Believe me when I say that it’s no easier for me to say “no” than it is for any other mom.

They are on their own currently. But in this turbulent economy, anything could happen, and they are ALWAYS welcome to make their homes with me. But they are aware that I do some things differently, and that they will have to respect that. If they came home and didn’t look for jobs, refused to help out, drank excessively or abused drugs, engaged in verbal/physical abuse, and stole money or credit cards from me, you bet I’d kick them out (do not doubt for a minute that it would break my heart to do so). If they are forced to straighten up and behave in a socially acceptable manner in order to feed, clothe, and house themselves, they might wake up and do so; I made sure I raised them with the necessary skills, at least. But if I allow them to stay, tacitly endorsing their socially deviant behavior, and allowing it not only to continue, but to escalate, how exactly is that helping them? How is that loving them or protecting them?

[eavesdropper]

[quote=AN]Thanks for the background of the story. So in essence, she didn’t get kick out of the house. I didn’t know about this story and the OP said she was kicked out.

You still didn’t really answer my question. Would you kick out your kids if they’re deadbeat? I know plenty of people who live with their parents until they get married and are not deadbeats. I also know plenty of people who got their college education covered by their parents. They’re not deadbeats either and they’re still quite close to their parents. Some even move back in with their parents till they got married to save for a house. So, I don’t see anything wrong with parents choosing to support their kids when they need help. Just like kids choosing to support their parents when they need help in their old age.[/quote]

AN, I and several others on this thread have tried to establish that we have no issues with adult children living at home who are not “deadbeats”. Our description of a “deadbeat kid” does not necessarily mean one who is unemployed. Nor is an unemployed adult living at home with their parents necessarily a “deadbeat”.

I think that UCGal, bearishgurl, and CA renter agree with me (sound off if you don’t, girls!) when I say that we see nothing wrong with adult children living in their parents’ homes under the following conditions:
(1) It is something with which the parents are truly in accord; and
(2) The adult kids are fully contributing members of the family unit.

If the adult children are unemployed, they should be actively searching for paid employment on a steady basis. They should be covering their own expenses to the best of their abilities Translation: if they have money to buy beer, cigarettes, unnecessary purchases, or to go partying with friends, but are not paying for their food, basic clothing needs, their personal credit card and cell phone bills, or contributing toward rent and utilities (i.e., expecting/demanding that their parents cover these things), there’s something wrong with their priorities. When this type of behavior persists for months or years, it qualifies as “deadbeat” behavior. This is ALSO the case when the adult children are employed.

Adult children should also be doing their own laundry, keeping their personal living quarters neat/clean, picking up after themselves in common areas, and participating on an ongoing basis in the regular cleaning and maintenance routine of the household.

Adult children should treat their parents with respect (as should children of all ages). They should not be demanding that their parents do something for them, or telling them to “shut up”, or cursing them out. I’d like to think that the behavior of children (of ALL ages) as depicted on television reality shows is exaggerated or sensationalized, but I’ve seen too many cases of even worse behavior in real life.

Adult children should also observe any rules of the house that the OWNERS (typically the parents) deign to set. Arriving at the age of 18 does not relieve a child of this responsibility.

This really comes down to whether the situation is one in which both parties are happy with the status quo. If the parents are completely happy on an ongoing basis with the presence of their adult children in the home, and have *no* concerns over their children’s behavior, spending habits, cleanliness, laziness, etc., more power to them. I think that successful intergenerational family living is a wonderful and heartwarming phenomenon. Sometimes, this enables both generations to live life of a higher quality because of sharing of funds, and housekeeping, home maintenance, and child-rearing responsibilities. Often, young adults who live with parents are able to save more money faster than if they lived alone, money that can be used to later buy a home of their own, establish a business, go back to school, or make an investment. The key to the success of such an arrangement is that each party treats the other with respect and is concerned with their happiness.

The problem today is that one-half of the intergenerational unit is usually very unhappy, and, typically, it’s the older parent. Even those parents who encourage their child to move home after graduation from college or loss of employment tend to become stressed and unhappy when that child is lazy, sloppy, self-centered, loud, abusive, and costs them money (often, a lot of money!). Things that were annoying but expected when your kid was 16, (traffic tickets, damage to the family car, failure to mow the grass because it interfered with sleeping until 3 pm, stacks of dirty dishes in the sink and on the bedside table, mountains of smelly laundry, etc.) are not so charming or humorous when he or she is 24 or 28 or 32.

I think that if you interviewed the parents in most of these situations, you’d find out that, even among the ones who encouraged their children to come home, they were becoming increasingly unhappy and extremely stressed over the situation. And, very often, the party that is benefiting from the situation, will try to put a good face on it, such as “My mom loves to wait on me” or My mom doesn’t want me to have to do housework,” or “My parents don’t want me to have to pay my own bills,” or “My dad loves to spoil me.” A childlike attitude, to be sure. But many were never raised to move beyond early childhood. They live in a constant fantasy, of being able to justify any behavior – which, incidentally, may be why many become unemployed and unemployable.

If both parties in an intergenerational living arrangement are content with all but the most minor aspects of it, there’s no problem. But if one part is unhappy, it is not a good situation. And a situation where one party takes and takes and take, and the other is expected to give constantly, is not a “family” relationship. It’s a “master-servant” situation. While there are some psychologically-unhealthy individuals who seek out this type of dynamic with their kids, most do not.

The problem is that many of the parents that are unhappy in situations like this are powerless to change it. The situations arise because the kids weren’t raised with the tools and the skills to go out on their own or to deal with adversity. So the parents who were afraid to “parent” when their kids were young, are still afraid to do so. They thought that they were protecting their children by shielding them from work and responsibility; instead, they were putting them at extreme risk. They can see that risk first hand now as they find themselves unable to force their abusive deadbeat children to leave home and fend for themselves. Very often the parents have also put themselves at extreme risk by remortgaging their homes to the point of foreclosure, depleting their retirement savings, and maxing out a dozen credit cards to deal with their child’s demands and financial screw-ups.

As I’ve mentioned, my children grew up expecting to fend for themselves as adults, and received the education and skills they would need to do this. It would have been so much easier to spoil them, and smooth every step of the road. Believe me when I say that it’s no easier for me to say “no” than it is for any other mom.

They are on their own currently. But in this turbulent economy, anything could happen, and they are ALWAYS welcome to make their homes with me. But they are aware that I do some things differently, and that they will have to respect that. If they came home and didn’t look for jobs, refused to help out, drank excessively or abused drugs, engaged in verbal/physical abuse, and stole money or credit cards from me, you bet I’d kick them out (do not doubt for a minute that it would break my heart to do so). If they are forced to straighten up and behave in a socially acceptable manner in order to feed, clothe, and house themselves, they might wake up and do so; I made sure I raised them with the necessary skills, at least. But if I allow them to stay, tacitly endorsing their socially deviant behavior, and allowing it not only to continue, but to escalate, how exactly is that helping them? How is that loving them or protecting them?

