I've long held the belief that it'll take the failure of just one law school for applicants to finally get the message that attending a low-ranked law school is one of the worst decisions they will make in their entire lives, right up there with marrying a hooker in Vegas or driving after drinking an entire bottle of Jack. Once applicants see one school flop, reality will finally kick in: they'll question whether they should attend law school at all, starting a chain reaction of failures throughout the low-ranked schools, many of which are already on life support due to dwindling applications, falling student numbers, and evaporating tuition dollars.
And it looks like we've found patient zero: Indiana Tech Law School.
I'll just quote the entire press release:
Reading between the lines, it would appear Dean Alexander was given the choice of resignation or dismissal. Why? One can only speculate at this point in time, but my money is on the fact that this expensive failure of a law school has not only cost Indiana Tech a huge amount of money (and will continue to cost Indiana Tech a huge amount of money in the future), but has turned Indiana Tech from a once-respected regional college into the poster child of academic stupidity and greed. Enrollment targets have been hopelessly missed, the money promised is not appearing, and Indiana Tech is left with egg (or worse) on its face. Way to ruin an otherwise reasonable university, although perhaps those in the administration will finally taste what it's like to have their futures wiped out due to law school.
I'm sure information will leak out in the next few days. We'd be particularly interested to hear from any insiders - rising 2Ls who are now deeply concerned that their school will collapse around them, leaving them with (at the very least) a waste of a year or two of their lives and a stain on their resumes; staff who could well be out of a job very soon; faculty who regret ever giving up their prior academic positions to end up as snake oil salespeople under Dean Alexander; applicants (if there are any) who will now withdraw their applications.
Watch this space for developments.
And it looks like we've found patient zero: Indiana Tech Law School.
I'll just quote the entire press release:
Fort Wayne, Ind.—Indiana Tech announced today that Law School Dean Peter Alexander has resigned. Alexander has held the position of vice president and dean of the law school and tenured professor and he resigned both positions with Indiana Tech on May 21, 2014. Alexander cited the achievement of the goals he had established for the law school to that point in time and a desire to pursue other employment opportunities as the reasons for his decision to resign.“Dean Alexander has helped establish a firm foundation here at the law school, which will help us achieve success now and in the future,” said Indiana Tech President Dr. Arthur Snyder. “We appreciate his efforts on behalf of students and our school, and wish him well in all his future endeavors.”andré douglas pond cummings, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of law at Indiana Tech Law School, has been named interim dean.
Reading between the lines, it would appear Dean Alexander was given the choice of resignation or dismissal. Why? One can only speculate at this point in time, but my money is on the fact that this expensive failure of a law school has not only cost Indiana Tech a huge amount of money (and will continue to cost Indiana Tech a huge amount of money in the future), but has turned Indiana Tech from a once-respected regional college into the poster child of academic stupidity and greed. Enrollment targets have been hopelessly missed, the money promised is not appearing, and Indiana Tech is left with egg (or worse) on its face. Way to ruin an otherwise reasonable university, although perhaps those in the administration will finally taste what it's like to have their futures wiped out due to law school.
I'm sure information will leak out in the next few days. We'd be particularly interested to hear from any insiders - rising 2Ls who are now deeply concerned that their school will collapse around them, leaving them with (at the very least) a waste of a year or two of their lives and a stain on their resumes; staff who could well be out of a job very soon; faculty who regret ever giving up their prior academic positions to end up as snake oil salespeople under Dean Alexander; applicants (if there are any) who will now withdraw their applications.
Watch this space for developments.
Rats leaving a sinking ship? Except this rat probably had the loot in its mouth as it ran. I'm sure Alexander had a sweet parachute built into his employment contract. The "future endeavors" he's planning are buying a beach house and a boat and laughing all the way through his cushy retirement paid for by that first class of dupes.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe he did reach his goals of lining his own pockets and then running. After all, the goal of this school was never about actually teaching law or producing lawyers, was it? It was about making money. Cha-ching!
What took them so long to get rid of this clown?
Anyone who applies to this school for entry in 2014 is officially one of the dummest people on the planet. ShITLS will not be accredited. It is now officially >>>the<<< joke law school (although Cooley will probably make its own rankings of the biggest joke law schools and rank itself #1).
