As I prepare for the start of class in a few weeks and take a much needed break from my ongoing feud with Mike Triforce I would like to, hopefully for the last time, explain why I am borrowing excessive amounts to go to what is commonly referred to as a TTT law school, particularly after taking 7 years and over $100k to complete my undergraduate education and writing for a blog called “Debtor’s Prison.”  After all, isn’t the point of “Debtor’s Prison” that borrowing large amounts of money for a fancy degree, particularly a law degree is foolhardy?  I would argue no, and here is why.
 
At the risk of being mercilessly mocked by Mike Triforce I will once again open up.  Yes, I’ve read Benito’s posts.  But here’s what I noticed: Benito was going through school borrowing money, eyes closed, on the blind faith that the conventional wisdom of the time was correct and that so long as he “did everything right” he was all but guaranteed a positive outcome.  That didn’t happen because conventional wisdom is based on a series of assumptions that are no longer true.  Alpha Man expands on this by stating that the real purpose of Debtor’s Prison is to make people aware so that conventional wisdom more accurately reflects what happens to most people. So my reading of all this is that there is a general lag between conventional wisdom, like the advice you’d get from a previous generation and what is ACTUALLY best for you, something you can only discover through research and a critical eye towards what someone’s motivation for telling you something might be (aka how do THEY benefit from what they are telling you?)
 
In my humble opinion conventional wisdom is changing.  There are dozens of blogs like this one.  The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post have all covered this topic thoroughly.  In three years when I graduate law school I could easily be facing a situation where firms are starved for lawyers because the great recession drove so many out of the market and their dismissal sob stories mixed with the skyrocketing tuition of law school made the pursuit of law as a career undesirable.  Therefore if the point of Debtor’s Prison is don’t trust conventional wisdom I will be doing that by actually GOING to Law School and BORROWING to get there.
 
Others may ask, well, why go to a Third Tier when it costs as much as a Harvard or Yale?  Obviously I didn’t get into Harvard or Yale.  Second, I could transfer to Harvard or Yale if I do extremely well my first year.  Third, grades, not the school you are attending/attended, seem to be the highest indicator of future legal success. It’s easier to get good grades at a school that does not attract top scholars.  It’s also easier to argue for better grades from specific professors or across the board grade inflation.
 
But what about my already sizable debt?  Well, my only other option besides law school was to go BACK TO SCHOOL and get a teaching license.  Yeah, there is no way I could pay off my debt making $30,000 a year.  I’d rather stay home and collect unemployment.  I know alot of attorneys make that or less, but I also know there are zero teachers pulling down $160k.  Worst case scenario in three years I am back where I started after having three more years of college-esque fun with the only difference that the specific payment notice that I crumble up and toss away has a much higher amount on it.  I would also hope that with a legal education I’d have the ability to move to and work in Korea for a few years and then settle my debt for a fraction of the price.
 
So that’s the plan.  Sometimes Conservatives gamblers lose big and sometimes Aggressive gamblers make a come back and end up in the black.  We know the former already describes Benito. Let’s hope the latter describes KF Li.