[eavesdropper]

[quote=AN]Thanks for the background of the story. So in essence, she didn’t get kick out of the house. I didn’t know about this story and the OP said she was kicked out.

You still didn’t really answer my question. Would you kick out your kids if they’re deadbeat? I know plenty of people who live with their parents until they get married and are not deadbeats. I also know plenty of people who got their college education covered by their parents. They’re not deadbeats either and they’re still quite close to their parents. Some even move back in with their parents till they got married to save for a house. So, I don’t see anything wrong with parents choosing to support their kids when they need help. Just like kids choosing to support their parents when they need help in their old age.[/quote]

AN, I and several others on this thread have tried to establish that we have no issues with adult children living at home who are not “deadbeats”. Our description of a “deadbeat kid” does not necessarily mean one who is unemployed. Nor is an unemployed adult living at home with their parents necessarily a “deadbeat”.

I think that UCGal, bearishgurl, and CA renter agree with me (sound off if you don’t, girls!) when I say that we see nothing wrong with adult children living in their parents’ homes under the following conditions:
(1) It is something with which the parents are truly in accord; and
(2) The adult kids are fully contributing members of the family unit.

If the adult children are unemployed, they should be actively searching for paid employment on a steady basis. They should be covering their own expenses to the best of their abilities Translation: if they have money to buy beer, cigarettes, unnecessary purchases, or to go partying with friends, but are not paying for their food, basic clothing needs, their personal credit card and cell phone bills, or contributing toward rent and utilities (i.e., expecting/demanding that their parents cover these things), there’s something wrong with their priorities. When this type of behavior persists for months or years, it qualifies as “deadbeat” behavior. This is ALSO the case when the adult children are employed.

Adult children should also be doing their own laundry, keeping their personal living quarters neat/clean, picking up after themselves in common areas, and participating on an ongoing basis in the regular cleaning and maintenance routine of the household.

Adult children should treat their parents with respect (as should children of all ages). They should not be demanding that their parents do something for them, or telling them to “shut up”, or cursing them out. I’d like to think that the behavior of children (of ALL ages) as depicted on television reality shows is exaggerated or sensationalized, but I’ve seen too many cases of even worse behavior in real life.

Adult children should also observe any rules of the house that the OWNERS (typically the parents) deign to set. Arriving at the age of 18 does not relieve a child of this responsibility.

This really comes down to whether the situation is one in which both parties are happy with the status quo. If the parents are completely happy on an ongoing basis with the presence of their adult children in the home, and have *no* concerns over their children’s behavior, spending habits, cleanliness, laziness, etc., more power to them. I think that successful intergenerational family living is a wonderful and heartwarming phenomenon. Sometimes, this enables both generations to live life of a higher quality because of sharing of funds, and housekeeping, home maintenance, and child-rearing responsibilities. Often, young adults who live with parents are able to save more money faster than if they lived alone, money that can be used to later buy a home of their own, establish a business, go back to school, or make an investment. The key to the success of such an arrangement is that each party treats the other with respect and is concerned with their happiness.

The problem today is that one-half of the intergenerational unit is usually very unhappy, and, typically, it’s the older parent. Even those parents who encourage their child to move home after graduation from college or loss of employment tend to become stressed and unhappy when that child is lazy, sloppy, self-centered, loud, abusive, and costs them money (often, a lot of money!). Things that were annoying but expected when your kid was 16, (traffic tickets, damage to the family car, failure to mow the grass because it interfered with sleeping until 3 pm, stacks of dirty dishes in the sink and on the bedside table, mountains of smelly laundry, etc.) are not so charming or humorous when he or she is 24 or 28 or 32.

I think that if you interviewed the parents in most of these situations, you’d find out that, even among the ones who encouraged their children to come home, they were becoming increasingly unhappy and extremely stressed over the situation. And, very often, the party that is benefiting from the situation, will try to put a good face on it, such as “My mom loves to wait on me” or My mom doesn’t want me to have to do housework,” or “My parents don’t want me to have to pay my own bills,” or “My dad loves to spoil me.” A childlike attitude, to be sure. But many were never raised to move beyond early childhood. They live in a constant fantasy, of being able to justify any behavior – which, incidentally, may be why many become unemployed and unemployable.

If both parties in an intergenerational living arrangement are content with all but the most minor aspects of it, there’s no problem. But if one part is unhappy, it is not a good situation. And a situation where one party takes and takes and take, and the other is expected to give constantly, is not a “family” relationship. It’s a “master-servant” situation. While there are some psychologically-unhealthy individuals who seek out this type of dynamic with their kids, most do not.

The problem is that many of the parents that are unhappy in situations like this are powerless to change it. The situations arise because the kids weren’t raised with the tools and the skills to go out on their own or to deal with adversity. So the parents who were afraid to “parent” when their kids were young, are still afraid to do so. They thought that they were protecting their children by shielding them from work and responsibility; instead, they were putting them at extreme risk. They can see that risk first hand now as they find themselves unable to force their abusive deadbeat children to leave home and fend for themselves. Very often the parents have also put themselves at extreme risk by remortgaging their homes to the point of foreclosure, depleting their retirement savings, and maxing out a dozen credit cards to deal with their child’s demands and financial screw-ups.

As I’ve mentioned, my children grew up expecting to fend for themselves as adults, and received the education and skills they would need to do this. It would have been so much easier to spoil them, and smooth every step of the road. Believe me when I say that it’s no easier for me to say “no” than it is for any other mom.

They are on their own currently. But in this turbulent economy, anything could happen, and they are ALWAYS welcome to make their homes with me. But they are aware that I do some things differently, and that they will have to respect that. If they came home and didn’t look for jobs, refused to help out, drank excessively or abused drugs, engaged in verbal/physical abuse, and stole money or credit cards from me, you bet I’d kick them out (do not doubt for a minute that it would break my heart to do so). If they are forced to straighten up and behave in a socially acceptable manner in order to feed, clothe, and house themselves, they might wake up and do so; I made sure I raised them with the necessary skills, at least. But if I allow them to stay, tacitly endorsing their socially deviant behavior, and allowing it not only to continue, but to escalate, how exactly is that helping them? How is that loving them or protecting them?

[eavesdropper]

[quote=AN]Thanks for the background of the story. So in essence, she didn’t get kick out of the house. I didn’t know about this story and the OP said she was kicked out.

You still didn’t really answer my question. Would you kick out your kids if they’re deadbeat? I know plenty of people who live with their parents until they get married and are not deadbeats. I also know plenty of people who got their college education covered by their parents. They’re not deadbeats either and they’re still quite close to their parents. Some even move back in with their parents till they got married to save for a house. So, I don’t see anything wrong with parents choosing to support their kids when they need help. Just like kids choosing to support their parents when they need help in their old age.[/quote]

AN, I and several others on this thread have tried to establish that we have no issues with adult children living at home who are not “deadbeats”. Our description of a “deadbeat kid” does not necessarily mean one who is unemployed. Nor is an unemployed adult living at home with their parents necessarily a “deadbeat”.