More like ships leaving a sinking rat.
Deletedummest?
DeleteAnd now ITLS has a dean of student services who has a God complex and an administrative staff member who has been accused of selling confidential student information.
DeleteI'm guessing that Adam Lamparello will e-publish a shocking expose of his tenure at Indiana Tech, complete with drugs, hookers, and fistfights with Alexander. In the meantime, I'm also hoping for information from anonymous insiders. This is a fascinating case, and it could very well lead to the closure of 20 overpriced and unnecessary law schools.
ReplyDeleteYes, Indiana Tech will have its future ruined by a law school. It may take them 30 years to pay for all this. Such exquisite and delicious irony, a foretaste of ultimate justice.
ReplyDeleteSince I can't get a job as a lawyer, maybe I should start a business of selling bumper stickers that poke fun at Indiana Tech.
DeleteNot ultimate justice, poetic justice.
DeletePoetic justice...is that somehow related to constitutional hip-hop?
DeleteApplicants won't withdraw their applications: the letter of admission goes out far too fast for that.
ReplyDeleteJust a few weeks ago, a prospective applicant who expressed concern about the high cost and the poor prospects of employment received from Indiana Tech a list of a couple of hundred things that one can do with a law degree (almost all of which one could also do perfectly well without a law degree) and a copy of that bullshit article claiming that a law degree is worth $1M over a lifetime. I cannot believe that the people who sent that garbage out did not know it to be deceptive at best. This is coming very close to fraud.
As to getting rid of Alexander, I'm not sure that André Look-at-My-Four-Lower-Case-Names Pond Scum will be an improvement. This law-and-hip-hop poseur will be no credit to a law skule whose business plan is based on hoodwinking older people and racialized people. Maybe they should have kept their Uncle Tom in place.
Indiana Tech should play to its strengths by offering the world's first joint degree program in law and hairdressing. That would be a great way to improve the employment prospects of graduates (if indeed anyone graduates before the vo-tech flushes this toilet of a law school for good).
Another option, he was quietly dismissed for misconduct. There's many a misdeed that could cause such a rapid departure from academia despite what people think about tenure being an ironclad job for life. Sexual activity with students. Embezzlement. Academic fraud. Oh no wait that last one is encouraged in law schools but you get the idea. The list is long and sordid and would often result in a shame-free resignation rather than a criminal prosecution.
ReplyDeleteUnlikely. There are so very few students there (what is it now, 24?) that a sexual tryst would be too hard to hide. (Word would get out even at a huge school.) Embezzlement is possible, I admit. But I suspect that they're just preparing to close the place down.
DeleteEven so, it's surprising that he has left so quickly. I'm eager to know exactly what has happened.
If you want to speculate about a scandal, just ask yourself: who benefits? Who improved his own tenuous position by getting rid of Alexander? That would be assistant dean andre douglas pond cummings, right? So Cummings obviously had some dirt on Alexander. What it was, we may never know.
DeleteMaybe Alexander threw the wrong gang sign at Cummings and his posse. It's happened before.
They've eradicated all mention of Dean Alexander from their website in great haste.
ReplyDeletehttp://law.indianatech.edu/staff/faculty/alexander/
The Ministry of Truth!
DeleteNiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!
ReplyDeleteAll you diversity-lovers should celebrate adcp's ascension as our newest minority law dean.
ReplyDeleteHe probably got Alexander canned for not being sensitive enough to minorities.
DeleteHe's not a minority. He's white. http://law.indianatech.edu/staff/faculty/cummings/
DeleteYou're racist. Look past the skin color and into the soul.
DeleteCharles, it's all about money. He was dismissed because he failed to meet enrollment targets and projections. It's no more complicated than that. The resulting laughingstock surrounding the school is merely one such consequence.
ReplyDeleteIndiana Tech probably had a better chance of drawing in lemmings with Alexander than it will with Pond Scum. But God Herself would not draw many people to that toilet. Merely changing the dean will not save this law skule.
DeleteIf it were all about money, he would have stepped down as dean but retained his position as tenured professor. Something more is going on, and I want to know what it is.
Shall we take bets on the size of the incoming class at Indiana Tech? I'll say 17.
Exactly. It's all about the money.
