In the news: a possible Navajo law school; $111 million of alleged contributions from law schools

A NAVAJO LAW SCHOOL?

Diné College, of the Navajo Nation, is considering the establishment of a law school. "In a press release, the tribal college stated that discussion about developing such a program occurred during a symposium on Dec. 12 and Dec. 13, where participants talked about accreditation, core courses and specializations, judicial advocates, traditional Navajo law and names for the law school."

One critical question seems to have been left out of that symposium: money. How much would it cost to set up a law school at Diné College? Where would the money be found? How much would the students pay? Would the school generate sufficient revenue? Exciting though the planning of curricula and the selection of a name may be, these practical questions must be answered first.

I'll surprise everyone by saying that this is one case in which a new law school is justified in principle. The Navajo Nation legitimately needs the educational and other institutions that will support genuine sovereignty. And no existing law school can properly teach Navajo law, despite the pretensions of narcissistic law professors who think that they know everything. Nonetheless, it is not enough to say "We should have a law school", as college president Charles "Monty" Roessel did in a press release. Many localities from southernmost Texas to northern New England, from remote Appalachia to rural Idaho, are saying the same thing. Unless the proposed law school would be viable, it should not be established.


"LAW SCHOOLS GIVE BACK TO THE TUNE OF $111 MILLION"

A ridiculous advertisement masquerading as journalism asserts that despite law schools' "bad rap", "it would be hard to argue that they are not assets to their communities". Why? Because the Association of American Law Schools (Ass'oALS), whose name says it all, claims that "the total value of the students’ time" spent on "the delivery of legal services through clinics, other experiential courses and pro bono activities of graduating law students" during their last year at some 105 law schools "is estimated to be in excess of $111.5 million". On the basis of that allegation, the "article" concludes that "[l]aw schools give back" to their communities.

There are several problems with this piece of nonsense. An obvious one is the questionable claim that the students' time is given by the law schools. There might be some justification for that at those schools, most of them über-toilets, that require their students to perform unpaid work and even charge them hefty tuition for the privilege. Even so, the credit that Ass'oALS gives to law schools (surprise!) appears to be misplaced.

The valuation of the allegedly donated time is, quite frankly, idiotic. Our own Dybbuk demolished last year's similar claim that the "legal services" in question were worth $81.8 million. Three years ago, I similarly put paid to a ridiculous claim from tiny über-toilet U Mass Dartmouth that its students' so-called pro bono work since 2010 was worth $4.5 million.

Über-toilet update, Part II: Status of some of the worst law schools in 2019

The annual 509 reports that the ABA requires of law schools that have received its rubber stamp of approval are now in. Our friends at Law School Transparency have already summarized the new data. Here are a few highlights:

Golden Gate has seen its first-year enrollment collapse in a single year from 237 to 127, while the LSAT scores remain at exactly the same dismal levels. What exactly is going on at Golden Gate? Is the über-toilet collapsing?

Cooley has seen a similarly sharp decline, from 541 to 292. But Cooley kicked its LSAT scores up a hair. It is still the worst ABA-accredited law school when measured by LSAT scores. Cooley did recently announce the closure of one campus, but that announcement came after the start of the semester and thus should not have affected enrollment. So why did enrollment fall? In part because of Cooley's wholly inadequate efforts to raise its LSAT scores. But something else must be going on. In any case, enrollment is now so low as to threaten the sustainability of the über-toilet-in-chief. As I have estimated before, 75 new students per year is about the lowest level of enrollment that an ABA-accredited law school can sustain. Cooley's 292 new students were spread over five campuses. That's not even 60 per campus on average. Small wonder that Cooley is closing another campus. Perhaps the whole goddamn chain will vanish in the coming years, thereby making the world a better place.

Also declining in enrollment was Vermont Law School, from 194 to 151. At the same time, Vermont's LSAT scores slipped a couple of points to a level that leaves Vermont among the ten worst schools by LSAT score at the 25th percentile. That's a steep fall for a school that only ten years ago was almost halfway respectable. Vermont Law School is in deep financial trouble, and challenging Cooley for the bottom rank is no way to save the institution.

But the most dramatic decline of all occurred at Western State University, from 162 to 23. Hell, even Indiana Tech had more than 23 students in its inaugural class. What sort of law school can be run with so few students? It can hardly offer very many electives. Then again, similarly placed Indiana Tech offered "Hip-Hop and the American Constitution", plus four specialties (among them "Global Leadership"). But we know what happened to Indiana Tech, and it isn't hard to see where Western State University is going.

