The Law Says That Before Awarding Federal Student Aid, We May: Fill & Download for Free

To forgive this kind of debt, then act as if you’ve done something great, kind, and just, is like ripping off the band-aid on a still hemorrhaging wound and declare your patient healed.The problems with higher education are many-fold and killing the one thing that is actually forcing the necessary changes is probably a bad idea.First, college is becoming the only ticket to the American dream. As recently highlighted in a speech by Senator Hawley, families with a four year degree now control three quarters of American wealth. This is a 50% increase from just 1989.[1] This is unjust. It clearly says that for the small business owner, the type of individual who just sees a problem and solves it in his community for some profit, a class of individuals who have traditionally been the backbone of the American economy, those doors are now closed to prosperity. Now, for you to prosper you must:1) Go to college2) Get the right degree3) Get a good job with a big companyThis path is safe, but unsustainable. It is also antithetical to American history, where the greatest gains were made by people who broke out to solve problems with nothing but the clothes on their backs and an idea, be that a new way to drill for oil or that this town really needs a grocery story.But then, the college loan happened. You see, at the point in your life when you are most likely to take risks, America’s Millennial generation are saddled with tens of thousands, even a hundred thousand dollars or more in student loan debt. They must get a good job to pay off those loans. However, thanks to other forces working against them, the degrees themselves are respected less than ever before by managers who rightly understand they don’t have the skills that business needs.This is a disaster. Traditionally, we’ve always relied upon the creativity of strong entrepreneurs, not mega billionaires mind you, but the kind of millionaires you see at church on Sunday none the wiser of their success, to help solve the problems in our community. Whether they run the local meat packing plant, are the thrifty plumber, or the woman who turned her side hustle of selling art that transformed into a t-shirt printing business that now hires six local employees, these people traditionally kept America alive through the adaptability and seeking small prosperity where needs could be found. Not to fault any of the large companies, but we weren’t built to service oligarchs like the controllers of Coke, Disney, and Amazon. The modern education system we currently have only caters to these companies and other major blue chips like them, but robs America of the true genius of the people who get a college degree.Next, who is actually affected by these college loans? It isn’t who you think.For perspective, in 2008, the crisis for students holding massive debt on their degrees crashed headlong into a collapsed jobs market, suddenly made people realize how worthless their degrees were. While student debt and the increase in tuition had been steadily increasing for decades, it was only then that people started to treat the situation as a crisis. Economists would be quick to point out that much of this would be explained by simple inflation, what happens when tons of free money is pumped into systems where customers have little incentive to check the price before buying. College loans are part of that metric, but so are the grants offered to poorer students as a ticket to their great fortune.Most people imagine a college graduate and think of some poor person who has had to overcome a life of poverty just to be straddled with debt slavery. Yes, the debt crisis is real, but the victims aren’t quite who you think. Thanks to many needs based grant programs, which reward huge amounts of money on the basis of parental income and with no consideration of merit or how prepared the student is for college, ungodly amounts of money have flowed into the American education system from American tax payers. Grants like the Pell Grant are so lucrative that colleges do whatever it takes to get a person who is financially qualified to get the grant, regardless of whether they are equipped for college or not. The grant is paid into their tuition, helping many to not need to take out expensive loans. It helps ensure that they can go to college, sure, but at what cost?In 2008, the point where the student debt crisis became a real subject of concern for many Americans, the amount available for Federal student grants was allocated at $13,989,305,000. By 2011 it had ballooned to $35,772,935,000, leveling off to today where the expenditures are around $28 billion.[2]Note that while millions railed against exploitative rising tuition rates ever since, they have still continued to go up as the money given via federal government programs increased. For perspective on the significance of these grants to the higher education industry, a back of the napkin estimation of total tuition for all colleges to be around $393.5 billion in 2013[3], meaning that this one grant alone made up somewhere in the neighborhood of 8% of all student tuition. Calculating, however, for just public university tuition of $205.4 billion, the amount paid by Federal grant money comes closer to 15% of student tuition paid to those universities.Note, that’s every year that the US Federal government pays to college students from lower-income families.Because of the way the grants are paid out, however, the grants are actually hurting not only the people who receive the grant, but everyone else, as well. I want to be clear, when the Higher Education Amendments of 1972 were passed, Pell Grants seemed like a great idea to allow students who traditionally didn’t have access to college to get it. Since then, however, seeing the lucrative opportunities for wealth generation at taxpayer expense, schools have been steadily redesigning themselves to take advantage of grants such as these. How? For many, it meant lowering the threshold of entry to millions of students not ready for college, or where the academic rigor required was more than their talents would allow. Everyone should be legally allowed to go college, but not everyone should be admitted because not everyone can pass. But then the next phase in this evolution takes place. The bar is lowered for these students in several ways. First, the actual coursework and load is made easier, such as padding degrees with useless courses that the students don’t want and which don’t help them in their careers, but which are hard to fail. Often these courses are saturated in ideological bias, reflecting the culture of the professors. Second, the actual coursework is made easier so that fewer students drop out. When the schools adapted to being an institution whose job was to cash checks from the federal government, rather than relying on the tuition of scholarships and the donations of highly performing graduates, then they lost the value of the degree.There is a reason that the special forces like the SEALs and Delta have the reputation of never losing. Pictured below is part of Navy SEAL swim training, also called “drown-proofing”. Candidates must swim while bound in loose restraints they could easily break free from, even by accident. If they break the restraints during their swim, they fail the event. Only a small percentage of humanity could even attempt this training, so it serves as one of the many filters to gain entry into the SEALs.Simply put, not everyone can be a SEAL. Exclusivity based on excellence ensures the value of understood worth to the individual for being a member of a particular culture. College used to be this same sort of filter — an institution where, if someone had graduated from a four year degree program, it was understood that they were some of the most intellectually capable people in the nation. Colleges and Universities no longer have the reputation of reliably creating scholarly graduates. Instead, college is treated more as a place to make connections than as a challenging rite of passage for America’s educated class.Note, this isn’t all colleges. In the US, we have the strange reputation of having a whole generation holding near worthless degrees, while also having the best colleges in the world. That’s because we have a multitude of colleges, but what I tell young people is that really there are only about a hundred that matter. At any given time, if you go to one of these schools, the degree you earn will be respected anywhere you go. Rather than looking for a job, top firms will have recruiters at the colleges looking for you. They don’t go to just any college, but only the best. For kids with particular careers in mind, I give slightly different advice. I say that then there are only about ten. They need to know those 10 colleges and do whatever it takes to get into all of them. For example, my home-state of Oklahoma has the Oklahoma State University, which has some of the world’s best Agriculture and Petrochemical programs in the world. I tell kids that if they want to work in ag or the oil industry, those schools will have it made. But OSU isn’t one of the greatest Universities in general. They are a long way from competing with a Harvard or Yale. That being the case, a person who wants to be in those industries may actually be better off at OSU than those premiere colleges.This matters because thanks to many of the income seeking behaviors of colleges, most colleges not either the Top 100 or the Top 10 for a particular filed are simply getting worse. While this hurts those seeking grants, those hurt most of all aren’t the people who receive the Pell Grant, but those just wealthy enough not to have it as a right, such as most Middle Class children. They have the hardship of getting a degree, but being forced to pay the whole way for it. When they graduate, however, they discover that, because