Deleteandre cummings (nice porn name, if nobody's mentioned that) is only interim dean. I doubt they'll make him permanent dean.
DeleteBut I also doubt Alexander was forced out. I'm guessing he left voluntarily, as he doesn't want his name associated with this turkey when it folds. He probably has such a comfortable retirement package he doesn't even need a sinecure there. He wants to cut ties completely.
But if it does fold, a handful of other schools may close. But there won't be mass closings. And it won't scare away any more than a handful of lemmings - look at Law School Lemmings to see how deluded and naïve they are. As long as the government is willing to throw GradPlus loans at this diminished but still significant pool of lemmings, the great majority of law schools can avoid closing.
What this mark is the definitive end of expansion for the law school bubble. Not a pop, just the end of its expansionary phase. Which is still significant.
Why leave voluntarily? Like it or not, his name is associated with this turkey. He might as well have milked the two jobs as long as he could.
DeleteConceivably he may have resigned proprio motu, but it seems far more likely that he was asked to leave.
It is "andre douglas pond cummings," not simply "andre cummings." Show the man some respect. According to his website, his "reputation goes far beyond . . . the nation, and is heard in every corner of the globe, wrestling with legacies of legal thinking on one hand and popular culture on the other."
Deletehttp://www.andredouglaspondcummings.com/greetings.html
Would it be possible to save ITLS with a merger? Maybe they could merge with Valparaiso, use the existing accreditation, share the art collection, and start pushing unpaid internships in Chicago. I'm sure Chicago could use some attorneys who took an oath of professionalism.
ReplyDeleteThat beautiful oath of professionalism is Alexander's greatest legacy. It was his defense against any and all criticism. (In fact, it could very well be unethical for me to be writing this.) I want to save the dream, save the ideal of a practical, ethical law school if it's at all possible.
Valparaiso is on the other side of the state.
DeleteFire the staff, sell the art collection, convert the building into a prison for scam-deans.
There's one thing I often wonder...Why couldn't Indy Tech recruit a better faculty? How did they end up with such an assortment of freaks and gasbags?
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've read, it's a buyer's market for the standard HYS degree, appeals clerkship, 3 years in Biglaw types. Why couldn't Alexander hire some of them? And if he wanted to emphasize practical experience, why didn't he find more practicing attorneys as adjuncts?
I'm not sure why he wasn't able to get more HYS graduates. Perhaps they weren't quite desperate enough, even in the recent wretched market.
DeleteBut looking after the faculty page, cummings and Lamprello appear to be the exception rather than the rule. The rest all seem sane, experienced and competent. Although they are doubtless all overpaid. I hope they make the best of it, this is probably the last such gig many of them will get.
Nobody who has a law-related job in this law-related job market is going to throw over that job for a position at a school that has zero chance of survival. The HYSers are lashing themselves to the masts of whatever ships they are on.
DeleteI've got to feel sorry for Alexander. Due to bad luck and bad timing, as well as small-town ignorance and grandiosity, he became the first scamdean EVER to be fully exposed and refuted on the Internet. I'll never forget professor Campos' quick and efficient takedown of this impostor.
ReplyDeleteLiterally anyone who supported ITLSS, OTLSS, TLS, JDU, and many other sites can be proud of having kept at least 150 naïve souls out of the clutches of the student debt scam. Its too bad for Alexander that his was the face that launched a thousand withering rebuttals, but when he entered the legal profession he had to be prepared for that.
@10:26: Valpo (the most logical potential merger partner) already runs a virtually open admissions policy. Median incoming LSAT is only 149, which is likely compatible with ITLS numbers. There is no incentive for Valpo to pick up the overhead costs of running an underutilized bricks and mortar operation a hundred miles away. The best move for Valpo would be to offer ITLS students transfer admission in order to capture the tuition stream for another two years. Valpo has many more students transfer out than coming in, so this would be a good way to replace some of last year's 1Ls who departed for greener pastures.
ReplyDeleteITLS will simply have to find another use for its brand new law school building once the program shuts down.
Another candidate for the Patient Zero position is Widener. It hasn't filed a NALP report in a couple of years, and its dean resigned last month, with no replacement in sight. One rumor, however, is that complete collapse will be staved off by combining the Delaware and PA branches at a single location.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if Indy Tech could be considered "patient zero," as it was just opened. I think it will take a more established law school's failure to start the dominoes falling.
