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Sunday, December 2, 2012
Why should $50,000 per year law school tuition be enabled by taxpayer subsidies?
I have difficulty imagining what the answer to that question might be. Is legal education somehow a public good, i.e., something that will be under-supplied by an unsubsidized market? Under current conditions, which of course the availability of IBR has not even begun to affect (no one ever enrolled in law school prior to 2009 because of IBR) this seems like a remarkably implausible claim. The United States has a massive oversupply of people with law degrees, if we define the correct supply as roughly equivalent to a number not much larger than the number of people who can make a living via the practice of law.
Now Schrag et, al. might reply that there is actually an under-supply of lawyers in America, given that a huge amount of the potential demand for legal services among middle class and poor people goes unmet. But this is a demand-side problem: it has nothing at all to do with how many people have law degrees, and everything to do with the fact that the large majority of Americans don't have enough discretionary income to pay for more that the most occasional and basic legal services, if that.
And before you get to that, the cost of legal education has almost nothing to do with the ability of poor and middle class people to pay for legal services. Whether a lawyer has a lot of educational debt, or a little, or none, has no relevance to what that lawyer can charge successfully for legal services. There are hundreds of thousands of people with law degrees who have little or no educational debt, and as a group they don't charge any less for their legal services than more recent, heavily indebted graduates. Why would they? The last thing a client cares about is how much debt his or her potential lawyer is carrying, any more than a potential patron of a restaurant cares whether the establishment's owner is heavily leveraged when the customer considers the prices on the menu.
In other words, if you want to make legal services more affordable for people without money, give those people money for legal services. Giving money to law schools makes being a law professor "more affordable" (otherwise we might not forgo those BigLaw partnership offers). It does nothing to lower the price of legal services.
A second defense of even greater subsidization for law school budgets is that it makes law school "accessible" to people who otherwise wouldn't go. It's true that the combination of unlimited federal loan money and IBR leads people who otherwise wouldn't go to law school because of immediate economic constraints to go. I think on net this is a bad thing for such people as a group, for reasons I'll lay out in another post. Here I'll just note that people who defend IBR on this basis need to explain why it wouldn't be both far more efficient and just for law schools to stop raising tuition faster than inflation, as they collectively have literally every year for at least thirty years, if law schools are concerned about access to legal education. It seems implausible to defend a program whose effect is make the cost of legal education far higher than it would otherwise be on the ground that the program actually makes legal education more accessible to people without money.
The only other defense I can think of for subsidizing law school budgets via IBR even more heavily than they're already subsidized via the availability of unlimited federal loans subject to no actuarial controls is that this improves the quality of legal services, because paying law professors three times more than English professors improves the quality of legal education (This of course is just another variation on the "pay us or we'll never leave Cravath" argument).
Now the problem with this argument is that it's not nearly enough to claim that, for example, a private law school education is better in 2012, when it costs $41,000 per year, than it was thirty years ago, when it cost $13,000 per year (in constant dollars). It probably is better. For one thing, it would be hard to avoid improving the quality of a product after more than tripling its real price even if you were trying to avoid doing so. The real question is: does whatever improvement in quality that's been achieved justify that price increase? Are law graduates today so much better prepared to provide quality legal services that it makes sense to even more heavily subsidize a budget that charges students $123,000 rather than $39,000 for a law degree?
I personally think that to ask that question is almost to answer it. Those who feel differently ought to make the effort to defend the proposition.
119 comments:
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 6:29 AM
I think what these people are trying to do is to discredit or weaken critics like Tamanaha by making a very limited argument. The limited argument is that, with IBR now in place, law school can no longer be charged with ruining student's lives with crushing debt. This is the part of the scam that really makes law schools and law professors bad and evil and people are quick to embrace IBR as a way to alleviate them of the guilt.
ReplyDelete It's not that a HLS 2016 JD is a better product than an HLS 1986 JD. It's that the gap between an HLS JD and, say, an SMU JD (#51 US News) or an FSU JD (#51) has exploded. It's not crazy to argue that an HLS-JD, which (AFAIK) IS still a golden ticket, is worth more than twice as much as an in-state FSU JD.
But how does SMU Law justify charging 80% of what HLS charges? That is the core of the question.Replies- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 8:01 AM
Hell, some of the lousy law schools charge more than Harvard.
How do they justify it? They don't have to, because the students don't pay much attention to cost. (After all, they're just signing up for loans that can be forgiven in 25 years, right?) Their choice is not Harvard or Toilet; it's Toilet or nothing. And they're too dumb to opt for nothing.
By the way, Harvard is no longer a golden ticket. What type of careers in finance would be best suites to e filled by a lawyer or law school grad? Investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, securities law...? Also, what do you think of these career paths in such a crazy time, and how in demand do you predict these positions will be in 4 years?
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- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 6:34 AM
Today's proposed solution is two attitude adjustments.
1.) Students have come to see their university years as an extension of their parents' well-upholstered existence (which took decades to accumulate). So students expect nice dorms and gyms and student unions and lots of spending money.
Students should adjust their attitude and think of university as a penurious time. They are starting their lives from scratch, so no rock climbing walls or new furniture.
2.) Professors and administrators should realize that they are monks. Pay should top out at $10,000 a month. Profs should live a stable comfortable existence, but it should be threadbare. Wasn't the point of the cliched leather elbow patches that profs didn't have the money to buy new jackets? Academics need to stop comparing themselves to successful professionals and start comparing themselves to missionaries and priests.
Neither will happen.Replies- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 12:00 PM
lol. You really think most students wouldn't trade in cheaper tuition for stupid crap like gyms, student unions, new buildings, etc? How long has it been since you graduated? Most students who carry student loans ARE living a "penurius" existence you out-of-touch dolt. But hey, its easier to put some blame on the students for all the crap school admins are responsible for, eh?
Delete - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 2:55 PM
I can tell you this much. If Student Loans under IBR or PAYE are roughly the equivalent of monopoly money, you'd be a damn fool not to demand gyms, and rock walls, and student loan trips to Davos.
The price is the same: 10 percent of your AGI for 20 years. Unemployed, no worry. What, you're worried about a tax hit 2 decades from now assuming Congress doesn't act to bail that policy out?
And that is the problem with IBR and PAYE. So why have the rates just kept going up and up? Where does the money go? It rarely goes into outright extravagance, instead its frittered away here and there on a thousand unnecessary things which all add up. For example constantly refurbishing facilities to make them more "contemporary". Building facilities which appear useful but wind up being underutilized (like huge law libraries when most legal resources are now available online or on disk). It all adds up.
There's such a blind reverence for education in America that few people ever seriously question these expenses. I mean we're investing in our *future* here, now's not the time for petty penny-pinching - right?- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 7:28 PM
A law professor costs several hundred thousand dollars per year. How many professors are there at your law school? How many students? Do some calculations.
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 6:35 AM
If you want to enable low income people to go to law school you could, you know, give them need based scholarships rather than holding them in debt peonage until they are middle aged and then writing off more than the scholarship would have cost.
RPL - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 6:46 AM
Comparing a Harvard JD of 30 years ago to a current Harvard JD is like comparing two brand new BMWs, only the one that cost three times more has nitrogen filled tires.
Comparing an SMU JD of 30 years ago to a current SMU JD is like comparing two brand new BMWs, but the one that cost three times more has a gas tank only half the size of the cheaper one. There is another layer of intellectual dishonesty involved in Schrag's positions. Increasing the output of JDs does not make the legal profession more accessible to those from non-traditional legal backgrounds, i.e., women, minorities, the disabled, the older graduate - it makes it less accessible for reasons l am pretty sure he understands. When there is an excess of candidates for a limited number of positions, and hiring a candidate means risks and costs all organisations tend to be conservative - they look to hire people who look just like those who have been successful hires in the past.
For a law firm to hire a lawyer, junior or senior. A new associate will run as a capital investment, taking pay, benefits, office space, IT, etc. somewhere of the order of their first year's pay even if you fired them at 6 months - that is to say that there would usually be a substantial deficit between what they were paid for the first year and what they cost, by the end of their second year assuming everything works out they are profitable.
With a lateraling senior lawyer you would expect to spend about 3-6 months plus pay on the them before they pretty well come in the door (fees, office space, etc.) and to pay their salary from capital for 6 months after arrival. In house has its own expenses, but assume 3+ months pay on top of a headhunter fee of say 3-4 months pay. And you need to consider the cost in billable hours of the recruiting time - it costs to send people to OCI, it costs to interview 20 candidates (at least say 20x5 billable hours.)