Appalachian, one of the best candidates for imminent closure, saw enrollment rise from 50 to 61—still too low for sustainability, especially in light of Appalachian's financial distress. LSAT scores went up slightly, and tuition went up 12%. More than 30% of last year's graduates were unemployed ten months out. Expect the Grim Reaper to harvest an über-toilet in Grundy, Virginia, within the next two years.

Florida Coastal is now all that is left of the InfiLaw scam-chain. Enrollment went up by almost half, from 60 to 87. Unsurprisingly to anyone who has kept track of this über-toilet, LSAT scores fell considerably, from 147/150/153 to 146/147/151. I expect Florida Coastal to announce its closure in a year or two, thereby bringing InfiLaw to a well-deserved death.

If you have read the previous article, you know that La Verne and Thomas Jefferson are both switching to California state accreditation—the former by choice, the latter not. But we may as well give these two über-toilets one last glance. Unemployment in last year's graduating class was 39.6% at La Verne and 50.7% at Thomas Jefferson.

New England School of Law | Boston nearly doubled, from 181 students to 351. It also raised its LSAT scores by a couple of points. Results on the bar exams, however, remain execrable, and more than a quarter of the last graduating class was unemployed ten months out.

A disturbing trend of 2019 is the widespread adoption of the GRE as an alternative to the LSAT for the purpose of admission. Old Guy disapproves. The LSAT is better suited to law school. More importantly, however, a single test affords a good and consistent standard for comparison. I recommend that the ABA put the kibosh on this GRE business by requiring the LSAT at all law schools.

Hasenpfeffer Incorporated, meet slave-raping president: Thomas Jefferson and La Verne go down on the same day

November 21, 2019, was an eventful day in the law-school scam, especially in southern California. Thomas Jefferson Law Skule lost its appeal against the ABA's decision to revoke its accreditation. That's the end of the line for Thomas Jefferson.

Old Guy must admit that Thomas Jefferson may not actually die. Earlier this year it obtained state accreditation from California, apparently in hope of living on in some much-reduced form after the ABA finally gave its jive ass the boot. But law skules not accredited by the ABA are ineligible for the student-loan scam, and Thomas Jefferson can hardly thrive as a state-accredited unter-über-toilet.

On the same day, the University of La Verne College of Law became the first law skule to abandon ABA accreditation in favor of state accreditation. Reportedly the board was concerned about "sustainability" in light of the ABA's adoption last year of so-called standards related to the bar exam. Lenny and Squiggy could not be reached for comment.

In the past three years or so, eleven ABA-accredited law schools have gone tits up (if we count two campuses of the Cooley franchise as law schools):

Cooley (one campus)
Mitchell (merged with Hamline—call it a dignified death)
Indiana Tech
Whittier
Charlotte
Savannah
Valpo
Arizona Summit
Cooley (another campus)
Thomas Jefferson
La Verne

This occasion calls for one of Old Guy's commemorative songs:

We're gonna dump 'em…

Give us bar exams, we'll fake 'em;
Read ABA's rules, we'll break 'em.
We're gonna dump our toilet schools
(Dumping 'em our way).
Nothing's gonna save our ass, now,
Though the state gives us a pass, now,
We're gonna dump our toilet schools
(Dumping 'em our way).
There is no scam we won't try;
Never heard the word integrity.
This time we're dead in our tracks
(Dumping 'em our way).
Since we can't go on probation,
We'll take state accreditation
For our two overpriced cesspools.
And we'll dump 'em our way,
Yes, our way:
Dumping our toilet schools.
And we'll dump 'em our way,
Yes, our way:
Dumping our toilet schools
For goddamn fools.

Onward and Upward...More or Less.

Progress continues, unabated, since 2008.

Well, it has been a long time between postings.  Some of it is in part due to slow-news days on the legal education front.  Another part of the downtime, for me at least, has been due to the transition to a new position, and that has cut into my time recently for delivering on the “JD-Advantage” perspective.

“Wait, a new job?” I hear the critics say.  “That is proof positive that all your whining and belly-aching about how JDs are not worth the time and money is a complete and utter fabrication.  Why don’t you just buckle down and work hard for once in your Gen-Xer life, and see what actually comes of it.”