ReplyDeleteThis might be a better candidate, but since Charleston is newer it might not work. http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20140525/PC16/140529595
DeleteI know this is not likely, but maybe Alexander had a crisis of conscience? I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I was the dean of any law school in America, let alone Indiana Tech. I'm an eternal optimist; what can I say?
ReplyDeleteExcellent point. It could very well be that he had a crisis of conscience. With only 28 students, he was able to put actual faces on the student loan case files. He saw his victims, face to face, every day, and he just couldn't take it any more.
DeleteAlso, there's nothing like abject, humiliating, financial and professional failure to get you thinking about what you did wrong. In the process, those well-hidden moral issues sometimes rise to the surface.
Long before the school opened, Alexander knew perfectly well what it would do to its students. Campos had told him. Others had told him. He knew.
DeleteSo I don't buy the "crisis of conscience" theory.
I don't either.
DeleteWhy didn't he stay on as a professor?
You're kidding, right?
The school is doom-switched. It's only a matter of time.
The first comment on this entry nailed it, IMO. He got a big Golden Ticket out. The rat is running with the cheese in its mouth from the sinking ship.
"Excellent point. It could very well be that he had a crisis of conscience. With only 28 students, he was able to put actual faces on the student loan case files. He saw his victims, face to face, every day, and he just couldn't take it any more."
DeleteNah. If he actually had a sense of responsibility and ethics, he'd have never helped open the place.
I agree with the theory that he failed to produce the bodies. Especially if the figures for 2014 were looking no better than last year, the school is looking at ~50-60 total students next year. If everything was based on getting 200 at this time, the school is bleeding money like crazy, and the people running Indiana Tech probably dumped every cent they had or could borrow into this black hole.
"...the people running Indiana Tech probably dumped every cent they had or could borrow into this black hole."
DeleteWell, thank goodness there are bankruptcy protections in place, to help out all the profs, administrators and investors, in case they overextended themselves. We sure wouldn't want ill advised law-school related borrowing to ruin the rest of their lives, would we?
Agreed, Antiro. The failure of Indiana Tech would be much easier to rationalize away than the closing of a long-standing institution. And at this point, even the weakest TTT can probably weather the drought for two or three more years before shutting down is inevitable (assuming the federal student loan program continues without significant reform).
ReplyDeleteNo concerns from this rising 2L. Shit happens. As long as Indiana Tech get its provisional accreditation in the spring of 2015 nothing matters( I have a job waiting for me, as do most of my classmates)... Indiana Tech Law School will soon steam role Valpo, Ohio Northern, & Cooley.
ReplyDeleteInitially I assumed your post was pure trollkraft, but "steam role" instead of "steamroll" leads me to believe you just might be the genuine ITLS article.
DeleteBut Rising 2L, dude, can you make your loan payments with the salary that's waiting for you? And is the job permanent?
DeleteI'm guessing that maybe half the class has local judicial clerkships sort of lined up.
Steamrolling Valpo. What an achievement!
DeleteSteamroll Valpo...please! And then, turn off the lights at ITLS on the way out, thx. Many graduates and practicioners would thank you for the drop in matriculants. Indiana really only needs Notre Dame and IU-Bloomington anyway.
Delete'Steam Role', guys! ITLS spelin' rulz!
DeletePorn star Jessica Drake often spells her name jessica drake, because it was easier to sign autographs that way. This guy does it to be an intolerable douche bottle. Kinda longing for the simplicity of porn star ways...
ReplyDelete"I have a job waiting for me..."
ReplyDeleteI look forward to witnessing a demonstration of your burrito-rolling skills.
I know, lol!
Delete"See you at Starbucks!!"
I sympathize with your plight (debt slave JDs who were lied to).
ReplyDeleteHowever, I cannot believe how many of you are leftists who blame your problems on 'the one percent', Republicans, conservatives, 'corporations', 'fracking', and Bush.
Those views are untenable. Academia, specifically Law School, is dominated by the left (85 percent of profs are self-identified leftists, and in Law School that number is about the same [prior to the boomer generation there were more conservatives in law]). In fact, it's openly hostile to anything resembling free markets or cultural conservatism.