So when you hire an associate or lateral an associate or a partner you are taking a pretty big risk with a hefty amount of money. That is one of the reasons law firms like laterals, they are seen as lower risk and quicker return. The best way to lower risk when hiring out of law school is to go to T14 law schools, hire high up in the class and hire people who in every respect look like already successful lawyers. By the way, law schools do more or less the same, hiring HYS+B as much as possible - especially Georgetown since Schrag has been there, whose faculty is notoriously heavily Yale - indeed the GULC administration under Areen was known for the view that its own graduates were not good enough to be professors at GULC (and yes senior deans did say this.)
Moreover, when there is a massive oversupply of lawyers, it makes it harder for people to stay in the profession. If a woman takes time out to have a baby, it will be very tough to get back. If someone moves from firm to in-house, it will be tough to get back into the firms. If someone moves from BigLaw to boutique, it will be hard to return to BigLaw. If someone is black, hispanic or disabled they won't fit the profile of a BigLaw partner or associate.
Last, Schrag writes about legal ethics. What he ignores this the biggest threat to legal ethics, the desperation of lawyers and law firms for business. I have been a lawyer to my shock for over 20 years and I have slowly watched the ethics of the profession decline, well know reputable firms take on astonishingly dubious cases and behave disgracefully because the "needed the business." I have watch ethics decline in firms, in legal departments - and the driving factor has been the insecurity of the profession, the constant search for business, the inability to say no to a client because someone else would say "yes." This too is driven by the oversupply of lawyers.
Indeed, the unethical behaviour of law schools is driven both by greed and by the oversupply of law school places.Replies- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 8:21 AM
It's interesting that one of the supposedly good law schools doesn't turn out, in the opinion of its own deans, graduates worthy of teaching there.
You're quite right that law firms insist on people who fit their mold, which means white, Western, male, young, urban, and rich. I don't see, though, how this is "[t]he best way to lower risk when hiring out of law school". Strikes me that ability beats arbitrary personal characteristics. But I seem to be incurably naïve. I think you need to be careful about "insist." I do not agree with racist or sexist hiring practices. However, when any organisation hires someone who is not "traditional" for a role they are taking a greater risk of that hire not working out than when they hire a more traditional hire, be it an Alaskan fishing boat hiring a "white, Western, male, young, urban, and [formerly] rich" kid or a law firm hiring someone from the Bario. When there is an excess of candidates and a high sunk hiring cost why take risks?
This is what I mean - if there was too much work and not enough candidates there would not be enough who were "white, Western, male, young, urban, and rich" to fill every associate slot - but there are, to the great disadvantage of the candidates who are "non-traditional."
Most of the best lawyers I know by the way are all somewhat or very "non-traditional" in some way. But a lot of traditional candidates can do the work.- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 9:31 AM
If I understand, you mean by "not working out" that the non-traditional person would not fit into the "traditional" environment (defined by race, gender, age, money, and so on), rather than that she would turn out to be a dud. In other words, environmental factors rather than personal characteristics damn her.
That is precisely why there are laws against discrimination in employment. Indeed, if there were a shortage of candidates for whatever sort of work, even the stigmatized non-traditional ones would find jobs. But ordinarily there is no such shortage. So the non-traditional ones face unabashed discrimination dressed up in prudential considerations about risk.
At my law school (one of the top-"ranked" few), white-shoe law firms hire rich kids from the bottom half of the class but won't even give my non-traditional bag of bones an interview. I don't see how that approach reduces risk. - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 10:11 AM
The good thing is that it's always about you 9:31...this thread and every other thread.
Delete I have been on the wrong end of being "non-traditional," not race perhaps - and I have several close friends who have been on the wrong end because of race.
I entirely agree with laws against discrimination - it is abhorrent. But, just like laws against tax evasion, those laws can only go so far. How can you prove why someone was not hired? How can you show that "he/she is not a fit" means "he she is black/hispanic." I turned down a job at mega-firm once because every interviewer of 14 partners wore the same white Brooks Brothers button down shirt - clones - I don' wear Brooks Brother (the fit sucks and the suits are ugly) and I am odd for a white shoe firm.
Whatever way you want to look at it the traditional candidate "checks the boxes," they are safer. My partners and I set up our own law-firm. Today we have a good reputation - and a growing one. But when we go looking for clients the competition is very BigLaw - and we joke about the IBM effect - ""nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."
If you are a non-traditional candidate, the person who hires you, the person who recommends you, all of them are taking a risk. That rich kid you complain about, think of him (it won't be a her) as IBM. It is shitty and it sucks and it is made so much worse when there are so many nice-white-kids out there to run through before anyone has to take a chance.
I am not defending it ... but it is a reality. Anyone who worked for me who applied the white male middle class, right accent, knows how to dress rule I would fire... But I understand the imperatives that drives this.
By graduating too many JDs law schools are reducing the incentive to risk a non-traditional hire. That it the reality. It does not make it easier for people of color to get hires, or older candidates, or for the long term women, it makes it harder.
And 9:31, for non-traditonal candidates there is an increased risk that they will be a dud! There is also an increased possibility that they will be a star. There is a lot lower possibility that they will be a very conventional boring lawyer. The trouble is, most of the time the people doing the hiring see conventional and boring as what they want....
Delete- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 10:40 AM
Indeed, the laws against discrimination are almost impossible to enforce. Rarely will an employer say "We are rejecting you because of your race/gender/age/disAbility/whatever".
For two years I fought a discriminatory practice at my law school. When I finally won, I told the administration that I had been wrong and that the school should instead discriminate overtly, just like the wretched legal "profession", by refusing to admit anyone from the stigmatized group. And I didn't mean that entirely as sarcasm.
By the way, I agree with you about Brooks Brothers. Those sack suits are godawful. At least they're appropriately named, as they fit like a burlap bag. - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 10:42 AM
Also, a couple of those rich kids hired from the bottom of the class were women. But indeed most were men.
Delete @10:40
Without going into the topic too far, let me describe our ideal candidate:
- technical undergraduate degree, favorite is physics, sub category applied or experimental.
- multilingual
- comfortable and adaptable to environments where they do not "fit in"
- good writing skills
- a good understanding of law+technology+business
- comfortable being out of their expected comfort zone (e.g., out of their field technically, dealing with legal systems they were not trained in, conventional co-counsel who think they are not good enough, able to extract order from chaos)
- genuinely interested in what is at issue (ELISA, semiconductor fabrication, social media, trade law, competition, etc.) and curious about all sorts of topics. (I would do what I do just because it is interesting to me.)
Almost anyone who meets those criteria is non-traditional.- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 11:04 AM
I meet all of those criteria. If you were hiring, I'd send you a résumé.
Most law firms seem not to care much about any of that, although they pay lip service to a couple of those criteria. - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 3:11 PM
"comfortable being out of their expected comfort zone"
Isn't that an oxymoron? @Anonymous - As someone else who meets MacK's criteria (physics grad with business-level Mandarin etc.) I ended up taking way longer, going much further, and settling for much less that I had expected to do so based on my expectations back in 2007. There aren't many firms who actually require people like us, and HR staff at many firms actually view things like knowledge of foreign languages/technology as a draw-back - they either think it means you're eccentric or that you'll want to go and use your knowledge. There's nothing more annoying and frustrating than having some HR flunky essentially tell you that qualifications and skills that were very hard to come by are actually negative points as far as they are concerned.
Delete"comfortable being out of their expected comfort zone"
Isn't that an oxymoron?
HR departments are generally staffed with morons who are always away on courses held in country house hotels out of cellular coverage when you need to contact them.
And they think in clichés- AnonymousDecember 3, 2012 at 8:55 AM
You're both right about HR departments.
I'm glad that you finally found something, FOARP, even though the search proved long and disappointing.
Classmates think that my knowledge of languages and technology should open many doors. But it seems to close far more doors than it opens.
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 7:34 AM
Why do $80,000+ (social security, expensive medical care to keep them alive a few years longer) BE HANDED OUT FOR FREE EVERY YEAR TO DISGUSTING OLD BABY BOOMERS LIKE YOU?!
And don't give me that "I paid into it" bullshit. You paid for maybe 1/10 of that cost.