I think that UCGal, bearishgurl, and CA renter agree with me (sound off if you don’t, girls!) when I say that we see nothing wrong with adult children living in their parents’ homes under the following conditions:
(1) It is something with which the parents are truly in accord; and
(2) The adult kids are fully contributing members of the family unit.

If the adult children are unemployed, they should be actively searching for paid employment on a steady basis. They should be covering their own expenses to the best of their abilities Translation: if they have money to buy beer, cigarettes, unnecessary purchases, or to go partying with friends, but are not paying for their food, basic clothing needs, their personal credit card and cell phone bills, or contributing toward rent and utilities (i.e., expecting/demanding that their parents cover these things), there’s something wrong with their priorities. When this type of behavior persists for months or years, it qualifies as “deadbeat” behavior. This is ALSO the case when the adult children are employed.

Adult children should also be doing their own laundry, keeping their personal living quarters neat/clean, picking up after themselves in common areas, and participating on an ongoing basis in the regular cleaning and maintenance routine of the household.

Adult children should treat their parents with respect (as should children of all ages). They should not be demanding that their parents do something for them, or telling them to “shut up”, or cursing them out. I’d like to think that the behavior of children (of ALL ages) as depicted on television reality shows is exaggerated or sensationalized, but I’ve seen too many cases of even worse behavior in real life.

Adult children should also observe any rules of the house that the OWNERS (typically the parents) deign to set. Arriving at the age of 18 does not relieve a child of this responsibility.

This really comes down to whether the situation is one in which both parties are happy with the status quo. If the parents are completely happy on an ongoing basis with the presence of their adult children in the home, and have *no* concerns over their children’s behavior, spending habits, cleanliness, laziness, etc., more power to them. I think that successful intergenerational family living is a wonderful and heartwarming phenomenon. Sometimes, this enables both generations to live life of a higher quality because of sharing of funds, and housekeeping, home maintenance, and child-rearing responsibilities. Often, young adults who live with parents are able to save more money faster than if they lived alone, money that can be used to later buy a home of their own, establish a business, go back to school, or make an investment. The key to the success of such an arrangement is that each party treats the other with respect and is concerned with their happiness.

The problem today is that one-half of the intergenerational unit is usually very unhappy, and, typically, it’s the older parent. Even those parents who encourage their child to move home after graduation from college or loss of employment tend to become stressed and unhappy when that child is lazy, sloppy, self-centered, loud, abusive, and costs them money (often, a lot of money!). Things that were annoying but expected when your kid was 16, (traffic tickets, damage to the family car, failure to mow the grass because it interfered with sleeping until 3 pm, stacks of dirty dishes in the sink and on the bedside table, mountains of smelly laundry, etc.) are not so charming or humorous when he or she is 24 or 28 or 32.

I think that if you interviewed the parents in most of these situations, you’d find out that, even among the ones who encouraged their children to come home, they were becoming increasingly unhappy and extremely stressed over the situation. And, very often, the party that is benefiting from the situation, will try to put a good face on it, such as “My mom loves to wait on me” or My mom doesn’t want me to have to do housework,” or “My parents don’t want me to have to pay my own bills,” or “My dad loves to spoil me.” A childlike attitude, to be sure. But many were never raised to move beyond early childhood. They live in a constant fantasy, of being able to justify any behavior – which, incidentally, may be why many become unemployed and unemployable.

If both parties in an intergenerational living arrangement are content with all but the most minor aspects of it, there’s no problem. But if one part is unhappy, it is not a good situation. And a situation where one party takes and takes and take, and the other is expected to give constantly, is not a “family” relationship. It’s a “master-servant” situation. While there are some psychologically-unhealthy individuals who seek out this type of dynamic with their kids, most do not.

The problem is that many of the parents that are unhappy in situations like this are powerless to change it. The situations arise because the kids weren’t raised with the tools and the skills to go out on their own or to deal with adversity. So the parents who were afraid to “parent” when their kids were young, are still afraid to do so. They thought that they were protecting their children by shielding them from work and responsibility; instead, they were putting them at extreme risk. They can see that risk first hand now as they find themselves unable to force their abusive deadbeat children to leave home and fend for themselves. Very often the parents have also put themselves at extreme risk by remortgaging their homes to the point of foreclosure, depleting their retirement savings, and maxing out a dozen credit cards to deal with their child’s demands and financial screw-ups.

As I’ve mentioned, my children grew up expecting to fend for themselves as adults, and received the education and skills they would need to do this. It would have been so much easier to spoil them, and smooth every step of the road. Believe me when I say that it’s no easier for me to say “no” than it is for any other mom.

They are on their own currently. But in this turbulent economy, anything could happen, and they are ALWAYS welcome to make their homes with me. But they are aware that I do some things differently, and that they will have to respect that. If they came home and didn’t look for jobs, refused to help out, drank excessively or abused drugs, engaged in verbal/physical abuse, and stole money or credit cards from me, you bet I’d kick them out (do not doubt for a minute that it would break my heart to do so). If they are forced to straighten up and behave in a socially acceptable manner in order to feed, clothe, and house themselves, they might wake up and do so; I made sure I raised them with the necessary skills, at least. But if I allow them to stay, tacitly endorsing their socially deviant behavior, and allowing it not only to continue, but to escalate, how exactly is that helping them? How is that loving them or protecting them?

[eavesdropper]

[quote=AN]Thanks for the background of the story. So in essence, she didn’t get kick out of the house. I didn’t know about this story and the OP said she was kicked out.

You still didn’t really answer my question. Would you kick out your kids if they’re deadbeat? I know plenty of people who live with their parents until they get married and are not deadbeats. I also know plenty of people who got their college education covered by their parents. They’re not deadbeats either and they’re still quite close to their parents. Some even move back in with their parents till they got married to save for a house. So, I don’t see anything wrong with parents choosing to support their kids when they need help. Just like kids choosing to support their parents when they need help in their old age.[/quote]

AN, I and several others on this thread have tried to establish that we have no issues with adult children living at home who are not “deadbeats”. Our description of a “deadbeat kid” does not necessarily mean one who is unemployed. Nor is an unemployed adult living at home with their parents necessarily a “deadbeat”.

I think that UCGal, bearishgurl, and CA renter agree with me (sound off if you don’t, girls!) when I say that we see nothing wrong with adult children living in their parents’ homes under the following conditions:
(1) It is something with which the parents are truly in accord; and
(2) The adult kids are fully contributing members of the family unit.