they went to one of thousands of nameless colleges, the degree they earned isn’t respected by hiring managers.The idea that go to college is a path to security has been shattered through government subsidization of needs based income grants offered by the tens of billions.Next we need to talk about where the money is going.The New York Times made it very clear by detailing how some schools were buying off their students in a never ending fit to fill seats, prioritizing luxuries for students over student education.When Louisiana State University surveyed students in 2009 to find out what they most wanted in their new recreation complex, one feature beat out even massage therapy: a lazy river. [4]And while Louisiana boasts its lazy river, students pictured below watched “Jaws” at a “dive-in movie” at Missouri State’s aquatic center.Party pools and other such extravagant luxuries are becoming the norm across colleges in the United States, primarily among the lesser renown universities. Rather than trying to bring in students on the promise of high earnings after college, the experience of college is what is sold, even though no one in history has had this experience when they went to institutions of higher learning. No, but that isn’t stopping universities like UCF from building a “Recovery Cove” because a lazy river is what is necessary to deal with “anxiety of student life”.While railing against an ever increasing bureaucracy is normally an austerity driven conservative talking point, left leaning news has noted the explosive growth of the “student life” facilitation. For example, the UK’s Guardian reported a 33% increase in the number of managers in higher education from 2005 to 2010[5], Huffington Post noted a “problematic boom” in higher ed administrators [6], and Bloomberg reported that, “For every $1 spent on instruction, $1.82 is spent on non-instructional things such as 'academic support, student services, institutional support, public service' and a catch-all category called 'other,'” according to the National Center for Education Statistics.[7]The number of non-academic administrative and professional employees at U.S. colleges and universities has more than doubled in the last 25 years, vastly outpacing the growth in the number of students or faculty, according to an analysis of federal figures.In all, from 1987 until 2011-12—the most recent academic year for which comparable figures are available—universities and colleges collectively added 517,636 administrators and professional employees…— Huffington PostI just have to comment on this for a second and be straight with readers. I paid for college with the GI Bill. I had to literally be shot at to pay for college. After four years in the Marines and two trips to Iraq, where I was leading teams of Marines by the age of 22, starting college was perhaps the easiest exercise I was ever forced to endure. That was hard. That there exists a movement to give students such overwhelming “therapy” options like a lazy river due to the “stress” of college both disgusts me and makes me lose respect for an entire generation.Yet, this movement continues, where students are treated like fragile snowflakes always on the cusp of annihilation, and one more program, facility, or luxury is what they need to survive this cruel, cruel world… that only seems to exist on the campus itself. This is part of how simply filling seats at colleges is bloating the college bureaucracy. To accommodate the “needs” of more students and give them the “best experience” possible, not only are millions being spent on expensive recreational centers like those above, but also in providing services never before offered as a means to entice students who don’t know better. To keep this growing infrastructure in place, colleges have also grown the number of managers and administration over the school, with far less going to actually improving academic facilities than “student life”.This focus on “student life” has caused other problems with education, first by providing so much that students are coddled and feel entitled to be taken care of at any expense, never understanding that college isn’t actually a place to have an amazing time, but to learn and be challenged as preparation for life. It’s like a four year trip to Disney World with sex, booze, and no rules, while also with free private counselling for an ever growing list of disorders and sources of victimization — which never includes the consequences of all sex and booze.This phenomenon reached a peak where students offended by the nature of their classwork could and often did rise up against their professors for saying things that “triggered” the students. “Triggered” by the way, is a term that has been popularized since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It relates to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, where someone who experiences an actual event that placed them in severe trauma (such as nearly being killed in a car accident or surviving a roadside bomb) will experience symptoms of a panic attack around otherwise mundane occurrences which were related to their experience. An example would be a dog barking before a bomb going off, then the brain writes in that dogs barking are related to bombs, so hearing a dog “triggers” someone with PTSD. It’s actually the brain of a trauma patient working too well, being hyper sensitive to perceived threat to try to keep them safe. That actual information about the disease was so miss-communicated in the early days after the wars began, where anything surrounding PTSD and veterans simply looks like men in uniform being sad.Real PTSD is nothing at all like that. It’s just a simple picture to illicit sympathy without understanding. So-called “Social Justice Warriors” on college campuses, however, have stolen the language of the disease to support that their feelings of victimization upon dealing with uncomfortable subjects or people whom they disagree. For them, being “triggered” simply means being forced to deal with ideas and feelings that are unpleasant, conflict with their preconceived notions of the world, or make them feel conflicted or even convicted by their failure to measure up to their own supposed moral standards. That’s exactly what college is meant to do, to give people a better understanding of the world and give them the right mindset to deal with that in a way that benefits everyone. Now, however, we have a spoiled and tyrannical student body, bolstered by an army of ideologically minded administrators that can both be used to attack not just the curriculum, but visiting speakers, and even each other.What I mean by the last part is a phenomenon that is entirely owed to the growing power of the campus administration. As the administrations grew, so did their biases. This I outlined in much greater detail in another answer, but let it serve to say that the overwhelming bias in many of these institutions is enough to dangerously use their power to irreparably hurt their own student’s lives. Such is the power to enact sweeping punishments on students based on pure accusation with no basis in reality, but deeply rooted in political or ideological agendas. Few better examples exist than the “college rape epidemic” which resulted in many students being wrongly “convicted” in kangaroo courts of college tribunals.Perhaps this was because enough people read The Atlantic, which chose last week to run a three-part series by Emily Yoffe on the sexual-assault policies in question. The series demonstrated exhaustively what anyone paying close attention already knew: The legal and administrative response to campus rape over the past five years has been a kind of judicial and bureaucratic madness, a cautionary tale about how swiftly moral outrage and political pressure can lead to kangaroo courts and star chambers, in which bias and bad science create an unshakable presumption of guilt for the accused. [8]Most famous of these was the case of the Duke Lacrosse team scandal beginning in 2006. It was one of the earliest cases where an accusation without proof (and later proved false) smeared the reputation of students with the wrong identity by campus mobs. In spite of the boys’ vindication, the Duke case seemed to inspire copy cat accusations across a campus culture obsessed with “rape-culture”.This ruined the lives of many innocent young men and happened at the behest of mobs of virtue signaling students led by their ideologically minded professors. It was made possible, however, through a bloated campus administration system with the power to kick students based on the “optics” of the case, as deemed by the university’s legal, HR, and marketing teams.So yeah, that’s kind of a problem.Next, we need to talk about the loans themselves. Did you know that college loan debt is one of the only kinds of personal debt that can’t be removed via bankruptcy?That’s insane. I understand why, but it’s still insane.College kids are generally in an age of life where they are not particularly adept at making extremely responsible life decisions. Taking out these kinds of loans is, by nature, a very risky endeavor for a lending institution, traditionally speaking. Frankly, I think that few of us suffer from the delusion that there weren’t many young graduates who abused bankruptcy to get a free education, filing bankruptcy after an expensive education process. One might look to doctors, who would be greatly benefited from such a shystie move. If I was making doctor pay, I would be happy to live in a nice apartment for seven years after graduation, as I save up for an amazing home, free from the burdens of debt the rest of my fellow graduates must endure. Why start life off $200,000 grand in the hole with interest? There is a very good reason that the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act extended to education loans — people exist who abuse the system.Lending also isn’t a right you