Until you old boomers hang yourselves rather than being a parasite on society, I have no problem with youngsters getting to BORROW a little money for three years of school.Replies- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 1:51 PM
"getting" to borrow money? Are you f*cking retarded? This may be the dumbest comment on the internet.
Delete - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 8:18 PM
7:34 The average monthly Social Security retirement benefit in 2012 is about $1230.
Only the hospital portion of Medicare (Medicare is the health insurance program under Social Security) is free. People pay current premiums for the rest of Medicare - insurance coverage for doctors visits and the like and prescription drugs - just like signing up for private health insurance. The only people who get the hospital coverage without charge are those who paid into the system.
An $80,000 bill in a year would be a lot, but it would mostly relate to hospital care for a catastrophic illness.
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 7:48 AM
It takes my breath away how blithely a professor of law advocates students taking on debt that they have no ability or intention to pay back. How is this any less ethical than someone racking up credit card and other debts with the intention of filing bankruptcy when the bill collectors reach critical mass?
Somehow, the fact that IBR might not adversely impact your FICA score while bankruptcy will doesn't seem to be a meaningful ethical distinction. A substantial percentage of individuals who go Chapter 7 did so because of outrageous uninsured -- or uninsurable -- medical costs. Those folks are stigmatized with terrible credit scores and otherwise shamed but some irresponsible 22-year old who decides to roll the dice in the law school casino is, according to Schrag, making a morally acceptable and socially important choice.
Of course, the critical difference is that one scenario results in Schrag's salary being paid and the other doesn't. - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 7:49 AM
LawProf, I think you're over exaggerating the effect IBR is having on people's decision to go to law school. Have you ever met someone that went to law school because they wanted to be an indentured servant for 25 years? Let me know when you meet that person.
I'm not saying we should have IBR, but I do think it has little impact on someone's decision to go to law school.RepliesWe cannot know how big a factor IBR will be for a few years - but there is no question that law schools are marketing IBR pretty hard.
DeleteI doubt IBR has had much if any effect on anybody's decision to go to law school *yet.* (From my anecdotal observations the large majority of law students still don't even know what IBR is).
But going forward this is going to change. As MacK says law schools are starting to market IBR to prospective students. Schrag's review of Tamanaha's book is basically an advertisement for attending his own vastly overpriced law school with dubious employment outcomes (less than half of GULC's 2011 class got a $60,000 or more job). In other words this is another example of the economic base generating an ideological superstructure which attempts to justify it.- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 8:44 AM
As I mentioned above, law students simply don't think much about cost. All that matters is that my special-snowflake ass has gotten into Cardozo or Catholic or Cooley. That makes me so much better than the hoi polloi. Of course I'll take out those loans! Where do I sign?
Things will change, yes, because word is getting out about prospects upon graduation from a Cardozo, a Catholic, or a Cooley. Prospective students will begin to wonder in greater numbers whether a quarter of a million in non-dischargeable debt makes sense in light of almost certain unemployability or marginal employability in the legal profession. That's why IBR is being so heavily touted as a first rather than a last resort.
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 8:13 AM
I heard Brooklyn Law School Dean Phil Allard state that "education should be a right" at a recent alumni event. Apparently, implicit in that right is the right of Brooklyn Law School to use students as an intermediary for extracting 50,000$ per year from the Federal government.
A Yale grad and Oxford Rhodes Scholar (Allard) discusses the plight of current and recent law school students from the fifth(?) greatest law school in NYC, quite absurd.
It's like Tag Romney talking about how to survive a period of extended unemployment.Replies- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 9:36 AM
Education should be a right?
Well, now that health care is, surely some people will want education on the list too.
Anyone who thinks post-secondary education should be a right should visit a typical German or Italian university. They're chronically underfunded and quality is often ghastly.
IBR is a necessary solution for the actions of law schools - but it should be retroactive. In addition there should be a significant penalty for any law school whose students are obliged to take IBR - my own view is a one to one reduction per year in the number of students that can receive student loans. So if say GULC has 10 students from the class of 2012 on IBR - the number of students from the incoming class that can receive loans that are either federally backed or subject to non-dischargeability in bankruptcy should be reduced to the lower of Class of 2012 minus ten or the most recent incoming class minus ten.
In other words every student on IBR is one less loan.Replies- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 8:31 AM
Yes, but also make sure that the spaces cannot simply be filled by more rich kids for whom Daddy Warbucks is paying every penny (including the half-million-dollar condo and all the vacations to the Turks & Caicos Islands). Take those spaces away altogether.
Delete Take away the loans and the places go away. The rich kids would be there anyway, loan no-loan
Delete- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 8:52 AM
Those spaces are filled from lower-"ranked" law schools. The rich kids who would have gone to an Iowa end up instead at a Georgetown. That gives them "T14" cachet.
Delete - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 9:45 AM
But but but, law schools are committed to training students from low income backgrounds!!!!! Reducing loans wont deter law schools from admitting them!!!!!
-QS No but it will force them to pay for these kids - and will give them a better shot at a good job coming out. With luck (see above) what is a traditional candidate for a junior and partner level position will change to include people form these backgrounds.
Delete- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 10:50 AM
Few law schools will pay for students from these backgrounds, especially now that declining enrollment has left law schools scrambling to fill seats. When the money is drying up, the putative commitment to diversity won't be high on law schools' list of priorities.
Delete - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 7:42 PM
Few law schools pay for these kids now. There is almost no need based aid at any school outside of Harvard. Schools include loans as part of their financial aid we'd.
It is all very disgusting.
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 8:28 AM
What is important to understand is that it is not legal ejookayshun but rather the students who are the product here. Bumblefuck Law Skule does not sell anything to the student; it sells the student herself. She's just an object that is needed in order to suck $150k or so out of the federal government. Seeing her as a customer is wrong.
ReplyDelete it's not really the tution that is being subsidized, it's the schools.. They get the money. but the answer to your question is they should NOT be.. That's the problem. IF the federal goverment was NOT involved the banks would NOT lend this money, it's too risky because the current 1 trillin would be owed to the banks and NOT to the federal goverment.. the Schools would have NO choice but to lower their tution many times over or have emtpy classroms.
ReplyDeleteReplies- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 3:04 PM
This. It's like all the bullshit about Greek bailouts. I've got news for all of you, the bailout has nothing to do with the poor Greeks and everything to do with German and French banks. It's a bank bailout in the sheep's clothing of a bailout for a poor country.
IBR/PAYE are a law school bailout in the sheep's clothing of affordability for students.
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 9:12 AM
Oh No! No! No! No! No!
A Harvard Law Graduate can go on to make a LOT OF MONEY! See here @:3:20
But what do I know? I went to a Jim Dandy fourth tier law school. - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 9:25 AM
Congress should pass a law capping student loans for law school at $20,000 per year.
ReplyDeleteReplies- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 3:06 PM
Yes, this. And they should make private student loans dischargable in bankruptcy after 10 years.
The amount of TTT roadkill would be amazing. And I hope the TTT faculty go into the practice so I can eat their lunch and ruin their lives. I really, really want to litigate against one of those pricks.
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 9:38 AM
There are 2 issues w/ Schrag's and 'et al.'s' analysis, and at least one borders on extreme intellectual dishonesty.
First, to mention IBR as a way to pay for law school without mentioning that it results in extreme increases in interest and one's overall balance is extreme dishonesty. I am currently on IBR and have been (and probably will be my entire life) for the last 2 years. What I get in current discounts cost me an enormous increase overall in my loans - my loans have increased by about $20,000 simply because I am on IBR. To advertise IBR as a way for students to pay for law school w/out mentioning that there will be huge increases in the overall amount due - sometimes increasing the actual loan amount by tens of thousands of dollars - is dishonest, pure and simple. If I handled clients the way Schrag and others are using IBR to market paying for law school, I would be disbarred.
Second, IBR does not preserve access to legal education for the lower and middle incomed populations. Not having to pay loans off is only one cost a new graduate faces. They still have to have a job, a roof over their head, and eat, and IBR does not pay for these. If the legal field still does not have enough jobs, then it will still be a bad investment for individuals to go to law school, even if they are on IBR. Saddling these individuals with debt and no jobs does not help bring access to justice to low income individuals.