If the adult children are unemployed, they should be actively searching for paid employment on a steady basis. They should be covering their own expenses to the best of their abilities Translation: if they have money to buy beer, cigarettes, unnecessary purchases, or to go partying with friends, but are not paying for their food, basic clothing needs, their personal credit card and cell phone bills, or contributing toward rent and utilities (i.e., expecting/demanding that their parents cover these things), there’s something wrong with their priorities. When this type of behavior persists for months or years, it qualifies as “deadbeat” behavior. This is ALSO the case when the adult children are employed.

Adult children should also be doing their own laundry, keeping their personal living quarters neat/clean, picking up after themselves in common areas, and participating on an ongoing basis in the regular cleaning and maintenance routine of the household.

Adult children should treat their parents with respect (as should children of all ages). They should not be demanding that their parents do something for them, or telling them to “shut up”, or cursing them out. I’d like to think that the behavior of children (of ALL ages) as depicted on television reality shows is exaggerated or sensationalized, but I’ve seen too many cases of even worse behavior in real life.

Adult children should also observe any rules of the house that the OWNERS (typically the parents) deign to set. Arriving at the age of 18 does not relieve a child of this responsibility.

This really comes down to whether the situation is one in which both parties are happy with the status quo. If the parents are completely happy on an ongoing basis with the presence of their adult children in the home, and have *no* concerns over their children’s behavior, spending habits, cleanliness, laziness, etc., more power to them. I think that successful intergenerational family living is a wonderful and heartwarming phenomenon. Sometimes, this enables both generations to live life of a higher quality because of sharing of funds, and housekeeping, home maintenance, and child-rearing responsibilities. Often, young adults who live with parents are able to save more money faster than if they lived alone, money that can be used to later buy a home of their own, establish a business, go back to school, or make an investment. The key to the success of such an arrangement is that each party treats the other with respect and is concerned with their happiness.

The problem today is that one-half of the intergenerational unit is usually very unhappy, and, typically, it’s the older parent. Even those parents who encourage their child to move home after graduation from college or loss of employment tend to become stressed and unhappy when that child is lazy, sloppy, self-centered, loud, abusive, and costs them money (often, a lot of money!). Things that were annoying but expected when your kid was 16, (traffic tickets, damage to the family car, failure to mow the grass because it interfered with sleeping until 3 pm, stacks of dirty dishes in the sink and on the bedside table, mountains of smelly laundry, etc.) are not so charming or humorous when he or she is 24 or 28 or 32.

I think that if you interviewed the parents in most of these situations, you’d find out that, even among the ones who encouraged their children to come home, they were becoming increasingly unhappy and extremely stressed over the situation. And, very often, the party that is benefiting from the situation, will try to put a good face on it, such as “My mom loves to wait on me” or My mom doesn’t want me to have to do housework,” or “My parents don’t want me to have to pay my own bills,” or “My dad loves to spoil me.” A childlike attitude, to be sure. But many were never raised to move beyond early childhood. They live in a constant fantasy, of being able to justify any behavior – which, incidentally, may be why many become unemployed and unemployable.

If both parties in an intergenerational living arrangement are content with all but the most minor aspects of it, there’s no problem. But if one part is unhappy, it is not a good situation. And a situation where one party takes and takes and take, and the other is expected to give constantly, is not a “family” relationship. It’s a “master-servant” situation. While there are some psychologically-unhealthy individuals who seek out this type of dynamic with their kids, most do not.

The problem is that many of the parents that are unhappy in situations like this are powerless to change it. The situations arise because the kids weren’t raised with the tools and the skills to go out on their own or to deal with adversity. So the parents who were afraid to “parent” when their kids were young, are still afraid to do so. They thought that they were protecting their children by shielding them from work and responsibility; instead, they were putting them at extreme risk. They can see that risk first hand now as they find themselves unable to force their abusive deadbeat children to leave home and fend for themselves. Very often the parents have also put themselves at extreme risk by remortgaging their homes to the point of foreclosure, depleting their retirement savings, and maxing out a dozen credit cards to deal with their child’s demands and financial screw-ups.

As I’ve mentioned, my children grew up expecting to fend for themselves as adults, and received the education and skills they would need to do this. It would have been so much easier to spoil them, and smooth every step of the road. Believe me when I say that it’s no easier for me to say “no” than it is for any other mom.

They are on their own currently. But in this turbulent economy, anything could happen, and they are ALWAYS welcome to make their homes with me. But they are aware that I do some things differently, and that they will have to respect that. If they came home and didn’t look for jobs, refused to help out, drank excessively or abused drugs, engaged in verbal/physical abuse, and stole money or credit cards from me, you bet I’d kick them out (do not doubt for a minute that it would break my heart to do so). If they are forced to straighten up and behave in a socially acceptable manner in order to feed, clothe, and house themselves, they might wake up and do so; I made sure I raised them with the necessary skills, at least. But if I allow them to stay, tacitly endorsing their socially deviant behavior, and allowing it not only to continue, but to escalate, how exactly is that helping them? How is that loving them or protecting them?

[eavesdropper]

[quote=walterwhite]the whining law school kids with the 200,000 debt actually have a valid whine. You’re not really putting yourself in their shoes. if the 200,000 would just stay a stable number, i’d agree, no whining. but they’ve been given a LIFTEIME of debt, that will grow like a cancer, with interest penalties and fees if they’re not making money, really good money, that they can never get rid of forever and ever. if you don’t find a way to start servicing it soon, you will be screwed on the balance sheet of life for the rest of your life. which again, i would agree, no whining, if it were just a matter of getting out there and hustling, which will work for some, but not all of the suckers who were processed through the educational loan system….[/quote]

scaredy, I am putting myself in their shoes. I’m back in school now, and figuring out the amount of debt that would be wise to incur.

The people in the articles that were cited were incredibly short-sighted. Based on your posts on other threads, I can’t believe that you would recommend that someone go out and purchase a house for which they had not studied the particulars of financing. At $200,000 to $350,000 (the amounts cited in the articles), we’re talking about the monetary equivalent of a house purchase. Yet none of these “professional degree”-seeking students had thought to figure out the terms of payback: the amount of the monthly payments and the length of time they would have to be made.

Even if these law school wunderkinds did manage to procure a $160,000 per year job right out of law school, it would have been difficult to handle the payments on $200K to $300K of debt on the roughly $8,000 per month take-home pay. That kind of student debt translates into payments of $3,000 per month (38% of $13 income) to $4,000 (50%).

And forget the employment numbers the schools were selling (yes, selling! All school have huge marketing budgets, especially law schools.) I can’t remember a time since I was going to school in the 1970s when there was a really good employment market for newly-graduated lawyers. Even in the best of times, you have to be in the top 10% of your class in a top tier school to be called in for the job interviews with lucrative salary levels. This does not exactly describe Michael Wallerstein, one of the subjects of the article, who elected to attend Thomas Jefferson School of Law based on its location, casually racked up over $250K in student debt (in part, to study in Paris and Prague), and is now equally casual about paying it back. But, despite unemployment, he believes it to be a worthwhile investment of taxpayers’ money since he is now able to impress himself with the fact that he’s a lawyer.

