Law degree, $350k in debt and on welfare

[overture]

Well, that was a bad idea. There are a lot of fields out there that pay more than video editing that don't come with 100k+ debt. But obviously, with her MFA, it was law school or bust, right? I don't care how good the job market was, you don't go thousands and thousands of dollars more into debt for private school to work in a fallback career.

She was borrowing all that money to earn Cs, after borrowing all that money for USC only to get a low-paying job in video editing? Frankly, it sounds like her taste in schools was out of her league.

She would have been better off and putting that effort into improving her editing skills and going for better paying jobs.

[pumpkin]

Oct 1, 2014 13:34:29 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

Weird non-lawyer question...is it or was it normal for average (C students) to get good jobs after grad law school? I mean, in my grad school everyone was pretty much A/B average student and the two I can think of that were C students didn't get a research project, so they dropped out.

I think it depends on the school. When I was in law school all my classes were on a strict bell curve and it sucked; that and the fact that the other law school in the state did not use the same curve so it made the job search skewed, etc.

[origami]

Oct 1, 2014 17:09:31 GMT -5 @helenabonhamcarter said:

She had a masters in fine arts and decided the next logical step was to carry her baby and USC debt to a law degree?

okay.

I started squinting at this piece right at the beginning when she decided getting a masters was a great idea for a video editor. Unless she was trying to transfer fields, that was not smart. You don't even need a bachelor's to make money in that industry, in LA. I'm with TTT. SLs are screwed up but this is more a story about why not to make a series of expensive, bad decisions.

ETA: you actually can make decent money doing video editing. You just need to have experience, which she did, be in LA and willing to network everyone you meet. My sister moved there to do video editing with nothing but a portfolio and she now makes more than I may ever make in the communications field in the Midwest.

[Velar Fricative]

It's entirely possible she could have made a good career in editing because if she had not been spending those years in law school, she could have been taking on various jobs and networking. If they didn't pay well at the time, she would have had a better chance at paying jobs later on with that experience in the trenches. The economy wasn't in the shitter, so she had time on her side at that point and would have been better off than anyone wanting to enter the editing field starting in 2008 or so.

Her decision-making still doesn't take away from the fucked up situations that we know do exist because of sheer bad luck.

[jeaniebueller]

IDK, I graduated law school in 2004 and the market wasn't great. I would not have told anyone in 2005 that a legal related job was a sure thing.

[rupertpenny]

Oct 1, 2014 13:58:03 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

I would consider faking my own death in this situation.

I'm exaggerating...sort of.

For real.

Hell, my SL debt is a fraction of hers and I am much more employable (well, as employable as anyone with an MLS can be) and I still "joke" about faking my own death to have my loans discharged.

She definitely made some bad decisions, but I also made some rash decisions regarding grad school due to life circumstances so I can't condemn her too much. All I can do is be thankful that my poor decision making won't have as much of an impact for me as hers did for her.

[cosmos]

St

Oct 2, 2014 5:45:15 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

IDK, I graduated law school in 2004 and the market wasn't great. I would not have told anyone in 2005 that a legal related job was a sure thing.

Maybe it's market dependent, or maybe even law school specific, but my anecdotal experience of my T2 law school class in the nyc area illustrates things were good. Yes, those of us lower in the class bitched about 50-60k starting salaries when big law was 140k or whatever, and we had 100k of debt (sidenote- at low interest rates)...but we were all employed. As lawyers initially.

[cosmos]

And I agree law school made zero sense for someone in her situation. Not disputing that.

[v]

Oct 2, 2014 8:09:31 GMT -5 cosmos said:

St

Oct 2, 2014 5:45:15 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

IDK, I graduated law school in 2004 and the market wasn't great. I would not have told anyone in 2005 that a legal related job was a sure thing.

Maybe it's market dependent, or maybe even law school specific, but my anecdotal experience of my T2 law school class in the nyc area illustrates things were good. Yes, those of us lower in the class bitched about 50-60k starting salaries when big law was 140k or whatever, and we had 100k of debt (sidenote- at low interest rates)...but we were all employed. As lawyers initially.