If access to justice is a concern (oh, let's stop pretending - gigantic increases in tuition kind of puts a rest to the idea that we even cared about that), there are much better ways to ensure that low and middle incomed individuals have better access to our judicial system. One would be lowering tuition, so that grads did not have to graduate with so much debt and have to see their debt rise exponentially when they are unable to pay it off and using IBR. A second solution would be to invest more in our organizations that serve such populations, so that much-needed jobs could be created there, and, instead of relying on IBR, recent grads could actually be working in the legal field and gaining experience. - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 9:42 AM
In 2011, British banks announced they would stop providing most loans to students pursuing law converstion courses.
(Conversion courses are the 2 years of classroom training for people who didn't major in law as undergrads).
Why? Because the banks said the market for lawyers was saturated and they worried about defaults.
How on earth did America let Britain become more free market than us on this!
-QSRepliesThe oddity is that those pursuing the law conversion courses are our preferred hires....especially with science and engineering undergraduate degrees. We are not keen on BLs
Delete@MacK - As a CPE graduate, I wish more firms had your attitude.
@Anonymous - CPE is 1 year, 2 years is for part-time students.
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 10:37 AM
Say what you like but, Obama said, elections have consequences. Income based repayment has strong bipartisan support. It was created by a republican, George Bush, and made more generous by a democrat, Obama. Neither Paul Ryan nor Romney wanted to dismantle IBR, only to bring it back to the very generous program it was under Bush. Obama is still a strong supporter of PAYE and he does NOT see it as a hardship exemption. In his convention speech he described it as a way people who want to give back can take jobs where they help others (rather than making tons of money) and still pay their loans.
ReplyDeleteRepliesI don't think anyone is arguing that programs like IBR (actually the idea was first put forth under the Reagan admin) or PAYE are intrinsically bad.
It's just that in the present context (unlimited loans given to subsidize the overproduction of undereducated lawyers by overpaid "progressive" faculty) the program will allow law schools to keep raising tuition by ludicrous levels and have the taxpayers eat the unpaid loans.
A bad deal for students, taxpayers, and young workers. A good deal for law professors, administrators, and legal employers.
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 11:39 AM
If the goal is to provide more legal services to Americans who cannot afford them, it is more efficient for the Federal Government to give money directly to legal aid then to provide it to law schools. Of course, average Americans don't want to do that because they always hear a horror story about a client Legal Aid defends, rather than the horror of a bunch of greedy deans and Tenured Law Profs raising their compensation at a rate much higher then the rate of inflation, year after year.
ReplyDelete - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 11:41 AM
10:37 am, you are probably correct that Obama's policy currently has bipartisan support, but it is also a financial disaster for the American taxpayer, and a license for colleges and universities to overcharge.
ReplyDeleteReplies- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 11:58 AM
The federal deficit is over $1 trillion dollars. Total law school tuition is only $3.6 billion. Even over ten years, that will be only $36 billion. So its really just a trival part of overall federal spending. If congress won't fix health care, which is financial disaster, and if states won't fix public employee pensions, I don't think there is any hope of fixing a trival problem like PAYE.
Delete PAYE applies to all higher ed, not just law schools. Total outstanding student loan debt is now over one trillion and rising by about 15% per year. Half of all loans aren't being paid back, either because they're in deferment, forbearance, delinquency, or default.
Law schools are just the canary in the coal mine.
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 11:49 AM
Question: if we "must" finance law school tuition with discretionless government loans, why charge interest?
Let's say we singled out one unfortunate 0L, and saddled him with a (hypothetical) interest rate that added, say, $10 trillion to his balance each year. After 10 or 25 years of IBR, when we discharge the "$100 trillion" that the student "owes," is society really $100 trillion poorer? No, it is not - because it was a made-up amount in the first place.RepliesI see that you've noticed a problem with the modern global financial hypereconomy.
Basically, that a ton of the wealth out there is really phantom wealth that doesn't exist.- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 6:03 PM
I've brought up this interest rate condundrum on other forums before, and invariably get condescended to by some self appointed "econ expert" who lectures me that interest is necessary to pay for the administrative cost of the loan. I still have yet to get a real answer from any of these "experts" as to why the interest rates the government is charging for its loans vary so much from year to year...presumably "administrative costs" would remain pretty much the same.
Delete There's no real reason to charge interest other than the fact that loans customarily have interest.
I note that the interest on short term federal debt is now at zero because that's where the Fed wants it.
Case closed.
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 12:06 PM
Law Prof,
I agreed with your last post, but this is extremely unconvincing.
First off, you concentrate only on law school. But IBR is available to ALL grads, regardless of field. So the question is not whether legal education is a public good, it is whether higher education is a public good. Of course, one could change IBR so it is only available to some graduates and not others, but is there a principled reason to exclude law graduates? It surely isn't better for the American taxpayer to subsidize film majors than future lawyers.
Second, IBR has been around since 2007. IBR can't be blamed for escalating tuition costs, particularly where relatively few graduates were even aware of the program until relatively recently. I also find it highly unlikely that law schools can continue to raise tuition (whether IBR exists or not) given the criticism law schools have received and public awareness concerning the paucity of law jobs.
Third, Schrag points out in his article that virtually every modern industrialized country in the world (and many developing ones) subsidize education (including legal education). These subsidies are often directly provided to institutions but IBR at least has the virtue of being progressive - I.e. folks pay back their loans based on income.
Lastly, isn't the point of this whole blog that law school scams students? If your concern now is that it primarily scams taxpayers, then there are any number of organizations that advocate for budget cuts in education and other areas. Whatever the case, I'm not sure that anger at law schools justifies eliminating a program that makes law school more affordable for the very people you are purporting to help.
Replies- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 2:49 PM
Wow - how many hoops did you jump through to justify that swill? Here let me help you - lets create a system that makes it POSSIBLE for students to pay back their loans and MATCHES the actual cost of educating them and not some never-ending spigot that law schools can draw from based on whatever they say they need. Or is that you're a lawprof that directly benefits from their scam?
Also, you think it benefoits a poor student to be in debt for an amount they can never pay off or get our from under for 20 years? You're an idiot. - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 3:04 PM
Very insightful, 2:49. I particularly like the "here let me help you" followed by your very specific solution.
Let's say IBR is killed tomorrow. Is that going to help current law students? How about law graduates with huge debt loads? What's your alternative - allow students to declare bankruptcy so that their credit is ruined for at least 10 years?
- AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 3:11 PM
Yes, fuck the lawprof masquerading as a student. You are evil. Go to hell.
Delete - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 7:29 PM
I think this guy has a point. The scam movement can't rely too heavily on the argument that law school is saddling students with soul crushing, life ruining debt. IBR effectively solves that problem. There is no point in pretending otherwise.
But that doesn't mean law schools aren't scamming students. They continue to sell false hope for a career as a lawyer. Most law students will not have careers as lawyers. Until law schools start making that clear, they are scamming students. - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 7:50 PM
IBR doesn't make law school more affordable. IBR makes law school a 20 year weight on the young. It does nothing to reduce the actual debt taken out by a student for 20 years.
To say it makes school more affordable means that it affects the price. iBR just spreads out the time until you get hit with a tax bomb for that price.
Schrag points out in his article that virtually every modern industrialized country in the world (and many developing ones) subsidize education (including legal education).
But those countries (for the most part) take account of the needs of their economies. If there are too many say art historians they tell the colleges they will not let the art history department grow.
That is why I point out that the US student loan system is oxymoronic - it is a state finance system in which the state refuses because of the "free market" to say how many graduates in what disciplines it is willing to intervene to create. It is frankly crazy.
In a state financed system there would be a lot fewer JDs.Replies- terry malloyDecember 2, 2012 at 12:23 PM
Similar to heath care, this country's education system combines the basest profiteering of capitalism and the worst inefficiencies of socialism. In the middle, the bleeting sheep 0L that hasn't figured out that he's on the menu. Sad.
Delete - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 12:33 PM
Exactly: the system is criminally wasteful and destructive. Limit admission to JD (and other) programs by the needs of the economy.
Delete I think there is a profound belief that no social or economic problem currently exists that cannot be solved by the creation of more lawyers.
Because only the profession of law contains grandeur and majesty.
Or something like that.