In fact, in reading the NYT article and following that up with perusal of several of the blogs, I didn’t come across a single graduate who impressed me as a potentially valuable employee. Many couldn’t spell or string words together into a cogent sentence. One was particularly memorable: the author of Third-Tier Hell. While Nando does possess an impressive crude language vocabulary, he was outraged by an article out of the University of Virginia Law School in which the Dean revealed plans for a faculty-run law firm to hire their own graduates in an effort to improve postgrad employment claims. Nando was so lathered up cursing over the deceptions of the dastardly Dean that he ignored the April 1 dateline, and didn’t bother to perform some very basic online research that clearly established the article as an April Fool’s prank. But what really got me was when he wrote a cruel and cynical paragraph making fun of an “employed lawyer” who “actually only works at Legal Aid”: like the embittered and entitled little prick that Nando is, he went on to describe his own mental picture of said Legal Aid attorney’s incredibly substandard clothing, haircut, mode of transportation, and apartment (Nando actually used the term “pitiful loser”). If Nando had perfect scores on his LSATs and bar exam, and graduated in the top 1% of a top tier school, I wouldn’t hire him based on those two blog snippets. I fail to see what talents he could bring to any job, much less an entry-level $160K/year position.

[quote=walterwhite] ……if the 200,000 would just stay a stable number….but they’ve been given a LIFTEIME of debt, that will grow like a cancer, with interest penalties and fees if they’re not making money, really good money, that they can never get rid of forever and ever. if you don’t find a way to start servicing it soon, you will be screwed on the balance sheet of life for the rest of your life. [/quote]

As mentioned above, perhaps the planning on how to pay it back should take place PRIOR to enrollment, instead of the week after graduation? This way they not only could figure out the cost/benefit ratio of law school (just in case “the majesty and beauty of the study of the law” is not, in itself, adequate), but also how much money will actually have to be coming in each month in order to cover the loan payments along with all other expenses. Somehow, the image of a law student who neglects to investigate financial details of a huge transaction before signing the papers does not instill confidence in me as a potential client or employer.

That being said, a major reason that the loan amounts increase to astronomical amounts is that students either ignore their obligations, or simply don’t bother to pay them on time. The aforementioned Mr. Wallerstein was incredibly lackadaisical about his, unaware of the total amount, and fairly certain that he could simply wish the loans away. During this time, penalties, interest, and late fees are accruing rapidly.

These people need to grow up. I don’t see why my tax dollars should have paid for Mr. Wallerstein, a substandard student in ANY subject, to travel to Europe to study the law. He racked up the bills, so he needs to pay them.

And, yes, there needs to be a huge overhaul of the student lending racket, including the roles played by the schools.

[quote=walterwhite] and sure, you say, dont go get the degree. you know what you signe dup for….but as the lawsuits start unfurling, it’ll be argued that the schools misrepresented the employment statistics and numbers….
[/quote]

I will admit that a lot of these kids are “encouraged” by ambitious parents who relish the idea of boasting about “my son (or daughter), the lawyer”, and who do not perform actual research on the realities of the law profession.

The fact is that, no matter how good a student you are, how highly your school is ranked, and how healthy the employment market is in a particular field at a given time, there’s never a guarantee of a job.

Yes, the schools should be forced to revise their postgrad “employment” stats, no question about it. But isn’t this yet another case of “something bad happened to me, so someone has to pay!!”? It’s not just law school. Privileged, entitled adults in their 20s are really, really pissed off at Baby Boomers (their words, not mine) because they’re convinced that we’re the reason they aren’t getting $160K to $200K jobs right out of school. In fact, they don’t even know if there are any $160K to $200K jobs out there. And from the sentiments on these blogs, it would appear to be irrelevant as to whether they are qualified for them.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=walterwhite]the whining law school kids with the 200,000 debt actually have a valid whine. You’re not really putting yourself in their shoes. if the 200,000 would just stay a stable number, i’d agree, no whining. but they’ve been given a LIFTEIME of debt, that will grow like a cancer, with interest penalties and fees if they’re not making money, really good money, that they can never get rid of forever and ever. if you don’t find a way to start servicing it soon, you will be screwed on the balance sheet of life for the rest of your life. which again, i would agree, no whining, if it were just a matter of getting out there and hustling, which will work for some, but not all of the suckers who were processed through the educational loan system….[/quote]

scaredy, I am putting myself in their shoes. I’m back in school now, and figuring out the amount of debt that would be wise to incur.

The people in the articles that were cited were incredibly short-sighted. Based on your posts on other threads, I can’t believe that you would recommend that someone go out and purchase a house for which they had not studied the particulars of financing. At $200,000 to $350,000 (the amounts cited in the articles), we’re talking about the monetary equivalent of a house purchase. Yet none of these “professional degree”-seeking students had thought to figure out the terms of payback: the amount of the monthly payments and the length of time they would have to be made.

Even if these law school wunderkinds did manage to procure a $160,000 per year job right out of law school, it would have been difficult to handle the payments on $200K to $300K of debt on the roughly $8,000 per month take-home pay. That kind of student debt translates into payments of $3,000 per month (38% of $13 income) to $4,000 (50%).

And forget the employment numbers the schools were selling (yes, selling! All school have huge marketing budgets, especially law schools.) I can’t remember a time since I was going to school in the 1970s when there was a really good employment market for newly-graduated lawyers. Even in the best of times, you have to be in the top 10% of your class in a top tier school to be called in for the job interviews with lucrative salary levels. This does not exactly describe Michael Wallerstein, one of the subjects of the article, who elected to attend Thomas Jefferson School of Law based on its location, casually racked up over $250K in student debt (in part, to study in Paris and Prague), and is now equally casual about paying it back. But, despite unemployment, he believes it to be a worthwhile investment of taxpayers’ money since he is now able to impress himself with the fact that he’s a lawyer.

In fact, in reading the NYT article and following that up with perusal of several of the blogs, I didn’t come across a single graduate who impressed me as a potentially valuable employee. Many couldn’t spell or string words together into a cogent sentence. One was particularly memorable: the author of Third-Tier Hell. While Nando does possess an impressive crude language vocabulary, he was outraged by an article out of the University of Virginia Law School in which the Dean revealed plans for a faculty-run law firm to hire their own graduates in an effort to improve postgrad employment claims. Nando was so lathered up cursing over the deceptions of the dastardly Dean that he ignored the April 1 dateline, and didn’t bother to perform some very basic online research that clearly established the article as an April Fool’s prank. But what really got me was when he wrote a cruel and cynical paragraph making fun of an “employed lawyer” who “actually only works at Legal Aid”: like the embittered and entitled little prick that Nando is, he went on to describe his own mental picture of said Legal Aid attorney’s incredibly substandard clothing, haircut, mode of transportation, and apartment (Nando actually used the term “pitiful loser”). If Nando had perfect scores on his LSATs and bar exam, and graduated in the top 1% of a top tier school, I wouldn’t hire him based on those two blog snippets. I fail to see what talents he could bring to any job, much less an entry-level $160K/year position.

