Forbes: “Higher education’s price-earnings ratio looks like Nevada housing circa 2007. . . . Many people now understand that this system of tax-and-lend has created a multigenerational housing bubble. But only a few have noticed that a very similar tax-and-lend system has also created a multi-generational higher education bubble. . . . But the financial data are making a college education tougher and tougher to defend.”
The Economist: “Graduates’ chances in the job market have worsened since the ‘great purge’ of 2009, when firms laid off young lawyers and withdrew job offers. The National Law Journal says that the 250 biggest firms cut their numbers of attorneys by 4% in 2009 and were projected to cut by another 1.1% in 2010, making for the worst two-year period in the 33 years of the journal’s surveys.”
Miami New Times: “students facing six-figure debts and zero job prospects are howling that JDs aren’t much more than university approved shams. . . . The new program, called the Legal Corps, will place graduating students without job offers at public agencies, public interest organizations and judicial chambers for six months. The firms and courts will pay nada, while UM will pick up a $2,500 monthly stipend.”
New York Times: “Kaplan and other for-profit education companies have come under intense scrutiny from Congress, amid growing concerns that the industry leaves too many students mired in debt, and with credentials that provide little help in finding jobs. Reports of students who leave such schools with heavy debt, only to work in low-paying jobs, have prompted the Department of Education to propose regulations that would cut off federal financing to programs whose graduates have high debt-to-income ratios and low repayment rates.”
National Law Journal: “People smoke. People speed. They don’t exercise or get enough sleep. They go to law school. By now, everyone is aware of the consequences of these actions. In fact, they have known them for some time. The question is: who is responsible? “