- Unemployed NortheasternDecember 2, 2012 at 12:15 PM
Another law professor has joined our ranks, everybody! John Kramer wrote this law review article I stumbled across yesterday: "Will Legal Education Remain Affordable, By Whom, and How?" in the Duke Law Journal. http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2980&context=dlj
Selected highlights from the article:
"Law schools for the last twenty years have been testing the elasticity
of demand for their product. As tuition has increased each year, outpacing
even the rate of inflation, law schools have been pressing toward the
point where significant numbers of college graduates may decide that it
makes good economic sense to seek less expensive forms of graduate education
or forgo additional credentials altogether."
"Without the intervention of federal government in the 1970's, legal
education as we know it today would not exist. Law schools, which
serve the needs of clients who are predominantly corporations or wealthy
individuals, are essentially socialized institutions."
"Law students are, pound-for-pound, the most vigorous loan program
users. They represent only slightly over 9% of all of the students
enrolled part-time or full-time in graduate and professional education 57
and less than 1% of all of the students involved in higher education,5
but they consumed 3.3% of all [...] loans awarded in [...]"
"The more
substantial and legitimate objection to increased loan limits, whether
those limits be raised to $[x dollars] or $[y dollars], stems from concern about
jeopardizing students' capacity to manage debt. It is feared that a heavy
debt burden may result in either unbearable pressure to seek out a job in
one of the highest paying large law firms, failure to save, or outright
This fear has some basis. Debt burdens are high and mounting.
Some young and even middle-aged attorneys may well find their debt
burdens impossible to handle. Debt burdens could-and the emphasis
has to be on "could"-significantly affect career choices, family formation,
and capital investment."
"Can a beginning attorney earning $[x dollars] a year readily sustain that
kind of debt? The answer is "no" if the repayment period is restricted to
a ten-year term. Even if the first-year lawyer obtains one of the most
lucrative job offers in New York or Washington, D.C., debt repayment
within a ten-year period would prove difficult."
"Again it must be borne in mind that half of the graduates will be earning less
than $66,000."
"Whether or not debt levels are manageable, repayment itself may
substantially affect the lifestyles and choices of graduates, with adverse
effects reflected, in turn, in the numbers and quality of future law school
This article was written in 1987. NINETEEN HUNDRED AND F*CKING EIGHTY SEVEN. 1987.
There's even an anticipatory dig at IBR: "Leading studies of debt manageability indicate that no borrower
can afford to repay educational debt in excess of 15% of pretax
income (some studies suggest that 6% might be high) or 8% of posttax income"
The highly prescient last sentence of the article:
"Law school will likely remain affordable in 2000 or 2003 in the sense
that 118,000 selected individuals will be able to meet the bills when due
with parental or federal checks, school credits, or banked earnings. Nevertheless,
we have good reason to worry about the quality of legal education,
the composition of the profession, and the lifestyles and goals of
attorneys." - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 1:35 PM
Just another article on the bubble:
http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/student-loan-debt-bubble/2012/11/30/id/465996 - AnonymousDecember 2, 2012 at 3:20 PM
What is the cost of law school in 2015 at a private school? What is the cost of law school in 2015 at a public school?
A: It was a trick question. They cost the same -- 10 percent for 20 years.
What is the most competitive law job in 2015?
A: Any paying government job. What? you thought I'd say Cravath?
I don't have a financial calculator at my disposal right now, but I'd bet dollars to dimes that a $35,000 per year job as an citywide assistant welfare lawyer, junior level, is a better gig over a 10 year long period than a $70,000 private firm salary. Why? Well after 10 years the public lawyer is discharged, tax free. The private lawyer still must pay 10 percent for the next decade and then get a hell of a bill from the IRS at the end. Neville High School, Louisiana State University, and LSU Law School does n't charge much more... Personal injury lawyer
ReplyDelete- AnonymousDecember 3, 2012 at 6:34 AM
If we had attorney jobs for grads, I would not have an issue with subsidizing the education. Unfortunately, many law grads end up in non-legal or even legal-related career paths for which the degree is not required. Thus, creating a personal tragedy for them ($ and time loss) and an outrageous and unnecessary social cost and a real money cost to our country.
ReplyDelete - AnonymousDecember 3, 2012 at 6:51 AM
Is it me, or does this mean IBR is the best alternative for even the luckiest grads, for at least the first several years? I'm assuming a 2016 grad comes out with debt at $200,000 and gets a BigLaw job for, say, $180,000 (hard to imagine huge raises for starting salaries in the next couple years). My back of the envelope calculation puts the conventional payment at about $2,300 a month and the IBR payment as about $1,300 a month.
Granted, if you make partner in seven years that changes things. Are those (i.e. people who make partner at biglaw) the only people who will actually repay their law school loans? Law Prof:
You said
"Now Schrag et, al. might reply that there is actually an under-supply of lawyers in America, given that a huge amount of the potential demand for legal services among middle class and poor people goes unmet. But this is a demand-side problem: it has nothing at all to do with how many people have law degrees, and everything to do with the fact that the large majority of Americans don't have enough discretionary income to pay for more that the most occasional and basic legal services, if that."
You're wrong about this. If people argue--rightly, in my view--that the barriers to entering the legal profession drive up the cost of legal services because the supply of lawyers is artificially restricted, that's a classic "supply-side problem." That is to say, if we liberalized JD requirements and the bar exam, far more people could become attorneys, and the cost of legal services would go down.
The better argument is to say that focusing solely on the quantity of JD's in the market is focusing on the wrong supply-side problem. You correctly point out that subsidizing legal education does little to make legal services more affordable. Why? It's because even those people who get cheap degrees and are willing to provide low-cost services still face onerous restrictions on how they provide those services: "ethics" rules (what Orwellian phraseology...) that prevent lawyers from sharing fees with nonlawyers. These rules prevent big institutions (H&R Block, Walmart?) from offering legal services in a high-volume, low-cost way.
An example of a "demand-side" problem is the biglaw contraction in the last few years. M&A revenues haven't imploded because the cost of M&A legal services is too high. Rather, M&A revenue is down because the economy is depressed and companies simply aren't doing many mergers. When the recovery picks up, M&A work will rebound. THAT's a demand-side economic issue.- AnonymousDecember 3, 2012 at 5:49 PM
Income Based Repayment and Paye As You Earn:
Come, sheeplings, and come join the MAJORITY of law school students. - AnonymousDecember 3, 2012 at 7:51 PM
For the small lawyer what drives up cases is the following. When you take a case, you have to charge a retainer fee, often sizable, because once you appear in court, Judges will typically not allow you to withdraw from cases if your client stops paying. They do this, because there is an epidemic of pro-se litigants with whom they hate to deal with. So Judges will try to keep a lawyer on the case, no matter how badly in arrears his client is. To protect yourself that means you have to charge more money up front.
ReplyDelete - AnonymousDecember 11, 2012 at 7:29 PM
Many things flow from the realization that a law school education is not a public good. Once you place a law school education on the same plane as buying an expensive sports car, the question is why should the taxpayer support it AT ALL?
For example, why should the government be guaranteeing student loans? If someone wants to buy a Ferrari, the government does not subsidize those car loans. Arguably, there might be a public purpose in supporting the auto industry -- just as much as supporting the higher education industry. Why should it subsidize law school loans?
By the same token, why should the state be operating law schools? Why should the taxpayers of the State of Colorado, for example, be footing the bill to support the University of Colorado School of Law. Couldn't that valuable space in downtown Boulder be put to better public uses? Like a dog park?
The analogy to sports cars is apt. The main thing that owning a $200,000 sports car gets you is prestige, in fact, probably far more prestige than a law school degree. And you could probably get just as much prestige with a Porche or a Corvette, for considerably less than the cost of a law school education. And if you can't afford the car, you can always sell it. Or dischage the car loan in bankruptcy. I need to to thank you for ones time due to this fantastic read!! I definitely liked every part of it and Regards for this marvelous post.
School Places AppealOf course, average Americans don't want to do that because they always hear a horror story about a client Legal Aid defends, rather than the horror of a bunch of greedy deans and Tenured Law Profs raising their compensation at a rate much higher then the rate of inflation, year after year.
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Oracle FAQ | Your Portal to the Oracle Knowledge Grid |
Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> Collaboration Suite
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text:
Independent solar power efforts are growing rapidly. With a number of businesses providing unique, online-coordinated installation options, individuals and small businesses are adopting the technology. And part of the new rate of adoption is thanks to local government grants.