Yet, these same professors who blame CORPORATIONS and EVIL rich for all the worlds problems ... are the SAME professors who exploit the little innocent college kids into paying their six figure salaries with money derived from debt slavery.
So these leftists have made your life HELL by using the same practices they claim the EVIL RICH use to exploit others?
Hmmm ... well at least EVIL corporations produce products which consumers use and give jobs to the population.
That's more than you can say for left-dominated SLAVE LABOR concentration camps called UNIVERSITIES.
***I'm not a Republican or a conservative, I'm just sick of far left BULLSHIT.
"...I'm sick of the far left BULLSHIT."
DeleteYes, I think it's true and possibly undeniable that "the Left" dominates in academia, but the thing is the alleged ideology of these "academics" is only alleged. They are not 'for real' as academics or ideologues; they are not Leftists; they are not serious; they're just grifters - people who found and misrepresented an ideology to make easy money. Karl Marx is definitely preferable to the self-identified Leftist academic.
They're frauds, honey.
These "academics" don't believe anything they say. They merely capitalize on the unbearable lightness of speech. Talk is cheap. Claiming to "feel the pain" of the poor is cheaper. Government credit is cheapest.
But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. These people are not Leftists; they couldn't possibly be Leftists, because Leftism would demand their heads.
So, don't allow their fraud to make you become narrow-minded as to solutions and policies or to speaking the truth.
After all, there are indeed hated and hunted minorities. There are persons who are not treated equally under the law. Your vitriol almost certainly stems from counting yourself as being in such a population.
So, you're right. Under cover of a noble ideal (you should start to get suspicious right there), we have not an ideology, but a whole, real, impenetrable legal system - a set of laws - in place to create disproportionate and unmerited wealth for some and a caste system for everyone else.
We've been here before, although the catalyst for discrimination was different. The higher educational system is codified discrimination. So, what are we going to do about it?
Indeed, they just rightists posing as leftists. As I said in the middle of class one day, no one was ever hired at a law school for waving the red flag.
DeleteAlmost every prof and public school teacher I know hates the rich, corporations, and oil fracking.
DeleteOnly problem is their pension plans are dependent on what they despise. Only problem is that without the EVIL rich, there would be no property taxes and tuition dollars to pay their salary.
The left has become a parasite class. They have no intention of adding value to society, they merely wish to attack and loot the producers.
I bailed out of a law firm in the 1990's 18 months before it imploded. The partners were all registered Democrat T14 baby boomers who had grown rich and entitled in the the Golden Age of the 1970's and thought it would go on forever. The last 14 months they were in business they were using up their savings because they weren't getting paid. There are still some people making money in law but not the way you used to make money. The lawprofs are parasites. The vortex has got a long way to spiral.
Delete@ 6:47
Delete"they just just rightists posing as leftists"
Wow, pull every excuse out of the book! Every study has shown that professors are anywhere from 70-85% Democrats.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't support themselves blame others and become Democrats.
You JD liberals looking for six figure salaries are scum. My sympathy is revoked.
Well, I (6:47) do not consider Democrats to be leftists, so your statistical claim does not budge me from my position.
DeleteC'mon. I have relatives working at Boston College Law School.
DeleteIn the Dean's office there hangs a bulls-eye target with Bush, Romney, and Paul Ryan's faces. Republicans don't get hired. That's the policy.
Leftists RUN law school. Just ask those on the inside.
*[I'm not a Republican] but I find that discriminatory.
Go back to third tier reality, which is the level where this type of post belongs. There you can rant about leftists, evil baby boomers, evil rich to your hearts content with the other juvenile posters who blame everything on everyone but themselves. As tough as you babies have had it, you never had to deal with the draft, world war 2, Korea, Vietnam, etc. You have been coddled all your lives and you are the result. Truly sad. My kids were never dumb enough to take out hundreds of thousands in loans. They were also smart enough to research career prospects before committing themselves. What is your excuse other than being a spoiled, coddled lazy do nothing all of your life who demanded everything be handed to you on a silver platter?
