Dad, You'd Better Cough Up Some Money so I can go to College and Pursue my Hobby!

Wow... I wish I thought of this.  Let's start with one of my stupid anecdotal stories.  When I was 12, I was already very book smart with straight "A's."  Because my parents are immigrants, I thought I should set them straight on my plans.  One day, I said to my mother, "Are you saving money for me to go to college, because I'm going.  You know that right?"  Mom said, "SURE, I am."  Years later, my financial package said that I would have to pull out loans because my family was middle-class, not poor.  I did receive some scholarships, but it didn't cover the full amount (and I lived at home to save money).  I showed the bill for tuition to my mother, and she said, "What do you want me to do with this?  I'm done. I paid for everything until you were 18."  I thought I warned her!?

Well, apparently, another girl didn't trust her parents to do the right thing.  As part of her parents' divorce in 2004, her father, a real estate developer, agreed to pay for education costs for his three children until they were 25 years old.  The father must have been less than trustworthy, because the daughter followed up by having her dad sign a separate contract, wherein he agreed to pay for her college tuition and car insurance payments until she was 25, provided that she tried her best to get loans.  He agreed to co-sign for these loans. 

He bailed.  No surprise.  So, she sued and won! 

Dana finished up school and then filed a breach of contract lawsuit in New Haven Superior Court against her father for failing to pay for her senior year of college.

The father represented himself in a two-day trial. He argued that Dana breached their agreement by not making reasonable efforts to apply for student loans, by failing to attend classes full time and by not providing him with receipts for tuition and other school-related expenses.

Howard Soderberg also filed a counterclaim alleging that his daughter dropped courses and pocketed the refunds. He also said she spent money that was supposed to go toward textbooks on personal items.
Attorney Berman said Dana was an art major and needed expensive art supplies for her classes. She said her father was typically late in making tuition payments, which often forced Dana to drop out of certain classes.
Judge Trial Referee William L. Hadden Jr. issued a written opinion earlier this month, ruling that father and daughter had a legitimate contract, that Dana proved to be the more credible party in the lawsuit, and that the father had breached the agreement.
"The plaintiff has proven that she has performed all of her obligations as set forth …" wrote Hadden. "The defendants have failed to prove the claims set forth in their special defenses and in Howard's counterclaim."
Berman said damages totaled around $47,000, including the loan, interest, attorney fees and missed car insurance payments. Berman did not anticipate an appeal.

So, I think this girl's vengeance is misguided.  Why did one year of tuition cost so much for an art major? 
Why not sue Southern Connecticut State for being so damn expensive.  Unreal.  Her father should have counter sued for her pursuing a bullshit major.

A Must Read Letter

A BIDER fan sent in a letter that is a must read. If this was made into a youtube video it would likely go viral because this person tells some uncomfortable truths about our education system and the state of the nation. I'm sorry that so many of our readers had a horrible school and job search experience after wasting so much money. Good luck and YES definitely think about leaving the country because you deserve better than living at home unemployed for the next decade. There are volunteering and teaching programs in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe that cover health care, housing, and airfare. Look into it!

Dear Angel, Hardknocks, and BIDER readers,

I did not go to law school. I received my Masters degree last year and have been unable to find a full time job. I live with my parents and work temp jobs when I can find them. I am seriously considering moving to another country as Angel and Hardknocks have suggested. The United States will unlikely recover from years of corporate and political corruption and mismanagement that continues to this day. Your JD or Ph.D will not change the damage that has been done to our country's infrastructure and it will not get you a job. I want to advise any college student reading this to take Angel and Hardknocks seriously when they tell you not to attend law school. Also think twice about getting a graduate degree in most disiplines. Maybe you will be unemployed for a while but it is better to be an unemployed college graduate than an unemployed JD or Ph.D after spending countless years in school with $200000+ in loans to pay back.

I have agreed with Hardknocks that education is important in the development of one's mind and understanding of the world. However, higher education has become a Ponzi scheme. It is no longer about educating students but about stealing as much money the universities can get away with charging to pay for unnecessary renovations and give their employees corporate wages all in the name of profits, fake prestige, and US News & World Report rankings. It is a business as corrupt as Goldman Sachs and the so-called academics who make corporate sized salaries have the same amount of sympathy for their victims as Bernie Madoff. I was astonished at how little the administration at my school cared about the student body. They did not take the job search seriously enough and career services has not extended their hand to help the majority of last year's grads find jobs. This is just my personal experience but after reading the law scam blogs this type of attitude seems to be common with administrators and deans at most graduate schools. The money they make is a crime when they know so many of their students will end up jobless and with crushing debt. How can they live with a clear conscience? It's dispicable.

Everything from campus news to the career fair is a public relations stunt. I heard from other students that the employers at our career fair were there only as a favor to career services. They were not serious about giving anyone a job. Most of my classmates did not find a job through the career fair. We were angered that we had wasted our time and money to buy a new suit and print out a hundred resumes only to hear the same thing over and over again: "We're not hiring." So why are you here? Career services had their cameras ready and bragged in a blog post with photos and video about how so many employers came to the career fair. They forgot to mention that no one ended up with a job offer.

I personally cannot wait for the tuition bubble to burst and some of these schools close down for good. Only then will these deans and adminstrators feel what it is like to be unemployed. Or will they purchase a more powerful marketing team to fool the next generation of students? The education industrial complex and the media have successfully brainwashed middle class parents and students at a young age to be ashamed of occupations that use one's hands or don't require an advanced degree. They push students to go to college and ignore signs that some students would do better off as a plumber or electrician. I would love to have one of those jobs right now.