We’ve all heard this before, multiple times.  Never mind the fact that the Boomer cohort as a whole, from whom this particular criticism often comes, has suffered from significant ageism in the workplace, under-funded investments vehicles for retirement, and the need to continue working because they will be destitute if they don’t.  Some of this is “their fault,” some of it isn’t.  Given the vagaries of life, however, you would think there would be some solidarity between generations on these difficult issues (sort of a “welcome to how the other-half live, now let’s actually stop with the slings and arrows and try to do something productive together” approach), but generally, not really.  Lazy Millennials, et. al. still need to get off the lawn, etc., so here we all are.

(In fact, one notable Boomer in particular has concluded that the federal student loan program is a colossal train-wreck and debt needs to be forgiven.  And no, not Bernie Sanders nor Elizabeth Warren nor similar individuals who have to, in-part, pander to the masses, but a long-serving chief officer at the DOE who ostensibly should know something about the issue.  Though, he is getting into politics also, so...)   

Some may recall an older post of mine where I ran the numbers, and concluded that the good old JD, outside the law, is not that remunerative.  The numbers didn’t work for several years, they barely “worked” for a few more, and even now, with some improvement, still are not great – some 15 years after my glorious non-traditional graduation.  Considering the fact that I have 20 years to go before I am eligible for any federal benefits, it still seems tenuous and one-disaster-away from ruin.  Overall, the cost-benefit analysis says “no.”

Why?  Because I would argue that the rent for a JD is just too damn high.  I think after the last several years of scamblogging, it can probably all be distilled down to this one fact.  We can debate the utility (or uselessness) of traditional legal education, the bar’zam hazing ritual, the lack of true clinical and/or apprenticeship models in the profession, the brutal economics for solos, or even newly minted lawyers with no connections having to compete for jobs with legacy lawyers coming from T14 institutions.  All these things matter and contribute to the picture, but they would all be a bit more survivable without six-figures-plus of crushing debt at 7%, give or take.

“A bit more survivable,” though, is the key phrase.  My own “successes,” should they be termed that, came very, very slowly, and did not adjust for inflation well at all.  Note again that I do not actively practice law (though I maintain the license as a credibility marker), and had to flee from the idea very early on due to my non-traditional status and the inability to break in.  “JD-Advantage” was, and still is, a face-saving measure to try to spin the narrative on a bad decision.  I won’t say it has zero utility, but the utility it does present is very watered-down, and could have been achieved through alternate, less-costly means.

Maybe the K-JDs, in contrast, are rocking their Maseratis and their models-and-bottles, and I don’t doubt that a few are.  However, my sources say “no” for the majority, even though self-interested parties will say "yes," and it is not clear how it will strongly improve any time soon.

0Ls, make sure you are considering alternate career paths, and not just choosing law as a default.  Sadly, many do, and some (like me) thought they were making a good decision back in 2002 or so, before the “word got out” on the now-ubiquitous internet.  I’m not saying the world doesn’t need lawyers, but clearly the world does not need that many of them now or in the future.

The Zen of Scam: Suffolk Law Prof. Shailini George promotes mindfulness training as a "core concept in the legal curriculum."

Suffolk University School of Law students have a lot to worry about. The non-discounted interest-accruing cost of attendance at this school is $264,394, or about $30,000 above the median. However, Suffolk Law's placement result for its most recent crop of grads was in the bottom quintile of law schools in the country, with a mere 52.9% obtaining a non-solo full-time law job within nine months of graduation. A few years ago, the University offered a buy-out to all law school faculty (whether with or without tenure), an apparently unprecedented cost-cutting move by a law school, and an extremely public indication that the University is less than vigorous in its commitment to the law school’s future.

Thankfully, Suffolk law professor Shailini George has scholarly balm with which to soothe the troubled law student soul, in the healing guise of a 30-page law review article which promotes the teaching of "mindfulness” in law school classrooms. See George, Shailini, The Cure for the Distracted Mind: Why Law Schools Should Teach Mindfulness, 53 Duquesne L. Rev. 215 (2015) (hereafter: "Cure"). 

Prof. George opens her article with a fictional vignette about "Ian the Intern" who is stressed out because he does not have job, has no way of paying his law school student debts, and the supervisor of his internship thinks he is a clueless nitwit.