[quote=walterwhite] ……if the 200,000 would just stay a stable number….but they’ve been given a LIFTEIME of debt, that will grow like a cancer, with interest penalties and fees if they’re not making money, really good money, that they can never get rid of forever and ever. if you don’t find a way to start servicing it soon, you will be screwed on the balance sheet of life for the rest of your life. [/quote]

As mentioned above, perhaps the planning on how to pay it back should take place PRIOR to enrollment, instead of the week after graduation? This way they not only could figure out the cost/benefit ratio of law school (just in case “the majesty and beauty of the study of the law” is not, in itself, adequate), but also how much money will actually have to be coming in each month in order to cover the loan payments along with all other expenses. Somehow, the image of a law student who neglects to investigate financial details of a huge transaction before signing the papers does not instill confidence in me as a potential client or employer.

That being said, a major reason that the loan amounts increase to astronomical amounts is that students either ignore their obligations, or simply don’t bother to pay them on time. The aforementioned Mr. Wallerstein was incredibly lackadaisical about his, unaware of the total amount, and fairly certain that he could simply wish the loans away. During this time, penalties, interest, and late fees are accruing rapidly.

These people need to grow up. I don’t see why my tax dollars should have paid for Mr. Wallerstein, a substandard student in ANY subject, to travel to Europe to study the law. He racked up the bills, so he needs to pay them.

And, yes, there needs to be a huge overhaul of the student lending racket, including the roles played by the schools.

[quote=walterwhite] and sure, you say, dont go get the degree. you know what you signe dup for….but as the lawsuits start unfurling, it’ll be argued that the schools misrepresented the employment statistics and numbers….
[/quote]

I will admit that a lot of these kids are “encouraged” by ambitious parents who relish the idea of boasting about “my son (or daughter), the lawyer”, and who do not perform actual research on the realities of the law profession.

The fact is that, no matter how good a student you are, how highly your school is ranked, and how healthy the employment market is in a particular field at a given time, there’s never a guarantee of a job.

Yes, the schools should be forced to revise their postgrad “employment” stats, no question about it. But isn’t this yet another case of “something bad happened to me, so someone has to pay!!”? It’s not just law school. Privileged, entitled adults in their 20s are really, really pissed off at Baby Boomers (their words, not mine) because they’re convinced that we’re the reason they aren’t getting $160K to $200K jobs right out of school. In fact, they don’t even know if there are any $160K to $200K jobs out there. And from the sentiments on these blogs, it would appear to be irrelevant as to whether they are qualified for them.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=walterwhite]the whining law school kids with the 200,000 debt actually have a valid whine. You’re not really putting yourself in their shoes. if the 200,000 would just stay a stable number, i’d agree, no whining. but they’ve been given a LIFTEIME of debt, that will grow like a cancer, with interest penalties and fees if they’re not making money, really good money, that they can never get rid of forever and ever. if you don’t find a way to start servicing it soon, you will be screwed on the balance sheet of life for the rest of your life. which again, i would agree, no whining, if it were just a matter of getting out there and hustling, which will work for some, but not all of the suckers who were processed through the educational loan system….[/quote]

scaredy, I am putting myself in their shoes. I’m back in school now, and figuring out the amount of debt that would be wise to incur.

The people in the articles that were cited were incredibly short-sighted. Based on your posts on other threads, I can’t believe that you would recommend that someone go out and purchase a house for which they had not studied the particulars of financing. At $200,000 to $350,000 (the amounts cited in the articles), we’re talking about the monetary equivalent of a house purchase. Yet none of these “professional degree”-seeking students had thought to figure out the terms of payback: the amount of the monthly payments and the length of time they would have to be made.

Even if these law school wunderkinds did manage to procure a $160,000 per year job right out of law school, it would have been difficult to handle the payments on $200K to $300K of debt on the roughly $8,000 per month take-home pay. That kind of student debt translates into payments of $3,000 per month (38% of $13 income) to $4,000 (50%).

And forget the employment numbers the schools were selling (yes, selling! All school have huge marketing budgets, especially law schools.) I can’t remember a time since I was going to school in the 1970s when there was a really good employment market for newly-graduated lawyers. Even in the best of times, you have to be in the top 10% of your class in a top tier school to be called in for the job interviews with lucrative salary levels. This does not exactly describe Michael Wallerstein, one of the subjects of the article, who elected to attend Thomas Jefferson School of Law based on its location, casually racked up over $250K in student debt (in part, to study in Paris and Prague), and is now equally casual about paying it back. But, despite unemployment, he believes it to be a worthwhile investment of taxpayers’ money since he is now able to impress himself with the fact that he’s a lawyer.

In fact, in reading the NYT article and following that up with perusal of several of the blogs, I didn’t come across a single graduate who impressed me as a potentially valuable employee. Many couldn’t spell or string words together into a cogent sentence. One was particularly memorable: the author of Third-Tier Hell. While Nando does possess an impressive crude language vocabulary, he was outraged by an article out of the University of Virginia Law School in which the Dean revealed plans for a faculty-run law firm to hire their own graduates in an effort to improve postgrad employment claims. Nando was so lathered up cursing over the deceptions of the dastardly Dean that he ignored the April 1 dateline, and didn’t bother to perform some very basic online research that clearly established the article as an April Fool’s prank. But what really got me was when he wrote a cruel and cynical paragraph making fun of an “employed lawyer” who “actually only works at Legal Aid”: like the embittered and entitled little prick that Nando is, he went on to describe his own mental picture of said Legal Aid attorney’s incredibly substandard clothing, haircut, mode of transportation, and apartment (Nando actually used the term “pitiful loser”). If Nando had perfect scores on his LSATs and bar exam, and graduated in the top 1% of a top tier school, I wouldn’t hire him based on those two blog snippets. I fail to see what talents he could bring to any job, much less an entry-level $160K/year position.

[quote=walterwhite] ……if the 200,000 would just stay a stable number….but they’ve been given a LIFTEIME of debt, that will grow like a cancer, with interest penalties and fees if they’re not making money, really good money, that they can never get rid of forever and ever. if you don’t find a way to start servicing it soon, you will be screwed on the balance sheet of life for the rest of your life. [/quote]

As mentioned above, perhaps the planning on how to pay it back should take place PRIOR to enrollment, instead of the week after graduation? This way they not only could figure out the cost/benefit ratio of law school (just in case “the majesty and beauty of the study of the law” is not, in itself, adequate), but also how much money will actually have to be coming in each month in order to cover the loan payments along with all other expenses. Somehow, the image of a law student who neglects to investigate financial details of a huge transaction before signing the papers does not instill confidence in me as a potential client or employer.