ReplyDelete'Nam reference: check
Delete"Coddled": check
"research": check
"dumb": check
"spoiled": check
"lazy": check
"silver platter": check
Woo-wee, OTLSS, you got yerself a grade A-1 Boomer troll infestation right here on this here thread. Recommend that you immediately pander and bow-and-scrape, as these Boomers don't move on until you rub their tummies and tell them how great they are and everything was hunky-dory before the Carter administration ruined everything. Mollified, they then tend to schlep off to another thread to self-aggrandize further, where they rant about the oil embargo, inflation, and other societal ills from thirty years ago.
Repeat, do not engage, do not engage. All you will get is the standard 8-track-tape response.
Part of the problem and the reason that so many of you went to law school was because there aren't many other options for a middle class existence.
DeleteYour parents and grandparents had many options; you don't.
I don't know how boomers don't see this. There are very few public sector opportunities left (outside the military), no manufacturing jobs, few blue collar trades taking on apprenticeships which pay more than 40k a year once you get going, and no cushy white collar jobs (yuppie-ism) outside of engineering, IT, and CPAs.
Many of us faced this problem, luckily some of us, including myself, didn't go to law school or go in debt ... but the reason for the higher education scam is clearly a lack of genuine opportunity.
45-50 percent of law students can't find jobs ... 70 to 80 percent can't find jobs that justify the debt they took out.
DeleteHow you could not see these people as victims of boomer greed - scamming is beyond me.
They are victims of very selective greedy people . . . who happen to be boomers. They are also victims of their own greed. People go to law school because they see it as a way to riches . . . That's about the only reason people go to law school . . to get rich and to hide out from society for another three years. If they were not greedy themselves, they would not be in law school. Or if they had the foresight to research the job situation they would not be in law school. Law has been a difficult endeavor since the 80's in the job front. It didn't just happen overnight. They were talking about too many lawyers when I was in high school. So Lemmings were dumb enough to sign on the line of a 100K plus promissory note and now they have no blame for taking on the debt for what has always been a pig in the poke chance of making it. Remember, law students are not dumb 18 year old freshman, they are presumably 22 year old adults and older who should have known better. That's why the Courts have been tough on these suits. In the end, common sense tells you that the student who took the debt bares the majority of the blame.
DeleteWhen I (Old Guy) was in high school in a little rural town, there was absolutely no talk of lawyers at all. I knew nothing about becoming a lawyer, going to law school, getting into law school; in fact, I still knew nothing about any of that when I got my bachelor's degree—from HYP. I was well into my twenties before I ever met a lawyer.
DeleteThe belief that every young person (or even every old person) has fair access to sound information about the legal "profession" is false. The Internet has facilitated access to such information, but still it is difficult for many people to know the score.
I actually agree that those lawsuits against Cooley & Co. were properly dismissed. I had little sympathy for the people who expected to get a well-paying job with their C– from La Toilette Law Skule. But I will not let law schools off the hook for corruption, deception, greed, manipulation, and fraud.
"I don't know how boomers don't see this."
DeleteEasy - most of them are desperately trying to avoid falling into the pit themselves.
@ 2:24
DeleteVery good points. I never intended to go to law school, but if you are correct, and most prospective JDs are in it for the money alone, then may be they aren't as innocent as I make them out to be.
I still have sympathy for these people, I don't know why. May be because they are part of my generation.
... and the misleading job statistics are criminal. You overlooked that.
And I'm still not willing to exonerate the baby boomers, as the advice I have received on their end in terms of my own career was absurd. I find many boomers to have been blessed by excellent career prospects in their youth ... which makes them give horrible advice about how easy it is to 'get a government job' and go 'work your way up from the bottom of a corporation'.
It's a new world. Knowledge about the job market is king.
Talk about boomers being pampered, greedy, and so forth...Post-boomers were pampered much worse, at home, at school, by the media. It's just that the pampering didn't extend to the job market, which has the post-boomers angry and confused.
ReplyDeleteGeneration X was pampered? We latchkey children? We children of the first beneficiaries of no-fault divorce? We who have known from childhood that we would be shafted upon retirement? We who had to pay a (borrowed) fortune for university only to find ourselves unemployable? We, the first generation in two hundred years to be worse off than its parents'?
DeleteObviously, every generation in born in America in the last century has been pampered since 1945. Collectively, perhaps we in Gen Y or X have poor character and are generally lazy and spoiled. I'm not defending, nor do I like my own generation.