“Ian the intern is working on answers to interrogatories. The supervising attorney asked him to get these done as soon as possible. This particular attorney makes him nervous, in fact, Ian gets a stomachache whenever the attorney comes into his cubicle. The attorney has never been happy with anything Ian has done. Ian is not sure if what the attorney wants him to say is accurate and he does not know what to do. No law school class prepared him for this! Ian spins the answer around and around, when ding!: he receives a text message from his roommate reminding him to upload his resume to the law school career center for an upcoming interview. He logs in and sees two rejection letters from the last interviews. His heart sinks. How will he repay his loans without a high paying job? Then he notices an email from the attorney, subject: “are you done yet????” and the stomachache is back. He knows his supervisor won’t be happy.”

          Cure at 216.

According to Professor George, law schools have the means to rescue Ian the Intern from his terrible predicament. By allowing Ian to turn in his JD in exchange for a tuition refund?  Well, no. What Ian's law school can offer him is training in "mindfulness." See Cure at 216 ("If Ian had learned mindfulness techniques allowing him to focus, concentrate, and deal with this stress and anxiety, he may have avoided this scenario. . . . By making mindfulness training a core concept in the law school curriculum, law schools will enable and empower their students to better handle the pressures of working in a distracted society where complex situations are the norm").

Prof. George's law review article does not really describe what mindfulness meditation training involves-- something about breathing properly, and learning, through interludes of quiet contemplation, to be emotionally present in the here-and-now. But the article is emphatic about its enormous benefits-- indeed most of the article is devoted to describing these benefits, and how they have been recognized by this-and-that study and by this-and-that organization. 

Here are only some of the benefits she mentions: lower anxiety, reduced depression, reduced anger, reduced fatigue, improved attention skills, empathy, creativity, equanimity, self-compassion, a deeper understanding of oneself, others, and of the nature of reality, development of emotional intelligence competencies, ability to stay connected to one’s sense of humor and one's deepest ethical and professional ideals, and "spiritual enlightenment or just lightening up." So even if trapped in the typically toxic environment of a law office, Ian and his lowly fellows can journey at will to an inner Shangi-La.

The article even asserts that mindfulness meditation can even improve your favorite basketball team’s zone defense."The Chicago Bulls and L.A. Lakers basketball teams use mindfulness to improve focus and work on the team aspect of the game." Cure at 237-238. (n. I do not follow professional basketball closely, but haven't the Bulls and Lakers performed miserably the last few seasons?)

Though but a humble law intern, and not a Chicago Bull, mindfulness proves to be a slam dunk success for fictional Ian the legal intern, to whom George returns at the end of her article.  

Ian takes a deep breath after the supervising attorney leaves his office before he begins to work on the answers to interrogatories. He notes the time and contemplates what he was asked to do. As he breathes, he reminds himself that this attorney can be brusque but that this attitude is not directed at Ian. Ian must only do what he was asked to the best of his ability. He begins reviewing the file in order to draft the answers. He hears his phone: ding! But he does not take it out of his desk or look at it. He knows it can wait the half an hour it will take him to work on this discovery. Ian is not sure what the attorney wants him to say is accurate, so he does his best to work with what the client said and what he knows the attorney wants. In half an hour, the attorney calls to ask if the answer is done, and Ian is happy to respond that it is. While he knows the attorney may not be completely pleased with the answer, Ian is satisfied that he did the best he could. He hands the work off to the attorney, and checks his phone. Time to work on his resume before anyone asks for him! Ian is thankful that he learned to focus his attention in a law school class that prepared him for such situations. 

Cure at 244. 

 George promotes the benefits of mindfulness so enthusiastically that she reminds me of a cult member or even a faith healer. See e.g. Cure at 230 ("Mindfulness training may benefit people suffering from a variety of ailments, including chronic pain, fibromyalgia, cancer, heart disease, anxiety, binge eating disorder, psoriasis, borderline personality disorder, major depressive disorder, and stress.") 

Troublingly, and unlike what I hope she is teaching her legal writing students, George does not hint at the existence of skeptics, even for the purpose of countering their arguments. The skeptics are out there, however, and not only among disappointed Bulls fans. See Farias, M., & Wikholm, C. (2016). Has the science of mindfulness lost its mind?, BJPsych Bulletin, 40(6), 329 ("Academic articles describe weak results as ‘encouraging’ and ‘exciting’. . .The replacement of orange-robed gurus by white-collared academics who speak of the benefits of ‘being in the present moment’ is a powerful social phenomenon, which is probably rooted in our culture's desire for quick fixes and its attraction to spiritual ideas divested of supernatural elements.") 