are owed. With government based loans, such as those provided either directly through the Department of Education, or indirectly through companies like Sallie Mae, the idolized notion is that paying back your loan frees up money for the next person. Forgiving that doesn’t just mean the money goes away. It creates a liability for the taxpayers who did pay for the education in the first place, and who may have zero interest in creating another young holder of a Gender Studies degree with no functional utility to the nation. At the very least, ensuring that the student is forced to pay, ensures that the taxpayer isn’t left footing the bill for degrees that frankly, aren’t an investment into our collective future. However, a more honest look is to look at these loans as business. For private lending, giving money must come with interest to pay for the lending institution’s own overhead, as well as grow to service others. People who default on their loans spell disaster for lending institutions, making it so that no one has access to them when the bank itself goes under. This is particularly true, when they default en masse. This is what happened in 2008 beginning with real estate, but these institutions are free to grant these loans to anyone when they know that the person is on the ropes to pay it off.Look, I’ve tried to be fair to both sides. It seems pretty clear that a few people abused the system and ruined it for everyone, but it also seems clear this idea to prevent bankruptcy is simply erecting a dam which is getting ready to burst.Bankruptcy must be an option to escape this debt, at least, for future students. For lending institutions who made deals with the understanding that bankruptcy wasn’t an option, then they should be protected. If you agreed to it, then that debt is yours, but in the future, people who take out student loans should maintain the right to bankruptcy.What does that do for lending institutions?It forces them to treat students who petition for such loans to compete for them again, and more importantly, it forces the banks to really look at who they are saddling with this kind of debt.“Oh, you’re the valedictorian of a class of 350 kids, was active in STEM advanced courses, competed and won in local robot races, and want to study Robotics and Engineering at a reputable university? You bet we’ll loan you the money, Miss Surething.”vs.“Oh, you graduated 400th in a class of 350? Well golly, that’s impressive in its own way. And you’re interested in studying Performing Arts degree because learning to dance has always been one of your life goals. Neat. And a minor in Communist Theory? Well, good for you, Comrade, but have you heard of GoFundMe?”When you place the risk on banks and other lenders, you ensure that only those loans which have a high likelihood of being repaid are awarded. This opens many doors, but just as important, closes the door to many paths of suffering. Will this reduce the amount of funds currently being given out to pay for expensive degrees? Yes, it absolutely will, but like any good economist will tell you, that will also reverse the trend in increasing student tuition everywhere. At the same time, colleges will again have the reputation of only churning quality students pulling quality degrees and really question the need of a lazy river for therapy purposes. We’re seeing the paths of suffering taking place right now, where people who took on expensive loans to pay for degrees that are worthless from colleges no one respects are overcome by debt they can’t pay. Most of those kids should have never received their loans in the first place.But what do we need to solve this problem? It isn’t to forgive the debt. That’s the opposite of what we need.The explosive rise in student tuition is explained very simply by the runaway effects of cheap money at the onset being funneled into schools where people stopped questioning how much it was going to cost. Whether it was owed to Pell Grants or to student loans, inflation in education has created a system where the costs of admittance are higher than the reward for many, if not most degrees. But at least they can contemplate this unpleasant reality as they float down the lazy river at the rec center.Forgiving this debt, and the many bad decisions that went into it, will only ensure that the same bad decisions continue. Not just that, but seeing others get bailed out is the first step on believing that you have a right to something, and when you believe that a luxury college student life experience is your right and that the consequences will certainly be forgiven, you really don’t make wise decisions. Forgiving the debt will only contribute to the growth of tuition more as people take on wilder loans and campuses respond by increasing tuition to match.Lastly, forgiving this debt is repulsively unjust.If literally everyone who went to college had this same shared experience with these loans, then it would make sense that something would need to be done about it. But everyone doesn’t have this experience. For example, me. I paid for college with the Montgomery Post 9/11 GI Bill. It paid my whole way through. To earn that degree, I had to first give four years of my life in service to the country, with the understanding that I may get shot at (which I was) and may even die having never felt a shred of that benefit. When people talk about forgiving their debts, I ask why? Why is it justice for millions such as myself to earn their education, and to take that seriously, when others get to expect it be given to them as a right after they picked degrees they would never be able to use?Where’s the justice in that?Others, such as my wife, worked their way through college. We worked together to pay her debt so that we wouldn’t be saddled with expensive loans as our marriage kicked off. What about the millions of people who both work and go to school, just so that they don’t sell off their future for decades? Where is the justice for them when kids floating down the lazy river get a bail out?Or how about that family that, whether they like it or not, are going to be paying the taxes one way or another for this “forgiveness”? Now they, no matter their income level, are going to be splitting the bill to cover some $1.3 trillion in bad student loan debt? That money could have gone to providing infrastructure, better schooling, or could have simply not been taken away from them. That way, they could do what they wanted to, or needed to, with it. Instead, the taxpayer must give from their family to pay for the lifestyle of people who aren’t their kids. It’s only a little bit when you split it across all Americans. Yes, but it’s something that the people who ultimately paid for it don’t get anything back from. There is a word for people who are forced to give money and receive nothing in return for it — robbery. Forgiving this debt, at least as it has been done in the past, is robbing from American tax payers.No, the cold hard honest truth is that there needs to be pain. This is what is needed, what wise cultures do… they allow themselves to feel pain that they deserve — the kind of pain that echoes.The students who took on bad debt to pay for bad degrees need to feel pain. throughout generations. I don’t want them to suffer more than anyone else out of spite, but they need to be a lesson to their younger siblings and to their children of the extreme importance of picking the right college, the right degree, and in only the most extreme of situations… the right student loan, or maybe even question going to college at all and exploring other options.The colleges also need to feel pain. The policies that caused this inflationary wave of energy need to be cut off. Those colleges that built their campuses around providing luxuries unnecessary for student learning and achievement need to suffer for exploiting their students. Future students need to see the presence of a lazy river as a sure sign that this college is only out to milk them for decades of labor and avoid that institution like the plague. Colleges need to stop with the nonsense bloating of their administration and the unnecessary and expensive luxuries being doled out to ensnare kids into joining — particularly the poorest among them paying for college via tax payer funded grants.There also needs to be pain on the lending institutions who, for years, have been handing out loans irresponsibly to people who couldn’t afford them because their degrees didn’t match the current needs of the nation… or anyone. Sometimes this is the government, sometimes the colleges themselves, and sometimes private lending institutions. Perhaps all three need to hurt. Because lenders were backed by laws built with reasonable intentions in mind, it was presumed that the lenders didn’t need to do the necessary thing for their customers of not providing a loan they know can’t be paid off. Instead, they didn’t even ask this question, just fulfilling the wishes of anyone who filled out the necessary paperwork. Now tens of thousands of kids are suffering because people who had all the tools to predict this outcome had no incentive to simply say, “no.”Pain. That’s what’s needed for the future. To reform the practices that led to colleges getting out of control, there needs to be real pain that people feel in such a way that changes to the systemic processes are demanded. A quick fix won’t do it. It will just transfer the pain to people who are the last to deserve it, while signalling to everyone else that they are now free to engage in even more financially devastating behavior because literally no one is being held accountable.But pain, and fear of pain, will lead to better decisions. Fear of pain will be what forces future students to make better choices. Fear of pain will be what forces lenders to lend to more reliable students. Fear of pain is what will force colleges to lower tuition rates.Pain — pain and fear. That’s what we as a nation need to suffer because of the failure we’ve dug ourselves into it, and dealing with that pain and suffering like adults is our one and only opportunity to learn from the experience and not pass on more suffering to future generations.Relaxed. Researched. Respectful. - War ElephantFootnotes[1] Senator Josh Hawley’s Speech at the 6th Annual American Principles Project Gala[2] Funding Status -- Federal Pell Grant Program[3] Richardson Kilis's answer to What is the total amount spent per year on university tuition in the United States?[4] Making a Splash on Campus [5] The irresistible rise of academic bureaucracy[6] 'It's A Lie. It's A Lie. It's A Lie'[7] As Tuition Increases, So Do College Bureaucracies[8] Opinion | Liberalism and the Campus Rape Tribunals

