Why Law School?

Now that I'm a practicing attorney, I can admit that I went to law school because it was an easy alternative to achieve a particular goal: have a professional degree.

As an undergraduate, I majored in Organizational Communication. After graduating, I discovered that there aren't too many jobs available in my particular degree field for someone with a bachelor's degree. Most of the professionals in the field have master's or doctorate degrees. Law school became a good fall back option to achieve the doctorate degree without having to go through a Ph.D. program.

So, like all aspiring law students, I took the LSAT, applied to schools, and waited. The rejections came well before the admission letters. I entered law school in 2005 and worked diligently. I achieved mediocre grades and status, but gratefully, I passed the bar exam.

Overall, I'm happy with my decision, and enjoy my work. However, in all honesty, there might have been something better for me, had I not been so focused on my plan.

There's a great post by Ashby Jones on the Wall Street Journal Law Blog that discusses this very issue. The author encourages aspiring law students to seriously think about law school. It's costly, it's grueling, and despite what your law school career services department says, there simply aren't many jobs available where you're making lots of money. The truth is, most graduates make less than $50,000 per year, and except for the small percentage of students with scholarships, will pay $100,000-plus in student loans. In this economy, this isn't a smart business decision.

Citigroup v. Students

I'm not sure how I feel about this story. Apparently Citigroup is lobbying for people to oppose the President's new proposal to lend government-backed student loans directly to students. This would eliminate the "middleman," and possibly create a new department/agency/"bloated government wasteful entity" to handle student loan lending.

On one hand, I like the concept of not having to work through institutions like SallieMae to get money for college, but I'm partially opposed to bigger government.

There's a few things about Citigroup's letter that offend me. I don't believe that privatization of student loans actually has any beneficial effect on students. I know in my lending experience, I rarely examined the lender, and regualarly went with my school's suggestion. Also, I don't think that counseling programs are beneficial in helping students establish good behaviors (i.e. the bankruptcy process), rather they're simply another way to inform borrowers about the responsibility of paying back the loans.

I can't tell how to vote or feel, because I don't know, but you should definitely be aware of this push.