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Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Taxpayers Are Subsidizing US Law Schools

Why should $50,000 per year law school tuition be enabled by taxpayer subsidies?
This is the real question that legal academic defenders of IBR [income-based repayment for student loans], such as Philip Schrag and Lisa Lerman, need to answer.  It's no real answer to respond, as Schrag does to Brian Tamanaha's criticisms, that lots of goods and services in our economy are subsidized by public money in one way or another.
So what?  I don't suppose Schrag (a self-described "conservative") would consider that observation an adequate defense for farm subsidies to Archer Daniels Midland, or tax breaks which encourage people to buy more giant SUVs than they otherwise would, or which enable building bridges to nowhere. 
So why should IBR function as a massive taxpayer subsidy to law school budgets, which it certainly will if it begins to "solve" the problem of skyrocketing law school costs in the way Schrag envisions it will?

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