Oh, good God, how long do you have?Do you want just Supreme Court blockbusters that are well-known, or do you want subtle cases in arbitration and administrative law that are virtually unknown outside of specific legal areas but that have a massive influence on how state and federal government is run? Are circuit court opinions all right? State court? I mean, we could really be here a while depending on how broadly you want to go.Here’s just some highlights from law school. I could go on like this for days. Months. I am not being facetious here. I promise I’m not going to just dump my law school outlines. That could get really long. Just my Constitutional Law outline was 40 pages.Constitutional Law - PowersJudicial ReviewMarbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803). Establishes the concept of judicial review as part of the United States judicial powers.Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, 14 U.S. 304 (1816). Extends judicial review to being able to overrule state decisions if they conflict with the Federal Constitution.Enumerated PowersNecessary and Proper ClauseMcCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819). Defines the scope of the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution to essentially turbocharge all enumerated Federal powers. “Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional.”The Commerce ClauseGibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824). The Federal government has the plenary power under the Commerce Clause to regulate “channels of commerce,” including waterways, roads, and railroads.Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905), decides that the freedom to contract is a fundamental right that the Federal government may not infringe upon by petty regulations like prohibiting bakeries from forcing bakers to work more than 60 hours a week or 10 hours a day.Hammer v. Dagenhart, (I’m getting lazy and I’m going to stop putting in the Bluebook cites,) (1918) key case of the “Lochner Era,” where the Court viewed itself as a sort of super-legislature and overrode Congress frequently where they didn’t think Congress made good policy. The Court decided that manufacturing is not “commerce” and struck down child labor laws.Carter v. Carter Coal (1936), decides manufacturing and labor rights are local issues, strikes down labor laws as an invalid exercise of the tax and spend clause.West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937), generally accepted as the end of the Lochner Era. Upheld a minimum wage requirement in Washington.Wickard v. Filburn (1942), upholds New Deal price controls on wheat, establishes the concept that economic activity can be viewed in the aggregate to see if there is a “substantial impact” on interstate commerce, which gives Congress the power to regulate activity under the Commerce Clause. The Court will not strike down another Congressional act based on the Commerce Clause for more than fifty years.Heart of Atlanta v. United States (1964), held that the movement of people is always considered commerce; upholds nondiscrimination laws barring segregation.Katzenbach v. McClung (1964), holds that refusing to serve black people at a restaurant has a substantial effect on interstate commerce because it’s connected to interstate commerce through interstate interactions - suppliers bring in things from out of state. Viewed in the aggregate, this has a substantial effect on interstate commerce and so Congress can regulate it.Lopez v. United States (1994), strikes down federal gun-free school zones because Congress did not sufficiently research or articulate how guns in schools are related to commerce. First time the Court strikes down a law passed pursuant to the Commerce Clause since before Filburn.United States v. Morrison (2000), after Lopez, Congress does a LOT of fact-finding when making laws pursuant to the commerce clause. Makes a ton of factual findings when passing the Violence Against Women Act about how violence against women impacts commerce in the aggregate; women who aren’t safe don’t buy things, have jobs, and so forth. The Court looks at it and goes, “ehhhhhhhh… ok, new rule - if it’s not inherently economic activity, then you can’t aggregate it.” They decide that individual violence against women isn’t economic activity, so it can’t be aggregated, and therefore, can’t be regulated under the Commerce Clause.Gonzales v. Raich (2005), decides that things that could end up in the marketplace (any commodity and the manufacture or growing of such commodity) is economic activity, can be regulated, and upholds the use of the Controlled Substances Act to slap a California grandmother growing small amounts of marijuana in her basement for personal use with a Federal crime.Sibelius v. NFIB (2012) Part I: The Attack of the Roberts Court, holds that non-participation in the market is not commerce and can’t be regulated; people cannot be forced into the marketplace.The Tax and Spend ClauseSouth Dakota v. Dole (1987) held that it’s perfectly fine to spend federal funds to dictate policy to the States, so long as it’s an unambiguous national interest (here, preventing drunk driving accidents on the federal interstate highway system,) and it’s not coercive (can’t compel the state to adopt the policy). Withholding federal highway funds from any state that didn’t raise the drinking age to 21 was not coercive enough.Sibelius v. NFIB, Part II: The Revenge of the Tax and Spend Clause; Roberts decides that the mandatory ACA Medicare expansion was coercive because it would have taken away all Medicare funding from any non-complying state, but also holds that the individual mandate was OK under the tax and spend clause, because the penalty for not having health insurance was a tax, collected by the IRS, and spent on paying off the assholes who show up at the ER without insurance and no money that the rest of us pay for through our premiums.Treaty PowersMissouri v. Holland (1920). Height of the Lochner Era, mass extinction-level hunting of migratory birds going on. The Court keeps striking down all sorts of Federal regulations on migratory birds under the Commerce Clause; birds and hunting are not commerce according to the Court. But, Woodrow Wilson got Canada to sign on to a treaty regarding migratory birds in 1916. The Court finds that valid, and regulations passed pursuant to that treaty are valid under the Necessary and Proper Clause.Executive AuthorityYoungstown Sheet and Tube (1952); Truman’s attempt to seize steel mills and nationalize the steel industry failed because Congress told him no, you can’t do that. Special concurrence by Justice Jackson establishes various “zones” of presidential powers.Constitutional Law - LibertiesFundamental Rights - Substantive Due ProcessBarron v. Baltimore (1833), decides that the Federal Constitution and particularly the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to the states unless it explicitly says so. States and municipalities can seize property without compensation to their hearts’ delights.Lochner v. New York (1905) - decides that there is a fundamental right to contract, and that the more important a right is that is infringed upon, the more the Court should insist upon a close fit between the means of governmental intrusion and the ends.Palko v. Connecticut (1937) establishes that to find a fundamental right, it must be “deeply rooted in the traditional conscience,” and “essential to our notions of ordered liberty.” Fundamental if no potential system of justice would be complete without it.United States v. Carolene Products (1938), “magic footnote four” establishes the idea that infringement upon certain rights should be granted a higher level of scrutiny, significantly clarifies the notion laid out in Lochner.Duncan v. Louisiana (1968) refines Palko, must be necessary specifically to American scheme of justice. Starts the road of “incorporation,” which applies the Constitution to the States through the 14th Amendment. Starts with “strong selective” incorporation, generally assuming that the Bill of Rights applies, but still only on a case-by-case basis.Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), fundamental right to parent your children as you see fit, no legitimate end in prohibiting teaching of German language.Buck v. Bell (1927), Oliver Wendell Holmes decides that forced sterilization of mentally ill patients is just fine because, and I quote, “three generations of imbeciles is enough.” This has never been overruled.Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel Williamson (1942), strikes down forced sterilization of prison inmates and establishes the concept of bodily autonomy and integrity for the first time in U.S. jurisprudence. Recognizes that there may be fundamental rights to marriage and procreation.Rochin v. California (1952), strikes down conviction for drugs after police forcibly pumped the man’s stomach to retrieve them; upholds idea of bodily integrity.Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), finds a fundamental right to personal medical privacy under the “penumbra” of the Bill of Rights; strikes down Connecticut statute prohibiting contraception or aiding someone in obtaining it. Establishes the idea that government does not belong in the bedroom, sets the stage for a huge abortion fight that will last at least the next 55 years.Loving v. Virginia (1967); holds that marriage is a fundamental right and strikes down anti-miscegenation laws nationwide.Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), finds that the right to choose whether to procreate or not is fundamental, covering married people using contraception only in this case. Applies strict scrutiny; while preventing adultery is a legitimate governmental interest, it is not served here. If the right to sexual privacy is to mean anything, the Court reasons, it must be an individual one.Roe v. Wade (1973). Probably the biggest landmark decision affecting U.S. politics as a matter of fundamental rights ever. The Court applied the lines of cases stretching back to the beginning of fundamental rights, bodily integrity, sexual and medical privacy, and found that the right to an abortion falls under these rights. The Court holds that a fetus is not a person by definition of the Constitution.Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) found that there was no specific right to engage in sodomy in the Constitution.Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) ditches the rigid trimester framework that Roe came up with in favor of the “undue burden standard” and drawing the line when government can fully regulate or ban abortion at viability (then generally accepted at 24 weeks.)Also established a framework for when to overrule precedence, requiring balancing four factors: 1) how unworkable the previous standard has become, 2) the amount of reliance on the previous decision there has been, 3) whether the previous decision has been undermined or evolved, and 4) factual developments since the previous decision. This has a great deal of impact on our politics by providing lawmakers the criteria needed to undermine prior decisions and develop a factual basis to overrule prior cases.Lawrence v. Texas (2003), while there is no specific right to homosexual sodomy in the Constitution, consensual sex in the privacy of one’s own home is a fundamental right and discrimination against homosexuals is not a legitimate state interest.Obergefell v. Hodges (2015); extended fundamental right to marry found in Loving to same-sex marriages.Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstadt (2016); struck down admitting privileges and other various TRAP laws as violating the undue burden standard laid out in Casey; reaffirmed Casey and Roe’s essential holdings.Equal ProtectionFrontiero v. Richardson (1973). Laid out the criteria for finding suspect classifications under the Equal Protection Clause. Suspect classifications get strict scrutiny. These are politically protected classes of people.Korematsu v. United States (1944). One of the most infamous decisions of the 20th century; established national security as a compelling state interest, allows facially racial discrimination. (Overruled since.)Brown v. Board of Education (1954), struck down racially segregated schools as a matter of equal protection. Overruled Plessy v Ferguson (1896) that upheld Jim Crow laws as “separate but equal”.Fisher v. University of Texas (2013, 2016), upheld affirmative action programs on a narrow basis, so long as race is only one factor among others and there is no other race-neutral alternative to achieve diversity.Also, states themselves can prohibit affirmative action programs after Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action (2014). This is affecting US politics on a state level as legislatures are pushing to ban affirmative action programs.Voting RightsBaker v. Carr (1962). Allowed the Court to intervene in redistricting at all; it had generally been viewed as a political question outside of judicial review prior to this.This case literally broke two justices. Justice Frankfurter had a stroke because of it and was forced to retire, and led to a psychological breakdown of Justice Whittaker, who never recovered and retired from the Court without a decision on Carr.Reynolds v. Sims (1964), established the “one person, one vote” principle.Kramer v. Union Free School District (1969), the right to vote is a fundamental right and requires strict scrutiny review. This is still impacting politics today as various politicians try to find ways around it, notably felon disenfranchisement.Nixon and his cabinet were furious about this decision and it was a piece of the reason for the War on Drugs; if they couldn’t simply undo the voting rights act and couldn’t restore Jim Crow, they’d basically have to find a way to criminalize being black. The War on Drugs specifically targeted drugs favored by the black community with greater enforcement. This is still a problem today.Bush v. Gore (2000), held that the right to a uniform process outweighed the individual’s right to have their vote counted because the electoral college operated on a deadline. This decision gave the election to George W. Bush.Evenwel v. Abbot (2015), after a naked attempt by Texas to reduce the influence of districts with a high population of non-citizen immigrants, the Court decided that districts should be drawn based on total population, not just eligible voters. The Court noted that this was explicitly debated and considered in the drafting of the Constitution and the people who wrote it explicitly went with total population.This is currently impacting the 2020 Census as the Trump Administration has been actively trying to get a citizenship question on the census for the first time in 70+ years for the purpose of trying to get undocumented immigrants not to answer the census, thus undercounting the number of people in those areas and decreasing representation for those districts.Free SpeechNew York Times v. United States (1971), ruling that even where the government has a compelling interest to restrict speech as a prior restraint (prevent someone from speaking,) it can’t be a pretense and the Court will really look at whether that compelling interest is real or not.Buckley v. Valeo (1976), held that money is the same as speech and struck down spending limits by campaigns. Upheld individual contribution limits.Central Hudson Gas and Electric v. Public Service Commission (1980). Held that commercial speech (advertising) is able to be regulated by law with a lesser degree of scrutiny.Texas v. Johnson (1989), burning the U.S. flag is protected by the First Amendment, and conservatives have been fucking pissed about this ruling ever since, including proposing actual constitutional amendments to overrule the Court.Citizens United v. FEC (2009). Struck down corporate contribution limits to campaigns, allows disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but severely weakened the FEC’s ability to regulate electioneering. Allows corporations to donate unlimited amounts of money to campaigns.McCutcheon v. FEC (2014), struck down aggregate limits on contributions as impermissible abridgement of First Amendment rights. People can now donate up to the individual limits to every candidate they want, and if you’re the Koch Brothers, you can now use corporations to get around individual limits.This also severely restricted the definition of quid-pro-quo corruption to require basically an explicit bribe-for-performance.Free PressBranzburg v. Hayes (1972), can try to protect your sources all you want, but if a grand jury calls you up, reporters get no special exemption. If they ask you and you refuse, that’s contempt.Florida Star v. B.J.F. (1989); you can publish information gathered illegally by others so long as you didn’t gather it illegally yourself. And you can publish public records all you’d like.So, if someone wants to send a copy of the Mueller Report on over to the Times…Freedom of Religion and Establishment ClauseReynolds v. United States (1878), the government has no right to compel you to believe anything or punish your religious beliefs. Congress cannot do anything about your “mere opinion.”Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000), a prayer before sporting events, even if the students are the ones who brought it up and led it, is an impermissible government endorsement of religion.Again, conservatives have been losing their shit about this every since, and it’s become something of a hidden litmus test for Supreme Court nominees for conservatives ever since, even though the case was decided with a conservative-dominated Court.Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), held that closely held corporations (such as a family-owned business,) have religious free exercise rights.This has been a political hot button lately with the ACA.ArbitrationYou have no idea how much these cases affect everything you do, including your politics.Southland Corp. v. Keating (1984). The Federal Arbitration Act pre-empts damned near everything. State laws trying to get around it are null and void.Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc. (1987), even if you have a statutory claim that would let you bring a case in open court, if you signed an arbitration agreement, say, in the process of buying car, you get stuck in arbitration.Buckeye Check Cashing (2006). Even if the entire contract is illegal, the arbitrator gets to decide whether or not it’s valid.Hall Street v. Mattel (2008). The only grounds to get an arbitration award vacated is in the FAA, and it more or less requires “manifest disregard” of the law. The arbitrator can make “silly, even improvident” findings of fact or conclusions of law, but as long as the arbitrator doesn’t say, “Well, I know that law says that, but I’m ignoring it!” you are stuck with whatever the arbitrator decides.AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion (2014); even if a company is cheating millions of people out of small amounts of money such that they make billions of dollars and nobody would bother going to arbitration individually over $30 when if they lose, they could be forced to pay for the entire arbitration, class action waivers in “adhesion contracts,” (think, clicking “I agree” on your phone to literally anything,) class action waivers are enforceable.Administrative LawChevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984). Courts should defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute if it’s at all ambiguous and so long as it’s not arbitrary and capricious.The conservative-dominated Supreme Court developed this deference during the Reagan Administration. During the Obama Administration, when the President starting using agency action because Congress preferred to sit on its hands and do jack shit nothing just to spite him, suddenly the still-conservative-dominated Supreme Court had a change of heart, as will be discussed momentarily.Ironically, folks irritated with the sudden lack of deference to the executive should be hoping for the Court to continue that lack of deference right now.Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe (1971). Agencies can change course or undertake rulemaking actions, so long as they aren’t arbitrary and capricious.The Trump administration can’t seem to either hire a lawyer that understands this or just plain won’t listen to them, which is why a metric shit ton of their attempts to create or undo various administrative agency rules keep getting rejected by the courts.Bowles v. Seminole Rock and Sand Co. (1945). Courts should defer to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations if there’s a dispute over it.Auer v. Robbins (1987). Courts should really, really defer to an agency’s interpretation of its own rules if there’s a dispute over it.Kisor v. Wilkie (2019). Not yet decided, but conservatives who suddenly got really itchy all over about agency deference under Obama and liberals who suddenly got really itchy all over about agency deference under Trump are suddenly really hoping that the Supreme Court will ditch Seminole Rock and Auer and stop letting agencies have their way.Criminal Law and ProcedureMapp v. Ohio (1961) established the exclusionary rule; if police violate your constitutional rights, the evidence they gain from that can be excluded.This impacts our politics still today, because in the push to be “tough on crime” and for “law and order,” especially in a post-9/11 world, police are more and more frequently using tools that massively invade on personal privacy. Add to it that we now basically carry much of our essential information, our “papers” if you will, on a little slab in our pockets.Miranda v. Arizona (1966). This was an enormous shift in how police had to treat suspects, and it still affects our politics today.TortsYou think civil suits can’t affect public policy? Think again! Products liability has had a huge impact on our politics over the years.MacPherson v. Buick (1916). A wheel fell off a guy’s car, and for the first time, the court allowed the victim to sue the manufacturer and not just the retailer, for a manufacturing defect rather than just faulty installation.Leichtamer v. AMC (Ohio 1982). While the manufacturers aren’t on the hook to design totally crash-proof cars, unreasonably dangerous product designs or defective designs can still make them liable even where the victims were idiots.Knitz v. Minster Machine Co. (Ohio 1982). Safety features shouldn’t be optional add-ons. *Ahem, cough, Boeing, cough, cough.*New York Times v. Sullivan (1964). This case raises the bar for recovery for public figures; they have to show that a false statement was published with “actual malice.” This is the reason that Trump doesn’t actually sue anyone for defamation.Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants (1994). This is the infamous “hot coffee” case. Stella Liebeck was a) not driving, b) in a car that had pulled into a parking stall, c) did not suffer little tiny burns from some spilled coffee, but third degree burns over pretty much her entire downstairs region, d) after McDonald’s had been repeatedly cited for storing their coffee as much as 30 degrees above the maximum safe limit and settled literally hundreds of cases where people had suffered serious burns from this practice, and e) Liebeck was only trying to get McDonald’s to cover her medical bills after they offered her $800 to just go away.It was the jury that imposed a 2.5 million fine on the company as punitive damages for actions that “shocked the conscience.” That number is equivalent to two days’ worth of coffee sales to the corporation.Business lobbies have been trying to make this into a frivolous case ever since by reducing it to “woman burned with hot coffee, duh.” This case has been the front case for 25 years by these pro-business lobbies to enact tort reform to try to block suits like this, even though it was completely legitimate.It is still repeatedly brought up by politicians trying to make cases sound frivolous by comparing a case to Liebeck’s.I could go on like this forever. We haven’t even touched on contract law, civil procedure, or secured transactions. These are just highlights. There are literally thousands of cases, big and small, that continue to have large impacts on our national and local level politics.You read all the way this far, and deserve a reward. Here’s a kitten.Thanks for the A2A.Mostly Standard Addendum and Disclaimer: read this before you comment.I welcome rational, reasoned debate on the merits with reliable, credible sources.But coming on here and calling me names, pissing and moaning about how biased I am, et cetera and so forth, will result in a swift one-way frogmarch out the airlock. Doing the same to others will result in the same treatment.Essentially, act like an adult and don’t be a dick about it.Getting cute with me about my commenting rules and how my answer doesn’t follow my rules and blah, blah, whine, blah is getting old. I’m ornery enough today to not put up with it. Stay on topic or you’ll get to watch the debate from the outside.If you want to argue and you’re not sure how to not be a dick about it, just post a picture of a cute baby animal instead, all right? Your displeasure and disagreement will be duly noted. Pinkie swear.I’m done with warnings. If you have to consider whether or not you’re over the line, the answer is most likely yes. I’ll just delete your comment and probably block you, and frankly, I won’t lose a minute of sleep over it.Debate responsibly.

Q. How much is the 3 year tuition at Stanford Law?Cost of Attendance | Stanford Law SchoolTuition Top Law SchoolsPriciest Public Law SchoolsStanford Law School Financial Aid7 Ways to Figure If Going to Law School Is Worth It (Bankrate)Is Going to Law School Worth It? Depends on Where (Investopedia) - Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2015 had the top 10% of lawyers earning more than $187,200. All told, it is not uncommon for a law school graduate to enter the working world with a net worth of negative $250,000. Ideally, recent graduates should earn yearly salaries equal to or greater than their total student debt. This level of pay usually allows for paying off student loans within 10 years without materially affecting a person's lifestyle.Cost of Attendance | Stanford Law SchoolTuitionTuition for 2016-17 totals $56,079. Tuition is due in October, January, and April.Cost of LivingFor single students, room and board in university residences costs approximately $23,205 for the 2016-17school year. Required books, if purchased new, cost about $1,530 a year. Local costs for transportation, clothing, recreation, and the like tend to vary. Most single students find they need to budget a total of at least $88,169 for the school year.Laptop ComputersStudents are required to have laptop computers and are advised to have a printer and modem, as well. In addition to using the laptop to write papers and create spreadsheets, students will have the opportunity to take examinations on laptops and will receive administrative notices only via electronic mail. Students may purchase a laptop from the Stanford Bookstore through a special program with the law school. Students who must purchase a laptop to meet this requirement are eligible to have their financial aid budgets increased by as much as $3,300. Only specific computers meet the needs of the law school’s computing systems.Do the math!JD Financial Support | Stanford Law SchoolFinancial Aid Yellow Ribbon Program FormsLoan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP)CSS Profile ApplicationFree Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)Financial AidStanford Law offers financial aid is to assist students who would otherwise be unable to pursue a legal education at SLS. Approximately 78 percent of the student body receives a tuition fellowship or loan assistance, with the average fellowship portion per recipient totaling about $23,000 annually. Aid is awarded on the basis of demonstrated need and is provided through a combination of tuition fellowships, government guaranteed loans and private loans.To apply for financial aid, please complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and the CSS Profile application. The FAFSA should be completed as soon as possible after January 1. A service of the U.S. Department of Education, FAFSA is free to all applicants. Please note that the Title IV School Code for Stanford Law School is E00341 and our CSS Profile code is 7832. To receive an aid package prior to the May 1 admissions response deadline, you must complete both applications by March 15, 2017.In general, the financial award system operates as follows:Each year the school determines a standard budget to cover basic costs (tuition plus living expenses).Each student’s need is calculated by subtracting reported resources from the standard budget. These resources include one–third of reported assets; 57% of summer gross