DeleteBut that has nothing to do with the central fact that the boomers are economic vampires on the youth through unsustainable ponzi schemes like the housing and stock bubble (caused by ignorance and greed), national debt, Social Security, Medicare, public pensions, and college tuition (which they benefit from most). Not to mention that the entire economy is structured to protect boomer assets and interests, which leaves young generations with only one form of investment opportunity ... speculation.
The house or cards will collapse one day with Gen Y and X holding the bag.
Agreed, 4:22. I'm a proud Gen-Xer myself, married, with kids, a mortgage, and "valuable" degrees, including a law degree. No one is perfect, and everybody makes mistakes. I do the best I can and try to muddle through.
DeleteThat said, I've been subjected to the "lazy, slacker, Gen-Xer" meme for about 25 years now, and the Boomers need to get a new act. Their routine is old, their sthick is stale, and they need new material. They just need to go retire somewhere since they are all so goddamn smart.
Oh, wait, more than 50% of the Boomer generation has less than $10k in retirement savings, if you read the news lately. Oh wait, Boomers screwed over other Boomers on housing, pensions, the stock market, and the like. Oh wait, "somebody" has to pay for all these societal goods that Boomers are "entitled" to.
Yep, blame Gen-X and Gen-Y. Sure. I'm sure in the Boomer-bizarro-world where no Boomer does no wrong, ever, it all makes perfect sense.
The source of their (the boomers who are openly critical) vitriol is so obvious. They became cops, teachers, inside sales persons, and night-schooled lawyers and lived what could be considered by today's standards an upper middle class existence thanks to the strength of the petrodollar.
DeleteThey know their affluence was and is now a farce that they did no deserve (I'm not speaking to the doctors, engineers, and other hardworking good people in that generation). The sight of youth makes them uncomfortable because it has nothing to do with THEM ... its a signal that their time is over.
My parents and that entire generation should have their public pensions, Social Security, and Medicare cut. They couldn't care less about what comes after them, it's all about their own consumption and enjoyment. F*ck the future.
The boomers gave you all ibr, which means most of you are never going to come close to paying off your debt anyway. You should be happy about that. The rest of us have to pay our debts on a monthly basis even if we are unemployed with no income.
ReplyDeleteAssumes facts not in evidence, 8:43. My wife and I together pay a hefty mortgage payment for my law school loans and her loans alone, thanks, which on an inflation-adjusted real-dollars basis is more that Boomers paid, pound-for-pound. We are not on IBR, and we've been doing this for ten years now, and we still have a way to go.
DeleteSomething about "damn kids should be responsible", I think, right? Well, here are two Gen-Xers who are. Thanks for playing.
IBR?
DeleteSo allowing a fraction (perhaps less than a 50 - 100 billion) of the 1.3 trillion in student loan debt to be forgiven is equivalent to the 222 trillion in unfunded liabilities which is mostly money that you boomers promised to yourself.
Righhhhht. 100 billion for you = 222 trillion for me. That's boomer math.
And no, the rest of you don't pay your debts, future generations have that responsibility.
Dean Alexander was a good and great man. I, yes a 2L at Indiana Tech, a school that will outpace Valpo, IU and even Notre Dame in a heart beat, did a google search to see what greatness Dean Alexander has risen too and I found this trash heap website.
ReplyDeleteYOU DON'T GO HERE.
YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT.
INDIANA TECH IS A SERIOUS LAW SCHOOL FOR SERIOUS STUDENTS OF THE LAW.
This is boarderline slander and I think there can be some privacy issues for what your saying about the school. You all better knock it off before you see yourself staring down the end of a subpeana and contributing to the endowment of the college through your lawsuit losses.
I would lay money that Dean Alexander was fired for standing up to the University President, who pushed the law school through to be his legacy (he chaired the feasibility study--how could his own employees tell him it was a terrible idea?). This is the standard operating procedure for Dr . Snyder. Two (or is it three?) VPAAs have in a row disappeared literally over a weekend with no explanation. I thought the law school was a horrible idea, but Dean Alexander fought hard to meet accreditation standards. Unfortunately, some of these things (like a library) were more expensive than Dr. Snyder thought they should be. People who cross Art Snyder disappear. I hear there is a law suit.
ReplyDeleteI am a former employee of the most dysfunction university I have ever known.