If the consequence of this is that people can't get student loans for the current outrageous sums, that is probably a good thing.
What do you mean by that?
This is my fear if SLs become routinely dischargeable in bankruptcy. I don’t think that university’s or lenders will be more responsible. I think SLs will become harder to get without a co-signer. It would make higher education impossible for a lot of people.
I grew up on welfare. There’s no way I would now be a BigLaw attorney if I could not have taken out “outrageous sums” of SLs to get here.
Huh. So did he ever have a job practicing law before the adventure tour company? What happened with his legal career since 2004? Did he leave the profession voluntarily?
Borrowing $116k for undergrad + law school isn't unusual among lawyers (or other professions). Both H and I (each) borrowed more than that to get through law school. It isn't fun, but we're slowly paying it all back, a little more than halfway done now. I wouldn't be able to leave the practice of law if I wanted to, because I can't earn as much doing anything else, and I still need to pay off these loans. If I changed careers anyway (like plenty of people I know who are just DONE with law after a decade+), and made less as a result, would I still be making a "good faith effort" to repay with whatever I could afford on my new, lower income?
I have so many questions.
Does it matter if he got a job as a lawyer? In your opinion, does it matter if you don't try to get a good paying job? What if they did work in a legal job, but for a state or non-profit that pays less. I think this case ended up won because there wasn't a way to pay it back on his income, no matter the career path.
I feel like the judge was looking at it as debt, and wasn't judging how that person lived or their career based on that debt. I think I agree with the judge here - that the career path is irrelevant if you look at it as debt and not as that they didn't do enough to work in that career that resulted from the debt.
I don't think having a job as a lawyer, or making a certain salary is either an automatic or necessary box check in order to show good faith effort to pay back SLs, but I am curious what "good faith effort" means and how it's assessed. Subjectively I feel differently about:
- someone who tries and tries but can't pass the bar, and therefore can't access the kind of attorney income they envisioned when they borrowed the money. - someone who job hunts and job hunts, but either can't find an attorney job, or can't find an attorney job that pays reasonable money (like MH's first associate attorney job paid $35k in 2006-07, which I did not consider "reasonable money" relative to a then-SL balance in the $120ks). - someone who lands a job in public interest/legal aid, doesn't qualify for or doesn't pursue SL forgiveness, and doesn't make enough to live on while repaying SLs, and proceeds anyway, SLs be damned, because this is important work that they believe in. - someone who practices law for a few years, decides it's not a good fit for their personality/work habits/strengths and weaknesses, or just burns out, and makes the choice to go back to school for something else, or open a small business, or otherwise do something that may not use their law degree and may pay much less (or nothing), cutting into their ability to repay SL creditors. - someone who practices law for a few years, then has a family/medical/@ need to SAH but may or may not be disabled themselves. - someone who borrows money for law school, then decides afterward that it was interesting but not their bag, and they're going to go do something completely different now.
Just to be clear those scenarios are in no particular order, but some of those cases feel subjectively like good faith effort to me and others don't. I'm curious how a court would view them.
If the consequence of this is that people can't get student loans for the current outrageous sums, that is probably a good thing.
What do you mean by that?
I mean the schools won't be able to charge the tuition. They will charge however much they can get, and they can get a lot currently because students can get loans. The model will have to change.
Does it matter if he got a job as a lawyer? In your opinion, does it matter if you don't try to get a good paying job? What if they did work in a legal job, but for a state or non-profit that pays less. I think this case ended up won because there wasn't a way to pay it back on his income, no matter the career path.
I feel like the judge was looking at it as debt, and wasn't judging how that person lived or their career based on that debt. I think I agree with the judge here - that the career path is irrelevant if you look at it as debt and not as that they didn't do enough to work in that career that resulted from the debt.
I don't think having a job as a lawyer, or making a certain salary is either an automatic or necessary box check in order to show good faith effort to pay back SLs, but I am curious what "good faith effort" means and how it's assessed. Subjectively I feel differently about:
- someone who tries and tries but can't pass the bar, and therefore can't access the kind of attorney income they envisioned when they borrowed the money. - someone who job hunts and job hunts, but either can't find an attorney job, or can't find an attorney job that pays reasonable money (like MH's first associate attorney job paid $35k in 2006-07, which I did not consider "reasonable money" relative to a then-SL balance in the $120ks). - someone who lands a job in public interest/legal aid, doesn't qualify for or doesn't pursue SL forgiveness, and doesn't make enough to live on while repaying SLs, and proceeds anyway, SLs be damned, because this is important work that they believe in. - someone who practices law for a few years, decides it's not a good fit for their personality/work habits/strengths and weaknesses, or just burns out, and makes the choice to go back to school for something else, or open a small business, or otherwise do something that may not use their law degree and may pay much less (or nothing), cutting into their ability to repay SL creditors. - someone who practices law for a few years, then has a family/medical/@ need to SAH but may or may not be disabled themselves. - someone who borrows money for law school, then decides afterward that it was interesting but not their bag, and they're going to go do something completely different now.
Just to be clear those scenarios are in no particular order, but some of those cases feel subjectively like good faith effort to me and others don't. I'm curious how a court would view them.
I get that you don't want to tell us which ones you think aren't worthy of bankruptcy inclusion of student loan debt. But I think I am different b/c I'm of the mindset that student loan debt should be debt not tied to how the person lived their life or tried/didn't get a career that pays enough and should just be based on the current bankruptcy tests or reviews for all debt types.
I'm wondering if there is a similar litmus test for all debt that could be applied that has nothing to do with how a judge feels about someone's career choice with respect to their loans. Does anyone know bankruptcy laws and such? I mean, good faith effort to have a job or business and still not be able to pay back debts is already part of a bankruptcy decision already, right? So I think the judge can just look at student loan debt as a debt and not tied to any career choices or abilities outside the current bankruptcy laws/decisions, right?
If the consequence of this is that people can't get student loans for the current outrageous sums, that is probably a good thing.
I don't know if this is going to be that far-reaching, honestly. As someone else alluded to in this thread, $116k for undergrad and law school isn't really outrageous. The extenuating circumstances, whatever they were (which we don't really know) are what brought this person to the point where he couldn't realistically repay the loans, not the initial amount borrowed.
I mean the schools won't be able to charge the tuition. They will charge however much they can get, and they can get a lot currently because students can get loans. The model will have to change.
It'll be an ugly correction though.
Ahh ok got it.
I think the exact opposite and agree with brooke77. Schools will continue to charge whatever and the only people that’ll be able to afford school are the ones who are upper middle class and above.
Post by Velar Fricative on Jan 13, 2020 12:49:42 GMT -5
I think another problem is school prestige. I can't speak for other professions, but when I was seriously considering law school it was always "Get into a Top X-ranked school, or get into a good local feeder school if you plan to stay in that area forever, or don't go to law school." I believe CUNY here in NYC (public college system for the city) has a JD program on one of its campuses that is probably very reasonably-priced compared to most other law schools, but could graduates get decent-paying law jobs or do employers turn their noses up at CUNY?
Basically, I hope that with those of us with lots of SLs growing up and realizing college and grad school costs are bullshit, we'll also call out how arbitrary prestige and rankings are and possibly make a difference in future costs too.
I don’t practice bankruptcy law, but I guess I truly don’t understand why if I go out and rack up $200,000 in gambling and credit card debt on vacations that THAT is more worthy of discharge than student loans?