Should Law Schools Pay Unpaid Student Debt?

By Stephanie Rabiner, Esq. on November 28, 2011 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

By most accounts, the new Obama student loan proposal doesn't do much. It's only available to current students, which means that the rest of us are screwed. And even if it did apply to graduates? Its impact is so small, we JD grads would still be screwed.

But student loan debt has hit $1 trillion, which exceeds the country's total credit card debt. Tuition has increased so much that students borrow twice as much as they did a decade ago.

This means that defaults are also up--and some think the schools should be made to pay.

There's no doubt that we're in the midst of a higher education, or student loan, bubble. Universities have been hiking tuition fees because the government is giving students a way to pay for it, explains the New York Post. Increased costs are in no way related to inflation or disposable income.

Banks and schools also have no incentive to care because student loan debt is forever. Even bankruptcy won't make it disappear.

But what if we made universities liable for that money? After all, they received it. They disregarded the realities of paying for a college education.

And the law schools? They've completely ignored the realities of the legal market--even before the economy took a turn for the worse. The field is oversaturated, and most attorneys don't make $160,000 a year.

Would forcing law schools and other universities to pay for a portion of defaulted loans change the way they do business? The New York Post thinks it might. What do you think? Pop on over to FindLaw for Legal Professionals Facebook page and voice your opinion.

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