Many cities and states give citizens large grants to bear some of the capital brunt of buying solar panels. These grants are in essence a big tax break as the consumer will typically make a good deal of money of the solar panels in their lifetime. They are the alternative energy version of the business world's small business grants.
This Tuesday, San Francisco looked to keep the good times rolling and put some green back its citizens' pockets with the approval of a massive new grant campaign. Solar panel manufacturers and installers received the news with giddy anticipation and are preparing for the new boom.
For the next ten years, citizens can get $3,000 to $6,000 in a one-time grant to install panels. Both businesses and charities are also receiving some solar love. Businesses and nonprofits can get $10,000 grants, while nonprofit affordable housing can get up to a whopping $30,000. Mayor Gavin Newsom states, "This rebate program further establishes San Francisco as America's solar energy leader and symbolizes the commitment of the city to make affordable solar power available to those who want it."
The mayor says the program should launch this July and will only cost the city $3 million yearly. He says the benefits are far reaching and go beyond just putting money back in the hands of consumers and businesses in energy cost savings. Newsom says the program will attract businesses and will grow green jobs.
If San Francisco can really pull of the green transformation it will be a significant accomplishment. In the green-savvy California, San Francisco has traditionally been somewhat of a laughing stock of the alternative energy community. The city was ranked last in the Bay Area by a recent assessment by the San Francisco Solar Task Force. Of the city's 195,000 rooftops, only 744 had solar panels, less than 1 percent.
The mayor hopes that the new efforts will panel nearly 10,000 rooftops over the decade, or roughly 5 percent of the city's rooftops. If successful, this would produce around 50 MW of power.
Lyndon Rive, CEO of installer SolarCity, whom Global Tech News recently reported on, is thrilled by the effort. He anticipates the number of panels tripling and as the city's largest solar installer; he's in prime position for success. With 40 current employees his company is expanding with a "green" job training initiative in a low-income part of the city. Rive complements the new program stating, "It's simple, easy to understand, and easy to implement."
While his company offered solar leasing, he acknowledges that this strategy was not as cost effective and that most citizens couldn't afford it. Now between city, state, and federal tax credits, rebates, and grants, an average consumer who would have paid $30,000 for panels can pay a mere $6,000. Kevin Gage, sales director for San Diego-based installer Borrego Solar states, "This is just gonna spur the industry. The market was essentially shut down in San Francisco. Now a lot of companies like ours are gonna move into San Francisco."
Ironically the approval was announced the same day San Francisco utility Pacific Gas & Electric announced a 6.5 percent electricity rate hiking on surging fossil fuel costs. San Franciscan Sylvia Ventura is excited about the relief the move may provide her fellow citizens, but she's a bit fearful that the myriad of installers will confuse them. She states, "This business was done for a long time in the shadows and some installers took advantage of people being intimidated by the data, not understanding metering, wattage, and what to pay."
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Whether the new grant program is a glowing success or just a modest one, at the end of the day its putting money back in the hands of the hardworking tax payer. With rising energy and food costs, the consumer in San Francisco will finally get to see some light.


text:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon and nice to say time for sports.
SIMON: The U.S. Open full swing. We've seen a curtain call for James Blake, an early exit by Venus Williams, a glitter of greatness from Victoria Duval and Serena Williams star burning bright as ever. For the latest from Blushing Meadows we turn to Howard Bryant of ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine. He joins us from his studios of the Radio Foundation in New York City. Howard, thanks for being with us.
HOWARD BRYANT: Thank you. Good morning, Scott.
SIMON: And before we get to tennis, which you have been covering assiduously this week, let me ask about that NFL settlement. The lawsuit for former NFL players was settled out of court. It's alleged that the NFL hid evidence about the long-term effects of brain injuries. The league has agreed to pay $765 million to the players. That sounds like a lot of money, but divided up to so many thousands, is it?
BRYANT: It doesn't seem like a lot of money and I think what surprised me - two things surprised me most about that settlement: 1) was that they didn't go further because there are so many players who have so much evidence that the players were told for years that concussion could not hurt them and they were told that they didn't have access to their own medical records and maybe that's part of the reason why they decided to agree to this settlement because there's very little actual real paper trail.
I think the part that was more disturbing, however, was the fact that in this settlement, the NFL did not acknowledge any wrongdoing and I think that's very hard for anybody who's been around these players and I think it goes back to this deal that we make with this sport, that we're going to enjoy it, profit off of it, and yet these players are completely fungible. It's very disturbing, but I hope at some point what the settlement does is give peace to some of the people who are involved in it.
SIMON: Yeah. Do they get a settlement like that by saying to the players, look you'll be tied up for ten years in court, take this now?
BRYANT: Exactly. There's a silencing going on here and I think that when you're the stage that some of these players are at, I think that maybe they said, you know what, maybe this is the best deal we're going to get, and maybe they didn't have the stamina to go forward because they've been fighting this for so long without resolution.
SIMON: Let me ask you about the U.S. Open. James Blake got a nice standing ovation.
BRYANT: And well deserved. James Blake is one of the consummate ambassadors of American tennis. We've talked about how there's no Sampras and Agassi and McEnroe in American tennis, has been down from its previous pedigree and its history, but James Blake was a terrific player, retired after 14 years, was ranked No. 4 in the world in 2006. Only Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick were ranked higher as Americans in the past decade.
One of the last players on the last American team to win the Davis Cup in 2007 and he's clearly one of those players who was another victim of having played in the Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer years. If those guys weren't there I think we might have seen a lot more championships from James Blake. Well deserved for him.
SIMON: Now, I suspect we're going to get plenty of chance to talk about Serena Williams later in the tournament, but let me ask you about Victoria Duval. Seventeen years old, defeating Samantha Stosur, a former champion, in the first round. Wow, that was nice to see.
BRYANT: And it's what the tournament's all about. When you come to the U.S. Open, you want some form of magic. It's a great New York tournament and Victoria Duval, doing what she did on the court over at Armstrong just captivated everybody. It was fascinating stuff to see a 17-year-old have so much poise. I mean, this isn't the era of Andrea Jaeger and Tracey Austin anymore. Teenagers don't win at this level anymore and so what she did, it was the magic of the tournament and they went out, she lost her next match to Daniela Hantuchová.
She's got a huge future and the American women are in much, much better shape than the men. They're outstanding.
SIMON: Howard Bryant, thanks so much.
BRYANT: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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How to make salt dough:
- 1 cup salt
- 1 cup plain flour
- Up to 1 cup of water (add gradually)
- Combine the salt and flour then pour in the water gradually, stopping when it has become dough-like and not too sticky. There should be no residue left on your fingers when you touch it. Knead it on a floured surface for a few minutes to make it soft, workable and stretchy, like you would with any dough. This step is wonderful for strengthening those small hand muscles essential for writing and cutting!
Choose a range of cookie cutter shapes and simply cut straight from the dough. We used Christmas trees, stars and hearts. Poke a straw through the centre, near the top, of each shape so that ribbon can be threaded through later.
Lay them on some greaseproof or baking paper and on a baking tray. Cook them on a VERY low heat (around 100 degrees C/ 202 F) for up to 3 hours. If the shapes are over 1cm thick then they will probably need to be turned over during cooking.
It is VERY important not to have the oven on too high. This will cause the salt dough to bubble up and fill with air, as essentially it is being cooked. What you are really aiming for is to dry them out thoroughly, over a slow period of time.
As soon as they are out of the oven they can be left to cool while your child chooses which colours and decorations to add! We used acrylic paints which adhere to the dough really successfully. Ordinary water-based children's paint does work, but the colours are not as vibrant and the paint can flake off eventually. The acrylics work as a sealant and keep the colours strong and beautiful!
Once the paint is dry, spread on some PVA (runny) glue and sprinkle over some glitter for a wonderfully Christmassy effect!
We have also tried adding sequins and buttons, which make gorgeous alternatives!
When they are dry, thread through with thin ribbon or twine and hang on the tree! You can write the date in the back to remember when they were made too, adding a special memory to the occasion.
If you liked this idea, please share it via Facebook, StumbleUpon, Pinterest or Tumblr! Thank You.
Why not try making footprint and handprint keepsakes too?
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Did you see Jimi Hendrix in concert? Did you meet Jimi Hendrix or have the opportunity to interview him or have some other unique, first-person encounter with Jimi Hendrix? If so, Experience Hendrix wants to hear from you.
