"The problem is that the cost of a law degree is now vastly out of proportion to the economic opportunities obtained by the majority of graduates."

Writes lawprof Brian Z. Tamanaha, in a NYT op-ed:

... How did we get into this mess? And how do we get out?...

First, consider the loan system....

Then there’s the problem of the American Bar Association-imposed accreditation standards.... [B]y imposing a “one size fits all” template, these standards ensure that there is little differentiation among law schools — no lower-cost options and no range of choices comparable to what exists at the undergraduate level among community colleges, teaching colleges and research universities.

One solution to this problem is to strip away the accreditation requirements that mandate expenditures to support faculty scholarship — for example, deleting the requirement that the bulk of professors be in tenure-track positions, removing limits on teaching loads, not requiring paid research leaves for professors, not requiring substantial library collections and so forth....  Law students would then be able to choose the type of legal education they desired and could afford.

Tamanaha has a book: "Failing Law Schools."

"Occupy Student Debt."

Nice poster... but what's going on? There's this:

The Occupy Student Debt Campaign, organised by members of Occupy Wall Street, planned rallies in at least a dozen cities including the college towns of Ann Arbor in Michigan, Madison in Wisconsin, and Newark in Delaware, the home of the lender Sallie Mae.

Madison, Wisconsin? Here we go again...

Here's "the Barackness Monster" doing 5 minutes of...

... I think it's comedy.



Doesn't he have a job?

Dialogue chez Meadehouse at about 4:00:

ALTHOUSE: Does this go anywhere?

MEADE: No. It doesn't go anywhere. It's embarrassing. It's a comedy vehicle for Jimmy Fallon, and it puts Obama in a beta position.

At 4:29, his voice even cracks — like a pubescent teen. Look at his eyes. He looks like he knows it's a disaster. It seems that he's supposed to be doing some sexy Barry White style intonations, but he's obviously decided not to. It's a far cry from the actually very cool Al Green tribute he did back in January. It's like he wanted to recapture some of that charm, but it was so not happening.

"End Student Debt."

Makeshift signage, viewed from my law school office window, just now, at the University of Wisconsin—Madison:

Who gets to take advantage of Obama's new changes to the student loan program?

Not as many as you might think. The new rules only apply to federal loans, not loans from private banks, and...

This new income-based plan is not available to people who graduated in 2011 or earlier and have no plans to take out any new federal loans. Instead, you must have at least one federal loan from no earlier than 2008 and also take out one more in 2012 or later to qualify.

If you're already in default, you're ineligible.