earnings over $6,000; assumed earnings of spouse (if married); and an imputed parental contribution (based on the CSS Profile analysis) if the student is dependent.Each student is then expected to borrow or otherwise raise a portion of this need, with the remainder being an outright grant, subject to a limit of full tuition.Financial aid is evaluated annually. Therefore, one cannot be guaranteed the same level of aid over three years of attendance.Stanford Law School uses an age-based test to determine the dependency percentage from your parent contribution. Unless you are 29 years of age as of September 1, financial resource information from your parents must be submitted on the CSS Profile application. Parental information is never required on the FAFSAfor graduate students.Under our policy guidelines, the following rules apply:If you are 25 or younger as of September 1, we will take into consideration the full extent of our calculated parental contribution when determining your eligibility for our need-based scholarship assistance.If you are 26 as of September 1, we will protect 25% of your calculated parental contribution and use only 75% of that contribution when determining your eligibility for our need-based scholarship assistance.If you are 27 as of September 1, we will protect 50% of your calculated parental contribution and use only 50% of that contribution when determining your eligibility for our need-based scholarship assistance.If you are 28 as of September 1, we will protect 75% of your calculated parental contribution and use only 25% of that contribution when determining your eligibility for our need-based scholarship assistance.If you are 29 as of September 1, no parental resources are considered when determining your eligibility for our need-based scholarship assistance. Therefore, you need not submit any parental financial information to CSS Profile.Loans available to law students come primarily from three governmental programs: Federal Perkins Loans, Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loans, and Federal Direct Graduate Plus Loans. All graduate and professional students are independent for purposes of determining federal loan eligibility.Additional financial aid information is provided in the School’s Financial Aid Handbook.2016-17 FINANCIAL AID HANDBOOKYellow Ribbon ProgramThe Post-9/11 GI Bill, also known as Chapter 33, is the most commonly used VA educational benefits program at Stanford. This program provides funding for tuition, required fees, books, and housing. The level of a qualifying veteran’s Chapter 33 benefits is determined by the length of military service since 9/11/2001. For the 2016-17 academic year, the base benefit for tuition and fees is capped at $21,970.If you qualify for Chapter 33 benefits at the 100% level, you will receive additional funding through the Yellow Ribbon Program. Under this program, Stanford Law provides an annual contribution to supplement the Chapter 33 base tuition benefit. The VA matches Stanford’s Yellow Ribbon contribution. For the 2016-17 academic year, Stanford Law’s annual Yellow Ribbon contribution for students will be 50% of the remaining tuition and fees with the VA providing the other 50% — together covering the full costs of tuition and fees.Most VA educational benefit programs pay benefits directly to students on a monthly basis. However, under the Post-9/11 GI Bill (Chapter 33), the VA sends tuition and fees benefits to Stanford, where the Central Financial Aid Office is responsible for applying the funds to the student account (university bill). Chapter 33 books and housing benefits are sent directly to students monthly. You may need to apply your housing benefits to the university bill to pay for on-campus room and board.FormsThe following forms will be provided by the Office of Financial Aid as necessary but are available here if additional copies are needed:Continuing Student Financial Aid Supplement Form 2016-17Loan Memo 2016-2017Loan Comparison Chart 2016-2017Loan Request Form 2016-2017Expense Budget 2016-17Due to the nature of federal, state, and institutional guidelines, this information is subject to change without notice.Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP)For graduates who take low-paying public interest jobs and have substantial educational debt, Stanford Law School offers the Miles and Nancy Rubin Loan Repayment Assistance Program — the most generous loan relief program in the country — along with a variety of other fellowships. Stanford Law was one of the first law schools in the country to launch such a program, setting the standard for schools that have followed our lead. Stanford Law makes loans to eligible applicants to help meet education loan payments. Loans made by Stanford through this program will be forgiven (up to 100 percent) depending on verification of participant income using federal tax returns. Visit the LRAP section of this site for additional information.7 Ways to Figure If Going to Law School Is Worth ItYour school's reputation"For the group of very select law schools at the top, the employment prospects are terrific," says Steven Harper, a former attorney and author of "The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis." "Life can look awfully good, and it will be awfully good for the vast, vast majority of those people, but that's maybe 10 percent out of 200 law schools."There's a sharp discrepancy in job prospects between first- and lower-tier schools. When comparing U.S. News and World Report's top 20 law schools with institutions that landed in the 126-to-146 ranking range, students attending upper-echelon institutions were nearly twice as likely to hold full-time, long-term law jobs as their lower-tier counterparts. Students attending lower-tier schools were also about 2.5 times more likely to be underemployed.The Ivy League isn't the only ticket to a post-graduate job, says Kyle McEntee, executive director of Law School Transparency, an organization that helps students with the decision to attend law school, and provides employment and underemployment data on law institutions nationwide. Schools with a solid local reputation and strong ties to the community can be just as effective at finding work in that area.Your rankRegardless where you attend, your performance will be a factor for future employers. A study published last year in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies shows that grades are "the most important predictor of career success," even more so than your school's reputation. The study, authored by law professors at UCLA and the University of Arizona, states that "... it is well known that judges care greatly about grades in choosing their clerks, professors care about grades in choosing their research assistants, and many employers insist on good grades in choosing new hires."Harper says that students who can stay above the bottom 25th percentile in GPA have the best shot at landing a job that pays enough to repay student loans."You have to be really honest and realistic with yourself about 'how well am I going to stack up against my peers?'" he says. "You have a very hard time convincing anybody, I think, who's entering law school that they'll ever wind up below the median, much less below the 25th percentile in anything, whether it's practicing law or something else, but guess what? That's just mathematics. There's an honest self-reflection that has to happen."Your specialtySome legal fields are hotter than others, which may explain why schools like New York University are changing their curricula to focus more on specializations. A study by Robert Half Legal of 200 attorneys in hiring positions revealed that litigation, business, commercial and health care law are expected to offer the greatest number of jobs.Leslie Levin, associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Connecticut School of Law, says that students can increase their marketability by having a clear idea of the law field they'd like to practice and by taking relevant courses and pursuing externship opportunities."Focusing on an area in which the student would like to practice and then positioning him or herself as somebody (who) is knowledgeable in that area will increase their employability," she says. "So, for example, if somebody gets a tax certificate, they are going to be more appealing if they want to go to a firm or the government and practice tax than somebody else."Summer associate gigs help, too. More than 90 percent of law students who held summer associate positions in 2012 were offered entry-level positions after graduation, reports the National Association for Law Placement.Your expectations"(Students) should think foremost on why they want to be a lawyer," says Andrew J. McClurg, author of "1L of a Ride: A Well-Traveled Professor's Roadmap to Success in the First Year of Law School." "If their only reason was to make a whole lot of money, that was never a good reason, even when the economy was great."Many students have unrealistic expectations about post-law school life and few have a clear picture of the daily lives of practicing attorneys, says Levin. Some don't know that they may not use their J.D. A survey by the NALP shows that 1 in 5 2012 graduates worked in a nonlegal profession or held jobs where a degree might have been an advantage or requirement, but passage of the bar was not required.The best way to understand what attorneys do is by observing them first-hand, she says."Even in college, people often will get part-time jobs in law firms. They can volunteer for organizations where lawyers are working and doing public interest work. They should talk to lawyers; if they know lawyers, they can shadow lawyers," she says. "The one thing they shouldn't do is assume that what they are seeing is the entire range of what lawyers do."Your connectionsGetting into a good school and acing your classes is only half the battle. The law grads who are