While I am in favor of anything that helps law students, quick fix or not, perhaps law school professors would do better to stick to providing instruction in legal practice, which is what they are being overpaid to do. I mean, interested law school students could pick up mindfulness techniques from a local yoga teacher or spiritual healer. Or perhaps mindfulness training could be offered by the University's counseling center, as opposed to making it a "core concept in the law school curriculum." Cure, at 216.

There is nothing wrong with adopting a mental habit or routine of concentrating on the present moment and to avoid dwelling on the traumas of the past or what the future may hold. This is a good goal, a good lesson. But what if the enlightened pedagogues who offer this wisdom are the very persons responsible for traumatizing you by scamming you into massive debt and wasting three years of your time? What if they have destroyed your future and enriched themselves by doing so? Even if their advice is anodyne, it is still tainted with odious hypocrisy and chutzpah.  

Moreover, there are limits to the benefits of mindfulness, limits imposed by objective reality. Even in Prof. George's second fictional vignette, Ian the Intern does not have a job, just good breathing techniques, improved time-management skills, and a better attitude. Maybe mindfulness is a stress-reliever for some, but it will not make a law grad's educational debt disappear or feed and house his or her family, nor will it provide fulfillment within a very difficult profession, which is undergoing structural change that is curtailing opportunities at every level, but especially the entry level. 

"Being a Law Firm Partner Was Once a Job for Life. That Culture Is All but Dead."

An interesting article from the Wall Street Journal, from August 9, 2019.  This headline will surprise virtually no one except K-JD gunners, but it still bears reading for those who still think law school is a done-deal.  It also echoes many, many prior comments on this blog alone from seasoned practitioners that warn that the Law School sugar-plum-fairy pipedreams of Big Law (or Mid-Law, or Small Law) should not be taken without copious amounts of salt.

Being named a partner once meant joining a band of lawyers who jointly tended to longtime clients and took home comfortable, and roughly equal, paychecks. Job security was virtually guaranteed and partners rarely jumped ship. 

That model, and the culture that grew up around it, is all but dead. Law firms are now often partnerships in name only. Full-time chief executives, some without law degrees, have replaced the senior partner running human resources and accounting. Law firm names have trended toward the shorter and snappier, more befitting a tote bag than a law library.

Many firms have expanded rapidly to mirror the growth of their corporate clients, with hundreds of partners spread around the world. The largest, Dentons, recently hit 10,000 lawyers in 78 countries, around a third of them partners.

“Can you be partners with someone you don’t even know?” said legal consultant Aric Press.

In the new paradigm, lawyers are expendable, and partners may jump to a competitor for the right amount of money, taking as many clients as possible with them on the way out.

One criticism I have is the discussion of top partners making $1.75 million to $15 million, while the lower-caste partners "only" make $800,000.00 at someplace like a Kirkland & Ellis.  All too many gunners and Law School Deans alike look at that and say, "well, that's a problem I'd like to have, ha ha," which completely misconstrues the point:

As firms compete to keep profits rising for those at the top, lawyers further down the ladder are sometimes getting left behind. Promising associates who could once expect to be named a partner within seven or eight years are waiting 10 years or more.

Firms have created new steppingstones along the way to appease them—and keep them grinding.

One newly promoted partner at a big firm said he was shocked to learn he would have to spend a year as counsel, an increasingly popular interim title. The firm told him it was to prepare him for the bigger change of being partner. “I wouldn’t be a cynical lawyer if I didn’t think there were other profit-motive reasons,” he said.

Another popular stop-off is “non-equity partner,” the title held by those 560 Kirkland lawyers not invited to the California retreat. They earn a salary rather than sharing firm profits.


And, of course, the model has changed since the 80s (or 70s, or 60s):

Making partner doesn’t just take longer. It takes hustle. A few decades ago, partner titles were handed out largely on the basis of being technically proficient. Now, being a business generator is a crucial component.

Janice Mac Avoy, a Fried Frank partner, said when she earned the partner title 23 years ago, the business model was “wait for the phone to ring” and do a good job for the client on the other end.

When a partner suggested a lawyer being considered for promotion had great contacts and could generate new business, she recalls a fellow partner saying, “You know that’s not an appropriate consideration.”

Those who do make the cut encounter a new set of stressors. Bureaucratic tasks pile on top of the same billable-hour expectations. New partners face pressure to bring in enough new business to cover their own salary, plus those beneath them.

Kevin Smith went to law school in the early 2000s because he had lawyers in his family and wasn’t sure what else to do. After graduating, he clerked for two federal judges then joined an international law firm.