Jimi Hendrix
Did you see Jimi Hendrix in concert? Did you meet Jimi Hendrix or have the opportunity to interview him or have some other unique, first-person encounter with Jimi Hendrix? If so, Experience Hendrix wants to hear from you.
The Experience play Paul Sauve Arena, supported by Soft Machine and Olivus. During the 46-minute performance, the band performs "Killing Floor," "Hey Joe," "Fire," "The Wind Cries Mary," "Foxey Lady," "I Don't Live Today," "Manic Depression," "Purple Haze," and "Wild Thing."
On the day Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated, The Experience play two shows at The Civic Dome in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Upon hearing of the black leader's death, Hendrix and the band return immediately to New York. Hendrix is interviewed by Joseph V. Phillips for an April 6 story in The Virginia Pilot. Noel Redding is photographed on stage during The Jimi Hendrix Experience's April 4, 1968 performance at the Civic Dome in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Photo: Lorette Geary / © Authentic Hendrix, LLC
assassinated Live Martin Luther King Jr The Civic Dome the experience Virginia Virginia Beach
The Jimi Hendrix Experience are scheduled to play at the Symphony Hall in Newark, New Jersey. After playing one improvisation that he dedicated to the slain activist, Hendrix left the stage. He later jammed with Buddy Guy at Generation in New York City.
Buddy Guy Live New Jersey New York City Newark Symphony Hall The Jimi Hendrix Experience
The Experience play Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York.
Live new york the experience Westchester County Center White Plains
Hendrix jams with Roy Buchanan at the Generation Club (52 West 8th Street) in New York. Although not performing with Hendrix, other bands performing tonight include Buddy Guy and Janis Joplin and Big Brother. Monterey Pop filmmaker, D.A. Pennebaker filmed the jam sessions and later released the short documentary, Wake At Generation which includes one of the jam numbers by Hendrix.
Big Brother Generation Club Hendrix Janis Joplin Live Monterey Pop new york Roy Buchanan
At New York's Drake Hotel (East 56th Street), Hendrix records 36-minutes of demos in his room, including: "Long Hot Summer Night," "1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)," "Moon Turn The Tides … Gently, Gently Away," "Angel," "Cherokee Mist," "Hear My Train A Comin'," "Voodoo Chile," and "Gypsy Eyes." Eleven minutes of recordings including "Angel," "1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)," and "Moon Turn The Tides … Gently, Gently Away" are broadcast on the Bob Harris Show on BBC Radio 1 on November 13, 1992.
Hendrix jams at The Generation with Elvin Bishop (guitar), Buzzy Feiton (bass), Phillip Wilson (drums), Don Martin (guitar), Al Kooper (organ), and Paul Butterfield (harmonica).
Al Kooper Buzzy Feiton Don Martin Elvin Bishop Hendrix Live Paul Butterfield Phillip Wilson The Generation
Chris Welch interviews Mitch Mitchell for Melody Maker. The piece is published on April 20.
Smash Hits is released in the United Kingdom (Track, 613 400). The album includes: "Purple Haze," "Fire," "The Wind Cries Mary," "Can You See Me," "51st Anniversary," "Hey Joe," "Stone Free," "The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice," "Manic Depression," "Highway Chile," "Burning Of The Midnight Lamp," and "Foxy Lady."
51st Anniversary Can You See Me Fire hey joe Purple Haze Releases Smash Hits Stone Free The Wind Cries Mary United Kingdom
Peter Goodman of Beat Instrumental conducts a phone interview with Hendrix. The interview is published in May.
Beat Instrumental Hendrix interview Interviews Peter Goodman
Derek Boltwood interviews Hendrix for Record Mirror. The story is published the following month.
The Experience record "Long Hot Summer Night" at The Record Plant (321 West 44th Street) in New York. Al Kooper later overdubs piano on the track. It was during this session that Hendrix gave Kooper his Stratocaster, (See Issue #5, page 6, 'None Take Hendrix Strat' for details on recent Auction featuring this guitar).
Al Kooper Long Hot Summer Night new york Recording the experience the Record Plant
For three days, the band rehearses and records "Little Miss Strange" at The Record Plant. The track is first recorded under the title, "Lilacs For Captain Curry's Coffin" (or "Little Miss Strange Test Session"). On the second day of recordings, the song takes it's final naming incarnation, "Little Miss Strange."
Lilacs For Captain Curry's Coffin Little Miss Strange Recording the Record Plant
In addition to the final recordings for Redding's "Little Miss Strange," five recordings of "1983… (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)" were laid to tape. Overdubs a rough mixes were also developed for "Three Little Bears" and "Gypsy Eyes."
1983… (A Merman I Should Turn To Be) Gypsy Eyes Little Miss Strange Recording Three Little Bears
Redding's four-hour sessions at The Record Plant resulted in the addition of additional acoustic guitars to "Little Miss Strange."
Back at The Record Plant, this emotionally trying session for the group resulted in several takes of "Gypsy Eyes" for which little progress was seen.
The debut of Peter Green's film, See My Music Talking (aka Experience) is shown at the Montreaux International Film Festival in Switzerland.
Media Montreaux International Film Festival Peter Green See My Music Talking Switzerland
Hendrix and Mitchell record 41 takes of "Gypsys Eyes" at The Record Plant. Later that night Redding prepares a rough mix of "Little Miss Strange" and also additional rhythm parts onto the April 20th master tape of "Little Miss Strange."
Gypsys Eyes Little Miss Strange Recording Redding the Record Plant


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Suzanne Keller
Sociologist Suzanne Keller, who conducted pioneering research on elite life and on community in America, and was the first woman to earn a tenured faculty position at Princeton University.
Keller, a professor emeritus of sociology, retired in 2004 after 38 years at Princeton. A dedicated teacher and mentor with an extensive range of scholarly interests, she was the author of several books, including two -- published 40 years apart -- that are regarded as pathbreaking works in her field: Beyond the Ruling Class: Strategic Elites in Modern Society (1963), which is an examination of the elite power structure in America, and Community: Pursuing the Dream, Living the Reality (2003), an account of her three decades of close observation of change in a New Jersey housing community.
"Suzanne Keller leaves behind an exceptional professional and personal legacy," said Viviana Zelizer, Princeton's Lloyd Cotsen '50 Professor of Sociology. "Brilliant, charismatic, generous, she was not only an expert in the study of communities but a gifted builder of social ties. She forged enduring connections with colleagues, students and friends.
"As a scholar, Professor Keller is considered one of sociology's most distinguished students of elites, inequality, gender and community life in the United States," Zelizer added. "She was deeply committed to the highest standards of scholarship. Her intellectual range was exceptionally broad; she refused the confinement of a single discipline and was at ease not only with sociology but with a variety of social science and humanistic ideas."
Zelizer said she was fortunate to be Keller's friend for more than 35 years. "As a teacher and mentor she was unparalleled," Zelizer said. "She took great pride in her carefully crafted lectures and in her close advising of students, both undergraduates and graduates. She did not just instruct but inspire."
A Princeton pioneer
After holding research and teaching positions at several institutions, Keller came to Princeton as a visiting lecturer in sociology in 1966. Two years later, she became the first woman to receive tenure at the University when she was named a professor of sociology.
Keller's research and teaching topics included social stratification, social architecture, the family, community, and elites and leadership. In addition to her diverse interests within the sociology department, she played a major role in promoting women's studies first as an academic subject and then, in 1981, as a formally constituted Princeton program. She taught the University's first course on gender and society during the early 1970s.
"Like 'The Man Who Came to Dinner,' I was the woman who came to Princeton," she said in a 1990 interview with The Daily Princetonian student newspaper.
Nancy Weiss Malkiel, Princeton's dean of the college and a professor of history, said, "As the first woman appointed to a tenured professorship at Princeton, Suzanne Keller holds a unique position in the history of the University. As a remarkable scholar, teacher and mentor, and a wise and generous colleague, she holds a special place in the lives and hearts of generations of Princetonians. After I joined the faculty in 1969 as one of Princeton's first two women assistant professors, I turned to Suzanne often for guidance and counsel. For 40 years, I have looked up to her, learned from her and cherished her friendship."
Undergraduate coeducation was introduced at Princeton in 1969, a year after Keller received tenure. Interviewed for a 1986 book titled "Conversations on the Character of Princeton," she reflected upon the changes at the University during her time on the faculty: "Now there is a freer spirit, which I like better," she said. "It's more ecumenical. There is more wit, humor, less pretentiousness. It's more improvisational."