But is simply "we were all employed... as lawyers initially" really a sign that law school was a good idea financially?  A $50-60k salary isn't going to get you out $350,000 of debt all that fast.

[v]

Oct 2, 2014 0:41:04 GMT -5 pumpkin said:

Oct 1, 2014 13:34:29 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

Weird non-lawyer question...is it or was it normal for average (C students) to get good jobs after grad law school? I mean, in my grad school everyone was pretty much A/B average student and the two I can think of that were C students didn't get a research project, so they dropped out.

I think it depends on the school. When I was in law school all my classes were on a strict bell curve and it sucked; that and the fact that the other law school in the state did not use the same curve so it made the job search skewed, etc.

Totally depends on the law school.  Some schools have very vicious curves and others have incredibly generous curves.  Generally, the better the school the higher the curve (but also the easier it is to get a job even with mediocre grades).

Cs were discretionary my law school's curve and *maybe* 2% would get a C on any given exam.  The only grade lower than a C was an F and I think that meant you didn't show up for an exam or were caught cheating.  So if you had a C average you were very likely the very last student in your entire class, although I can't imagine how someone could even *have* a C average at my school.  But at other schools, a C average might be middle of the road.

[sugarglider]

Most law schools offer significant scholarships, and your LSAT score, which can be increased with a retake, greatly impacts your admissions and scholarship prospects.

Student loans still suck, though. Oh, and my salary actually is roughly the same as my total student loan burden, and the federal loans exit interview calculator still said my burden is too high. (I guess they're saying I should have a job that pays $250k? K, I'll just get right on that.)
My debt is average, my salary is above average. That's a problem.

[tacosforlife]

I'll say it again: bad decisions aside, the fact that there is nothing she can do to get out from under this debt, save becoming severely disabled, is a problem.

People who make terrible consumer spending decisions, enter into ill-advised business deals, buy houses they can't afford, are all offered a way to rebuild their lives.

[ESF]

Oct 2, 2014 9:17:08 GMT -5 tacosforlife said:

I'll say it again: bad decisions aside, the fact that there is nothing she can do to get out from under this debt, save becoming severely disabled, is a problem.

People who make terrible consumer spending decisions, enter into ill-advised business deals, buy houses they can't afford, are all offered a way to rebuild their lives.

It is more fun to point and laugh at dummies than to look at the big picture.

[tacosforlife]

Oct 2, 2014 9:36:09 GMT -5 ESF said:

Oct 2, 2014 9:17:08 GMT -5 tacosforlife said:

I'll say it again: bad decisions aside, the fact that there is nothing she can do to get out from under this debt, save becoming severely disabled, is a problem.

People who make terrible consumer spending decisions, enter into ill-advised business deals, buy houses they can't afford, are all offered a way to rebuild their lives.

It is more fun to point and laugh at dummies than to look at the big picture.

Meanwhile, the people running the banks are getting richer. But hey, some dummy made a bad choice, so let's completely ignore Scrooge McDuck in the corner over there.

[v]

I always thought a good strategy would be to just stay in school forever, running up debt and deferring loans, until you die.

I actually didn't know that even serious disability would get you out of student loans. That sure warms the heart.

[cville]

Oct 2, 2014 9:36:09 GMT -5 ESF said:

Oct 2, 2014 9:17:08 GMT -5 tacosforlife said:

I'll say it again: bad decisions aside, the fact that there is nothing she can do to get out from under this debt, save becoming severely disabled, is a problem.

People who make terrible consumer spending decisions, enter into ill-advised business deals, buy houses they can't afford, are all offered a way to rebuild their lives.

It is more fun to point and laugh at dummies than to look at the big picture.

Oh come on.  Saying that my sympathies are not strong isn't pointing and laughing.  It's saying that, while this situation blows for her personally, this woman--who voluntarily exposed her entire work/educational history to the media in an article about student loan debt--is not the poster child for what's wrong with student loans in the U.S.