That being said, a major reason that the loan amounts increase to astronomical amounts is that students either ignore their obligations, or simply don’t bother to pay them on time. The aforementioned Mr. Wallerstein was incredibly lackadaisical about his, unaware of the total amount, and fairly certain that he could simply wish the loans away. During this time, penalties, interest, and late fees are accruing rapidly.

These people need to grow up. I don’t see why my tax dollars should have paid for Mr. Wallerstein, a substandard student in ANY subject, to travel to Europe to study the law. He racked up the bills, so he needs to pay them.

And, yes, there needs to be a huge overhaul of the student lending racket, including the roles played by the schools.

[quote=walterwhite] and sure, you say, dont go get the degree. you know what you signe dup for….but as the lawsuits start unfurling, it’ll be argued that the schools misrepresented the employment statistics and numbers….
[/quote]

I will admit that a lot of these kids are “encouraged” by ambitious parents who relish the idea of boasting about “my son (or daughter), the lawyer”, and who do not perform actual research on the realities of the law profession.

The fact is that, no matter how good a student you are, how highly your school is ranked, and how healthy the employment market is in a particular field at a given time, there’s never a guarantee of a job.

Yes, the schools should be forced to revise their postgrad “employment” stats, no question about it. But isn’t this yet another case of “something bad happened to me, so someone has to pay!!”? It’s not just law school. Privileged, entitled adults in their 20s are really, really pissed off at Baby Boomers (their words, not mine) because they’re convinced that we’re the reason they aren’t getting $160K to $200K jobs right out of school. In fact, they don’t even know if there are any $160K to $200K jobs out there. And from the sentiments on these blogs, it would appear to be irrelevant as to whether they are qualified for them.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=walterwhite]the whining law school kids with the 200,000 debt actually have a valid whine. You’re not really putting yourself in their shoes. if the 200,000 would just stay a stable number, i’d agree, no whining. but they’ve been given a LIFTEIME of debt, that will grow like a cancer, with interest penalties and fees if they’re not making money, really good money, that they can never get rid of forever and ever. if you don’t find a way to start servicing it soon, you will be screwed on the balance sheet of life for the rest of your life. which again, i would agree, no whining, if it were just a matter of getting out there and hustling, which will work for some, but not all of the suckers who were processed through the educational loan system….[/quote]

scaredy, I am putting myself in their shoes. I’m back in school now, and figuring out the amount of debt that would be wise to incur.

The people in the articles that were cited were incredibly short-sighted. Based on your posts on other threads, I can’t believe that you would recommend that someone go out and purchase a house for which they had not studied the particulars of financing. At $200,000 to $350,000 (the amounts cited in the articles), we’re talking about the monetary equivalent of a house purchase. Yet none of these “professional degree”-seeking students had thought to figure out the terms of payback: the amount of the monthly payments and the length of time they would have to be made.

Even if these law school wunderkinds did manage to procure a $160,000 per year job right out of law school, it would have been difficult to handle the payments on $200K to $300K of debt on the roughly $8,000 per month take-home pay. That kind of student debt translates into payments of $3,000 per month (38% of $13 income) to $4,000 (50%).

And forget the employment numbers the schools were selling (yes, selling! All school have huge marketing budgets, especially law schools.) I can’t remember a time since I was going to school in the 1970s when there was a really good employment market for newly-graduated lawyers. Even in the best of times, you have to be in the top 10% of your class in a top tier school to be called in for the job interviews with lucrative salary levels. This does not exactly describe Michael Wallerstein, one of the subjects of the article, who elected to attend Thomas Jefferson School of Law based on its location, casually racked up over $250K in student debt (in part, to study in Paris and Prague), and is now equally casual about paying it back. But, despite unemployment, he believes it to be a worthwhile investment of taxpayers’ money since he is now able to impress himself with the fact that he’s a lawyer.

In fact, in reading the NYT article and following that up with perusal of several of the blogs, I didn’t come across a single graduate who impressed me as a potentially valuable employee. Many couldn’t spell or string words together into a cogent sentence. One was particularly memorable: the author of Third-Tier Hell. While Nando does possess an impressive crude language vocabulary, he was outraged by an article out of the University of Virginia Law School in which the Dean revealed plans for a faculty-run law firm to hire their own graduates in an effort to improve postgrad employment claims. Nando was so lathered up cursing over the deceptions of the dastardly Dean that he ignored the April 1 dateline, and didn’t bother to perform some very basic online research that clearly established the article as an April Fool’s prank. But what really got me was when he wrote a cruel and cynical paragraph making fun of an “employed lawyer” who “actually only works at Legal Aid”: like the embittered and entitled little prick that Nando is, he went on to describe his own mental picture of said Legal Aid attorney’s incredibly substandard clothing, haircut, mode of transportation, and apartment (Nando actually used the term “pitiful loser”). If Nando had perfect scores on his LSATs and bar exam, and graduated in the top 1% of a top tier school, I wouldn’t hire him based on those two blog snippets. I fail to see what talents he could bring to any job, much less an entry-level $160K/year position.

[quote=walterwhite] ……if the 200,000 would just stay a stable number….but they’ve been given a LIFTEIME of debt, that will grow like a cancer, with interest penalties and fees if they’re not making money, really good money, that they can never get rid of forever and ever. if you don’t find a way to start servicing it soon, you will be screwed on the balance sheet of life for the rest of your life. [/quote]

As mentioned above, perhaps the planning on how to pay it back should take place PRIOR to enrollment, instead of the week after graduation? This way they not only could figure out the cost/benefit ratio of law school (just in case “the majesty and beauty of the study of the law” is not, in itself, adequate), but also how much money will actually have to be coming in each month in order to cover the loan payments along with all other expenses. Somehow, the image of a law student who neglects to investigate financial details of a huge transaction before signing the papers does not instill confidence in me as a potential client or employer.

That being said, a major reason that the loan amounts increase to astronomical amounts is that students either ignore their obligations, or simply don’t bother to pay them on time. The aforementioned Mr. Wallerstein was incredibly lackadaisical about his, unaware of the total amount, and fairly certain that he could simply wish the loans away. During this time, penalties, interest, and late fees are accruing rapidly.

These people need to grow up. I don’t see why my tax dollars should have paid for Mr. Wallerstein, a substandard student in ANY subject, to travel to Europe to study the law. He racked up the bills, so he needs to pay them.

And, yes, there needs to be a huge overhaul of the student lending racket, including the roles played by the schools.

