The Game & The Scam

We hear a lot about the law school “scam”, but I wonder if we can be more specific. We might divide the problem in two: the law school game and the law school scam. 

The law school game is the overall public policy that exists right now in education. This consists of the mo’money sent (usually) by the Department of Education (i.e., federal government) directly to the schools; this money is then sucked up by the administration and faculty who, as long as they provide a semblance of an “education” to the students—who are legally 100% on the hook for it via nondischargeable “loans”—get to do as they please and even pay themselves yacht-level money. In this “fake socialism”, where higher education is free but not really free, students can sign away government money but must pay it back, the law schools are merely playing along, taking advantage of regulatory loopholes. The original intention of student loans could not have been the current situation, or they would never have been approved of; Congress did not intend that people would enroll in unneeded degree programs, and that schools would accept more students than society needs. 

The reality is, of course, the race to the bottom; that is, eventually the rules get played to their max. Some school will take advantage of the situation, and the others will eventually fall into line or else cease to exist. For instance, any law school (outside the top-ranked private or flagship state schools) that was run by saints (i.e., conscientious people) would have already closed its doors years ago. The only schools left are the ones not run by saints, or any other people who are known for their non-worldliness. The game creates more schools than are actually needed, because the “loan” (i.e., government) money is for the taking. Another way to put is that since the game is about getting money and not “educating” other people’s children, as long as there is available money there will be available seats in “schools”. 

If that is the game, what then is the scam? The scam is the immoral turn to the game. Once the game to get “student loans” (i.e., our money) began, eventually schools would continue to push for more and more of that money, in competition with one another as much as anything. That is, once one law school started the “95% placement within nine months after graduation” rigmarole, the others had to follow. How could a dean run the only law school that didn’t have impressive-to-a-22-year-old “job placement” numbers? There we have our scam: the school needs numbers inviting enough to attract (usually) 22-year-old student loan signers, but not so inviting that it would be obviously false. For instance, if the schools promised a million dollars a year as a mean salary, it would be not be believed even by the “special snowflakes”. It would also awaken the public and trigger some kind of FTC investigation. So the schools had to promise the 0L’s a good bit of monay, but subtly and defensibly. These promises have slowly been exposed when the falsity is too blatant, and therefore provable. It remains to be seen whether additional transparency will be forced on them. 

So we have our situation: those going after the game of how higher education is funded overall, and those going after the scam of how the game is played. For example, the “game” is addressed by sites like this and the “scam” addressed by sites like this. Both game and scam are fundamentally connected with one another; to fight one is to fight the other.

The game and the scam: both are part of the problem, and both need to be addressed. The game is harder to change but stops the problem entirely by ending the structure in which that problem could exist; the scam can at least be limited with effort by reformers, although as long as the game continues there will always be “special snowflakes” who ignore any advice besides how wonderful their biglaw/nonprofit legal career will be. 


Preston Bell (premeditatedmeditations.com) is the author of the (free) eBook about the Law School situation: Smarter Than Socrates: The End of the Law School Era.