The law school scam movement is one of the few grassroots movements to take on the education industrial complex. College students should feel lucky to have this resource on the web. Those of us several years older did not get honest advise and now our dreams have been destroyed because we chose to further our education. When I listen to politicians and businessmen giving commencement speeches about the importance of an education and doing good in the world, I only hear lies and hypocrisy. These are the criminals who stole money from taxpayers, caused irreversible environmental and economic disasters, continue to send our young men and women to kill and be killed in foreign lands, and have never helped a poor soul in their life unless it's for a photo op. It's sickening but this too is part of the university's publicity stunt.

Don't make the same mistake we did and don't allow these crooks to take any more of our money. They have destroyed an entire generation. The skeptics and non-believers who criticize the law school scam movement should watch their backs because any one of you can be out of a job tomorrow. There is a thin line between the middle class and poverty for most Americans.

In Solidarity,
A Victim

Attend Drexel Law for Free

Ten law school lemmings in the top 5 percent of their 1L class can transfer to TTTT school Drexel Law totally free for their second and third years. Right, like anyone in the top 5 percent of their 1L class would want to transfer to Drexel rather than to a tier 1 or even tier 2 institution. The guy in the video sounds more like a used car salesman than the assistant vice president of advancement at a law school. Drexel isn't even worth attending for free because you'll still be wasting your time when you could make more dropping out after your first year at a TTTT and getting a job that pays more than document review or shitlaw, the only two jobs you'll get (if you're lucky) after graduating from Drexel Law.

Read more about Drexel and their stats at Nando's place, Third Tier Reality.

A View From the Trenches by Hardknocks, a Guest Blogger!

A friend from college decided on a whim to apply to law school after being unemployed for over a year. She's received several acceptances to tier 1 and tier 2 law schools. Remember that excitement you felt when receiving that huge package in the mail from your law school of choice? I was a senior in college and the first acceptance I received was from a T14 law school. I was on the verge of tears standing in the hallway of my residence hall as I ripped open the thick brown envelope, eagerly opening the glossy brochures about public interest and study abroad programs and making the world a better place with my JD. I believed that this would be my ticket to a lucrative and rewarding career serving the public interest.

HAHAHAHAHA. Oh boy, was I naive.

Nearly five years later my friend is excited about her admittance into a lower tier 1 program and all I can feel is concern about her actual career prospects upon graduation in 2013. How can someone who has never held a full-time job after college, has a significant unemployment gap, and goes to a law school not even in the top 20 expect to be marketable in our new economy? And who are the people working in our universities and colleges who perpetuate the myth to 45,000 students each year that going to law school - any law school - will make their job search any easier?

My career service counselor in college never mentioned the debt and the risks of attending law school. She just looked at my social science major and my grades then asked me what I wanted to do with my life (a questions surely any 22-year-old should know the answer to). I mentioned that I liked politics and may want to do non-profit work or become a lawyer. Her next suggestions was that I take the LSAT as if that was the natural step any poli sci, English lit, philosophy, or history major should take if they haven't a clue what to do with their life. No one at any university of law school will ever tell you that a JD, rather than being a versatile degree, on the contrary could harm your chances of employment as Esq. Never has written about over the last year.

You see, university employees aren't paid to tell students the truth or discourage them from more education. They are paid to promote the myth that education undoubtedly leads to success, money, and happiness. All too often students come to the dangerous conclusion that the more education you buy the more success, money, and happiness you will achieve in life. Only until recently has this longtime myth been debunked. The Law School Scam movement and websites such as this one affiliated with the movement remain the only sources of truth on the internet for the majority of college students who won't attend Harvard, Yale, and Stanford Law School. Slowly but surely, more students who are coming out of years of formal education - some at the most elite institutions in the world - only to be confronted with six-figure debt and no job prospects are coming forward to tell their tale. I predict many more will come forward in the coming years as law school applicants rise and job creation in the U.S. remains stagnant amongst unprecedented unemployment. Now more than ever, the truth needs to be told about the risks, the debt, and the ABA rat bastards who continue to accredit criminals to steal more money from America's youth.

I commented at the incomparable Big Debt, Small Law (if you don't have BDSL bookmarked do it now) that despite attending a T14 school, a significant amount of my former law school classmates have been laid off from Biglaw less than a year out of law school. Some of these brilliant minds who Did Everything Right! will almost certainly never be hired into Biglaw again. Well, there goes three years and $150,000 down the drain! Biglaw and the ABA will always have an endless supply of fresh meat and those who don't make the cut due to grades, LSAT scores, or sheer bad luck during an economic downturn will be tossed aside like yesterday's leftovers. The TTT institutions will continue to grow and more students will be conned until we stop them with truth and testimony from as many law school grads as possible.

I can only reiterate what I wrote at Big Debt to my friend and others like her that they need to walk into law school with knowledge of the risks and the very high probability that they will be among the sweatshop temp workers in the basements of BigLaw, a very different reality from the dreams we all had going into our first law school lecture. Law students who aren't at the top of their class need to be warned about continuing their legal education and going further into debt with their fate already confined to $10/hour Craigslist law firms. My classmates, who frequented Above the Law to laugh at the sweatshop TTT grads, are now working alongside them to survive. The legal field, like the US economy, will never be the same again. No one is safe.