getting jobs are the ones who have spent time hobnobbing with future employers, says McClurg."Joining student organizations and going to bar functions and putting yourself out there and making connections, other than your academic record, that's really one of the only things you can do" to increase your marketability, he says.That also means remembering that you may not be able to get a job in your first choice of legal field, says Blair Gould, a third-year law student at Wayne State University who's primarily interested in corporate and real estate law but is also gaining litigation experience."People need to continuously be diversifying their legal skill set," he says. "Take advantage of any kind of connections you can make and join any civic or social organization you can because all of those things will come into play eventually. You never know what's going to happen in the future."Your financial prospectsNearly 9 out of 10 third-year law students advise those considering law school to consider an institution's financial aid package before enrolling, reports Kaplan. That's because how much you borrow will largely determine where you work after graduation.Median starting salaries at law firms clock in at $90,000 per year -- a 28 percent drop since 2008 -- but not every lawyer is bringing home the big bucks. Median salaries at public interest organizations hovered at $44,600 annually, while judicial clerks and government employees earned $52,000. That's barely enough to cover the $558 monthly student loan payments public law students face if they borrow the average $76,000 in loans at an 8 percent interest rate over a 30-year period. On the flip side, the median salary at large firms is $160,000.The good news is that more than 100 law schools offer loan assistance and forgiveness incentives, reports Equal Justice Works, and public interest workers may be eligible for accelerated federal loan forgiveness. Scholarships also abound, but read the fine print, warns McEntee."Oftentimes scholarships come with stipulations, and stipulations are difficulties," he says.Your goalsIf working in the legal profession is what you want to do for all the right reasons, debt and employability statistics shouldn't derail you, but they should be a consideration, says Levin. To keep financial figures in check, Levin recommends that students consider lower-cost state schools or attend law school part time. They should also do some serious research to ensure they understand what attorneys do, the variety of contexts in which they work and whether they would be a good match for the legal profession."If (being an attorney) is really what makes you happy, it may take longer to pay off the debt, but that doesn't mean it's not worth it," she says. "(Whether law school pays off) really depends on what you hope to get out of your law degree and what you want to do with your life."Read more: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/college-finance/going-to-law-school-worth-it-1.aspx#ixzz4XVp2B6s2Follow us: @Bankrate on Twitter | Bankrate on FacebookIs Going to Law School Worth It? Depends on WhereBy Greg DePersio | Updated January 26, 2017 — 6:00 AM ESTA 2015 study by the Access Group Center for Research and Policy Analysis found that only one in five people who graduated from law school between 2010 and 2015 strongly agreed that obtaining a law degree was worth the cost. Perhaps more troubling, only 38% of law school graduates, down from 56% between 2000 and 2009, described themselves as having a good job after graduation.With four out of five recent law school graduates at least somewhat regretting their decision to attend – and six out of 10 failing to find a good job after graduating – it makes sense to examine whether going to law school is still worth it in 2017. Keeping in mind the high tuition costs, interest rates and potential salaries, another good metric to consider would be its ROI (return on investment), calculated as its salary-to-debt ratio in a new study by online lender SoFi.Law School CostsGoing to law school full-time requires a three-year commitment, and the average tuition and fees for just one of those years at an American Bar Association-accredited institution often exceeds $40,000. This cost does not include rent, food, transportation and other living expenses. As the law school workload does not permit most students to hold jobs, student loans represent the most common method of paying these costs. Consequently, the average law school graduate in 2015 took on over $140,000 in student debt to obtain his or her degree.For many students, student loan debt accumulates on top of debt they already carry from undergraduate school. Members of the class of 2016 graduated college with over $37,000 in student debt on average. While most lenders allow the deferment of undergraduate loan payments while attending law school, any unsubsidized portion of such debt continues to accrue interest. All told, it is not uncommon for a law school graduate to enter the working world with a net worth of negative $250,000.Expected SalaryTaking on such debt might be a smart investment if a law degree provided reasonable assurance of a high-paying job. Ideally, recent graduates should earn yearly salaries equal to or greater than their total student debt. This level of pay usually allows for paying off student loans within 10 years without materially affecting a person's lifestyle.Stories abound, however, of law school graduates struggling to find any sort of legal job, much less one that enables the repayment of student debt in a timely manner. The New York Times revealed in 2015 that more than 20% of graduates from the class of 2010 held jobs that did not require law degrees. Only 40% worked in law firms, compared to 60% from the class of 2000. The remainder operated solo practices, with varying degrees of success, or performed contract work.The SoFi study, which incorporates data from student-loan refinancing applications between Jan. 2014 and Dec. 2016, shows that some schools do better than others when it comes to both job placements and salaries. Looking at students three years out of law school, Cornell University, Columbia University and New York University take the top three spots in the SoFi study with average salary paid in excess of $177,000. Consider that the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2015 had the top 10% of lawyers earning more than $187,200.For the Class of 2015, Columbia University saw 401 out of its 413 graduates find full time jobs; at New York University the numbers were 474 of 485. In some cases, of course, students may choose to put off those high-money jobs for prestigious public service spots: In 2015, 99 of 199 Yale Law School graduates were employed in clerkships, which paid a median salary of $69,000 (Yale ranks 8th on the SoFi list for salaries).Graduates of second-tier programs often settle for work outside of top law firms, where the pay is much lower. The 2015 median pay for law school graduates across the board was only $64,800. Idealistic young attorneys who choose public service fare even worse financially. Entry-level district attorneys earn a median pay of $37,000; public defenders do slightly better at $40,000.Schools with the Best Salary-to-Debt RatioEven new lawyers who land good jobs rarely receive paychecks commensurate with their debt levels. The SoFi analysis also ranks law schools based on which offer the best value defined by their salary-to-debt ratio. That figure is an indication of how much more your potential salary could exceed your potential debt and help make a more informed decision about whether law school is worth it.Brigham Young University takes the number-one spot: With students expecting an average salary of $108,000 and holding an average debt just below $65,000, the school has an impressive 1.7x salary-to-debt ratio, making it a a good value-for-money bet. University of Texas at Austin, comes in second with the ratio at 1.4x on the back of lower debt burden thanks to its relatively cheaper tuition. Yale Law School ranks third – not just because of higher salaries graduates get compared to the top two on this list ($177,771; BYU is $64,873 and UT, $147,44), but also because of its generosity with financial aid.Opting for schools that fare poorly on this metric could cost you. Take for example, Florida Coastal School of Law, which ranked lowest on the SoFi ROI list, with a salary-to-debt ratio of 0.5x. Let's break down the numbers: The school's tuition, $44,000, is at par with some of the top schools in the country. Students graduate with $158,427 in debt (considerably higher than the $123,793 Yale grads have), but the average annual salary for graduates is only $84,664.Other ConsiderationsThe numbers do not consider the financial risk of being a law school dropout. The first-year law school attrition rate nationwide is nearly 7%. A handful of law schools lost over 30% of their first-year students in 2015. Enrolling in law school but failing to finish offers no greater marketability than a bachelor's degree. It does, however, substantially add to a person's debt load.All told, the decision to attend law school is one that should be approached with great consideration. Indeed, 1% of attorneys have successful, high-paying careers. Supply and demand dynamics, however, have changed considerably since the 1980s, with fewer high-paying, entry-level jobs and many more law school graduates chasing those jobs. Pile on tuition costs – which, for decades, have risen at three times the inflation rate – and going to law school is not the financial no-brainer that it once was. For more on the choice, see Career Advice: Accounting vs. Law and Career Advice: Investment Banking vs. Law.Read more: Is Going to Law School Worth It Anymore? | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/082416/going-law-school-worth-it-anymore.asp#ixzz4XVq64gcoFollow us: Investopedia on Facebook