[quote=walterwhite] and sure, you say, dont go get the degree. you know what you signe dup for….but as the lawsuits start unfurling, it’ll be argued that the schools misrepresented the employment statistics and numbers….
[/quote]

I will admit that a lot of these kids are “encouraged” by ambitious parents who relish the idea of boasting about “my son (or daughter), the lawyer”, and who do not perform actual research on the realities of the law profession.

The fact is that, no matter how good a student you are, how highly your school is ranked, and how healthy the employment market is in a particular field at a given time, there’s never a guarantee of a job.

Yes, the schools should be forced to revise their postgrad “employment” stats, no question about it. But isn’t this yet another case of “something bad happened to me, so someone has to pay!!”? It’s not just law school. Privileged, entitled adults in their 20s are really, really pissed off at Baby Boomers (their words, not mine) because they’re convinced that we’re the reason they aren’t getting $160K to $200K jobs right out of school. In fact, they don’t even know if there are any $160K to $200K jobs out there. And from the sentiments on these blogs, it would appear to be irrelevant as to whether they are qualified for them.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=walterwhite]the whining law school kids with the 200,000 debt actually have a valid whine. You’re not really putting yourself in their shoes. if the 200,000 would just stay a stable number, i’d agree, no whining. but they’ve been given a LIFTEIME of debt, that will grow like a cancer, with interest penalties and fees if they’re not making money, really good money, that they can never get rid of forever and ever. if you don’t find a way to start servicing it soon, you will be screwed on the balance sheet of life for the rest of your life. which again, i would agree, no whining, if it were just a matter of getting out there and hustling, which will work for some, but not all of the suckers who were processed through the educational loan system….[/quote]

scaredy, I am putting myself in their shoes. I’m back in school now, and figuring out the amount of debt that would be wise to incur.

The people in the articles that were cited were incredibly short-sighted. Based on your posts on other threads, I can’t believe that you would recommend that someone go out and purchase a house for which they had not studied the particulars of financing. At $200,000 to $350,000 (the amounts cited in the articles), we’re talking about the monetary equivalent of a house purchase. Yet none of these “professional degree”-seeking students had thought to figure out the terms of payback: the amount of the monthly payments and the length of time they would have to be made.

Even if these law school wunderkinds did manage to procure a $160,000 per year job right out of law school, it would have been difficult to handle the payments on $200K to $300K of debt on the roughly $8,000 per month take-home pay. That kind of student debt translates into payments of $3,000 per month (38% of $13 income) to $4,000 (50%).

And forget the employment numbers the schools were selling (yes, selling! All school have huge marketing budgets, especially law schools.) I can’t remember a time since I was going to school in the 1970s when there was a really good employment market for newly-graduated lawyers. Even in the best of times, you have to be in the top 10% of your class in a top tier school to be called in for the job interviews with lucrative salary levels. This does not exactly describe Michael Wallerstein, one of the subjects of the article, who elected to attend Thomas Jefferson School of Law based on its location, casually racked up over $250K in student debt (in part, to study in Paris and Prague), and is now equally casual about paying it back. But, despite unemployment, he believes it to be a worthwhile investment of taxpayers’ money since he is now able to impress himself with the fact that he’s a lawyer.

In fact, in reading the NYT article and following that up with perusal of several of the blogs, I didn’t come across a single graduate who impressed me as a potentially valuable employee. Many couldn’t spell or string words together into a cogent sentence. One was particularly memorable: the author of Third-Tier Hell. While Nando does possess an impressive crude language vocabulary, he was outraged by an article out of the University of Virginia Law School in which the Dean revealed plans for a faculty-run law firm to hire their own graduates in an effort to improve postgrad employment claims. Nando was so lathered up cursing over the deceptions of the dastardly Dean that he ignored the April 1 dateline, and didn’t bother to perform some very basic online research that clearly established the article as an April Fool’s prank. But what really got me was when he wrote a cruel and cynical paragraph making fun of an “employed lawyer” who “actually only works at Legal Aid”: like the embittered and entitled little prick that Nando is, he went on to describe his own mental picture of said Legal Aid attorney’s incredibly substandard clothing, haircut, mode of transportation, and apartment (Nando actually used the term “pitiful loser”). If Nando had perfect scores on his LSATs and bar exam, and graduated in the top 1% of a top tier school, I wouldn’t hire him based on those two blog snippets. I fail to see what talents he could bring to any job, much less an entry-level $160K/year position.

[quote=walterwhite] ……if the 200,000 would just stay a stable number….but they’ve been given a LIFTEIME of debt, that will grow like a cancer, with interest penalties and fees if they’re not making money, really good money, that they can never get rid of forever and ever. if you don’t find a way to start servicing it soon, you will be screwed on the balance sheet of life for the rest of your life. [/quote]

As mentioned above, perhaps the planning on how to pay it back should take place PRIOR to enrollment, instead of the week after graduation? This way they not only could figure out the cost/benefit ratio of law school (just in case “the majesty and beauty of the study of the law” is not, in itself, adequate), but also how much money will actually have to be coming in each month in order to cover the loan payments along with all other expenses. Somehow, the image of a law student who neglects to investigate financial details of a huge transaction before signing the papers does not instill confidence in me as a potential client or employer.

That being said, a major reason that the loan amounts increase to astronomical amounts is that students either ignore their obligations, or simply don’t bother to pay them on time. The aforementioned Mr. Wallerstein was incredibly lackadaisical about his, unaware of the total amount, and fairly certain that he could simply wish the loans away. During this time, penalties, interest, and late fees are accruing rapidly.

These people need to grow up. I don’t see why my tax dollars should have paid for Mr. Wallerstein, a substandard student in ANY subject, to travel to Europe to study the law. He racked up the bills, so he needs to pay them.

And, yes, there needs to be a huge overhaul of the student lending racket, including the roles played by the schools.

[quote=walterwhite] and sure, you say, dont go get the degree. you know what you signe dup for….but as the lawsuits start unfurling, it’ll be argued that the schools misrepresented the employment statistics and numbers….
[/quote]

I will admit that a lot of these kids are “encouraged” by ambitious parents who relish the idea of boasting about “my son (or daughter), the lawyer”, and who do not perform actual research on the realities of the law profession.

The fact is that, no matter how good a student you are, how highly your school is ranked, and how healthy the employment market is in a particular field at a given time, there’s never a guarantee of a job.

Yes, the schools should be forced to revise their postgrad “employment” stats, no question about it. But isn’t this yet another case of “something bad happened to me, so someone has to pay!!”? It’s not just law school. Privileged, entitled adults in their 20s are really, really pissed off at Baby Boomers (their words, not mine) because they’re convinced that we’re the reason they aren’t getting $160K to $200K jobs right out of school. In fact, they don’t even know if there are any $160K to $200K jobs out there. And from the sentiments on these blogs, it would appear to be irrelevant as to whether they are qualified for them.

[eavesdropper]

comment deleted by poster

[eavesdropper]

comment deleted by poster

[eavesdropper]

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