Making partner five years later was one of the best days of his life, he says. He soon realized the new title “makes all the bad things worse” about working in a law firm. “There’s more email, more of the blame if anything goes wrong, just more stress in general,” he said. 

After 6½ years, he quit the partnership to travel abroad while working part time for the firm. 

Of course, the Law School Cartel mentions none of this.  Often, it is these same attorneys who leave these same realities in order to become Law School Professors, thereby indirectly encouraging others to make the same errors they made.  But no one really talks about this except the scamblogs, who are largely comprised of people who know.

So, yes, back in the "halcyon" days of law practice (if there ever truly was such a thing), working for a large firm was likely the correct way to go, and if you can somehow manage to get the Golden Ticket, perhaps even now.  That is rarely the case today, and as indicated above has little to do with being technically proficient and "waiting for the phone to ring", or in some cases even being able to generate some business.  As is the case with many things, a few get spectacular results, more get good but profoundly difficult results, and many, many more are shown the door.  Like many things in life it is a numbers game, and when a firm has thousands of lawyers with a multiple-caste system, the odds are not good.

0Ls, pay heed to this.  The Cartel wants you to sign on the dotted line, and they are loathe to talk about the realities on the ground because the same realities would give any reasonable person pause, especially when the alternative is hanging a shingle Day One.  The world has changed a bit since 1960 or 1980, yet the Cartel pretends that everything is the same as it ever was.

"America's $70,000/Year Liberal Arts Colleges Are Like Headless Zombies That Just Won't Die"

With a title like that, you have to have an image to go with the story.

Small liberal arts colleges in the U.S. simply refuse to die, despite a torrent of bad news about the U.S. higher education marketplace and the increasing uselessness of their degrees.

Bennington College in Vermont is one such example, according to Bloomberg. It sports famous alumni like Donna Tartt and Bret Easton Ellis and charges $73,000 per year for admission. Located at the foot of Vermont's green mountains, it nearly went out of business in the 1990's and was still under duress at the beginning of this decade.

But the school - and its 700 undergraduates - have hung on. It's a microcosm of how these types of schools continue to defy the odds nationwide.  Massachusetts’ Hampshire College was another institution known for its artisiness than has somehow still hung on.

So, what does that have to do with the law school scam?  Perhaps nothing directly - except it is pointing out the continued pressure on higher-education as the weather gauge continues to drift, along with answering "why do the scamblogs keep complaining about law school when so few in particular have closed?"  As indicated, many schools are fighting to survive, and are pulling out the stops to stay afloat.  Law Schools, in many respects, are no different on the whole.

Though, while I have enjoyed the skewering of "liberal artists," often by other liberal artists, concerning the utility of law school over the years (RIP, JDUnderground), I do have to say that I hate to see such degrees being described with "increasing uselessness."  Cynical as I am, and even as an ex-STEMer myself, I do believe a liberal arts education has value, assuming one is taught critical thinking, rhetoric, logic, and composition  skills (what law school got away with for so long lumping together as "analysis").   Plus, a strong alumni network never hurts.

These skills are increasingly critical in every field, even now in this "AI-does-scut-work" world, and have never really "gone away" - it does no good to be the smartest coder, engineer, historian, curator, business person (or even lawyer) in the world, but unable to communicate your findings effectively to others, argue for a position in a principled fashion, or be adaptable - y'know, the things that tend to be uniquely human.

Perhaps those sound like platitudes, and it is all too easy to pick on the stories where people spent $300k on the proverbial underwater basket-weaving degree.  But I think readers of this blog understand what I am talking about.  The issue is (1) so many institutions don't actually deliver on these ideals (hello, most law schools), and (2) they charge way too damn much money for something that shouldn't cost NEAR what is being charged.  I mean, come on, really.

I would be all for more liberal arts education (and, heck, other kinds, too) for a reasonable price. That would solve multiple problems simultaneously - having an "educated" populace (what people say they want until cost comes up), a not-buried-by-debt populace, and a leaner education system that "delivers" to its graduates.  There is more impetus for growth when people aren't crushed.

As it stands, all you have to do is look at Law School as an example for how it can go off the rails. The "problem" is other schools are following suit, perhaps to our greater detriment in the short-term. The only good news is that the market can't be ignored when it is allowed to operate properly in the long-term, and even higher-education may have to finally be competitive in ways it never had to be before.    

Anyway.  TL;DR is - 0Ls, think twice.