That same spirit, colleagues and former students noted, could be attributed to Keller. She "was elegant, stylish, sophisticated, cosmopolitan and worldly," according to Malkiel
D. Michael Lindsay, an assistant professor of sociology at Rice University who earned his Ph.D. at Princeton in 2006 under Keller's guidance, said, "I had a very deep love for her, and her intellectual influence on me was significant. Suzanne was a trailblazer throughout her career. She had this capacious intellect -- she was interested in everything from architecture to housing communities to elite life to sociology of the family to education to politics. She was knowledgeable on thousands of different subjects."
In fall 2002, Lindsay served as a preceptor for Keller's popular undergraduate course on "Elites, Leadership and Society," which enrolled hundreds of Princeton students over the years.
"What I loved most about her is that she was a whole person -- that she was this amazing scholar who had advanced sociology on many different fronts throughout her career, but she got to know her students in a very personal way. It was important to her, for example, even when she was teaching 120 undergraduates, to know those students by name. I remember us practicing some of those names when I was precepting for her so she could remember them," he said.
In addition, "she befriended her graduate students like they were family. I had dinner with Suzanne countless times," Lindsay said. "It's a tremendous loss. She was a wonderful person."
An influential scholar
A defining aspect of Keller's scholarly career was her research on elites and leadership, most notably her book Beyond the Ruling Class, which helped inspire serious inquiry on the topic within her field.
"She was one of the few people who attempted to look at the history of elites and what function they played in society," said Robert Wuthnow, Princeton's Gerhard R. Andlinger '52 Professor of Social Sciences and chair of the sociology department.
Keller "argued against the prevailing idea that power was held by a very small group of people who were united by class cohesion and similar backgrounds," said Lindsay, who currently is conducting a systematic survey of top American leaders. "She challenged that whole interpretation, and said actually it's far more complicated, that we live in a society that has a number of different sectors. It was a pathbreaking book because it helped set the agenda of elite interpretation throughout the 1960s and 1970s."
Pursuing another major area of interest, in the 1970s Keller embarked on an ambitious project to study Twin Rivers, a housing complex with 10,000 residents in nearby East Windsor, N.J. For her book Community, Keller monitored how residents forged the political and social institutions to meet the diverse needs of a middle-class population. By observing town meetings and recreational sites, conducting hundreds of interviews and studying records, Keller revealed how the residents learned to share, relate to neighbors, cope with social conflict and develop ideas for the common good.
The study was important, Keller noted in a 2004 interview with the Princeton Weekly Bulletin, in showing "that each of us needs to transcend our own lives because all of our lives depend on other people all the time. At Twin Rivers, people learned that they are important contributors to the community and that they needed to have a sense of connectedness to a larger framework."
Jerold Kayden, the Frank Backus Williams Professor of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard University, said, "The book combined the empirical and the theoretical to produce a very important work that offered us terrific insights into what this odd, contested word 'community' means."
Keller's other books included The Urban Neighborhood (1968), The Social Origins and Career Lines of Three Generations of the American Business Elite (1980), Building for Women (1980) and The American Dream of Family (1991), as well as a widely taught textbook, Sociology (1983).
Keller worked during various phases of her career in departments of psychiatry, architecture and planning, as well as sociology. At Princeton, she taught in the School of Architecture for 10 years. She also served as a consultant to industry and government agencies in areas such as housing and new communities, and family and gender issues.
A worldly view
Keller was born Suzanne Infeld on April 16, 1927, in Vienna, Austria. She moved to New York City and became an American citizen as a child.
A graduate of Hunter College, she earned her Ph.D. in sociology in 1953 from Columbia University. In 1994, in her late 60s, she earned a master of social work degree from Rutgers University.
Prior to joining the Princeton faculty, she held research and teaching positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, City College of New York, Brandeis University, New York University, New York Medical College, Vassar College and the Athens Institute.
During her graduate studies, Keller conducted public opinion research in Paris and worked as an interpreter and researcher for a U.S. Air Force project in Munich. In the 1960s, she conducted public opinion and market research in several European countries, analyzing attitude surveys of American and European elites and studying intelligence measurement among children of different social classes and racial backgrounds, among other topics.
Keller spoke several languages and traveled widely in Europe and the Middle East. She lectured frequently throughout the United States and Europe.
"Suzanne's glowing community extends from the small world of a Princeton seminar to the cosmopolitan world of two continents," said Zelizer, who organized a retirement ceremony for her colleague in 2004 that Keller instead dubbed a "graduation ceremony."
After her retirement, Keller traveled frequently with her husband of 30 years, Charles Haar, who is Harvard's Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law Emeritus.
"Suzanne continued to do what she always did, to be as engaged as always with a voracious intellectual appetite for everything political, cultural and social," said Kayden, a longtime friend of Keller and Haar. "She had a wonderful way of engaging with people and events and recasting them, questioning them, pushing to wonder why they occurred. That's what she was about."
In a 1972 interview with the Princeton Alumni Weekly about her experience as a faculty member who had a groundbreaking role at the University, Keller said, "I always wanted to have an interesting life, not a career, not a profession. … I love to write. I love to travel. I thought of journalism, but wanted to have time to explore issues deeply."
"My ambition was to do interesting things," Keller said. "I've realized it."
My beloved Suzie.... there was not a day- not even one day, since you left, that I didn't think of you... this world without you feels so strange...I don't know how to live anymore... I miss you so much! so, so much!


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50 Worst Album Covers Ever
There comes a point in media production when the quality of content is so bad, it's good. This rule definitely applies to the worst album covers ever produced by modern music.
In an age of glossy, hi-definition photography, looking at the cheesy, low-rent images on these hilariously awful albums is a refreshing blast from the past. After reviewing our choices for 'Worst Album Covers,' you too will be transported back to a time of unfortunate pastels and copious facial hair.
So, while the artistically-inclined can appreciate and admire the masterpieces featured on the list of '50 Beautiful Album Covers' from our pals at Diffuser, we think the internet faithful who appreciate found cheesiness will gravitate more to our list of the "worst" covers, embrace them and turn them into the hilarious memes.
Click below to see the 50 worst album covers of all time. We may not remember their music, but we'll never forget their handsome mugs.


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This is the story of a well-known man, fearless in most respects, who was afraid of the dentist. Even though his fears had resulted in neglect and serious damage to his teeth, modern dentistry and a talented dental team were able to restore his smile to health. If you share this fear, his story may inspire you to take action.
We're talking about William Perry, former defensive lineman and fullback for the Chicago Bears. Here is a man who could fearlessly face a football squad — but not a visit to the dentist. Nicknamed "The Refrigerator" for his 380-pound massive frame, Perry played for ten years in the NFL before retiring in 1994. Since retiring he founded and operated a construction company in South Carolina in addition to making celebrity appearances.
With his celebrity in mind, a team composed of a talented restorative dentist, implant surgeon, and lab technician agreed to give "The Fridge" a makeover. After discussing modern technology and virtually pain-free dentistry with him, they managed to overcome Perry's fears. "I had been in constant pain for many years and I neglected myself, not having had any dental care for over 20 years, not even emergency care. Unfortunately, as I grew older my teeth started to get loose," Perry told an interviewer. He had lost many teeth and became known for his gap-toothed smile.
Perry had severe gum disease and many of his remaining teeth were loose. In the past his only option would have been a full set of dentures. But his new dental team was able to place dental implants (permanent tooth replacements) supporting fixed bridges. In most cases dental bridges are attached to healthy teeth, but in Perry's case the implants served as anchors for the bridges. They also stabilized his jawbone, which would otherwise "resorb" or melt away after his teeth were lost. This is important because it helps preserve the contours of his face.
After careful planning "The Fridge" had eight dental implants placed in his upper jaw and seven in his lower. The final bridgework was completed four months later. It turned out that even though the gap between his teeth had become his trademark, "the Fridge" never really liked it. He was thrilled with his new smile.
Even if you have some fears, don't hesitate to follow Perry's example and make an appointment with us for a consultation about dental implants, smile makeovers, or bridgework. For more information about William "The Refrigerator" Perry, see the Dear Doctor magazine article "How Immediate Implants Saved 'Refrigerator' Perry's Smile."