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Bad Law?

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed  today carries a brief report that faculty from many law schools (including some from UCs and Hastings) have signed a letter saying the current tuition, debt, and job market for law students are incompatible.  Excerpt from the letter: 

…Over the last three decades, the price of a legal education has increased approximately three times faster than the average household income. With the help of the federal student loan fund, some ninety percent of law students borrow to finance their legal education and the average law school debt now exceeds $100,000. Overall, law students in 2011-2012 borrowed more than $4 billion to pay for their legal education. Unsurprisingly, debt burdens are unevenly spread and amplify racial and class disadvantages. The price of legal education has risen as the job market for lawyers has declined. More than two out of every five 2011 graduates did not obtain a full-time long-term job requiring a law degree; the median starting salary of the class, among the less than half of graduates for whom a salary was reported, was $60,000. The problematic economics are captured by this fundamental mismatch: a graduate who earns the median salary cannot afford to make the monthly loan payments on the average debt... 

The Inside Higher Ed piece is at:
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/03/08/law-professors-question-sustainability-legal-education-urge-changes 
The letter is at:
http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsibility/taskforcecomments/032013_coalition_revcomment.authcheckdam.pdf 
There were happier days in the past, especially in LA:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DouX9Ubw-Xw?feature=player_detailpage] 

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