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Comment by jayzee | Hacker News Reader

I have sympathy for this guy but look nobody promised you a job when you took on those loans. It is basic risk reward. You took on a lot of loans to get a law degree because lawyers get paid well. You took on risk and it did not work out. Happens. Often too entrepreneurs.

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People who take on risk for reward are still entitled to be upset at people who have lied to them about the nature of the risk and reward. There's a difference between taking on risk in an informed manner and getting conned into taking the risk.

On occasion I think HN goes overboard on the reward side of entrepreneurship too, and that's not right when that happens either. Tell the truth, let people make up their minds. (And to be clear, I mean it just happens sometimes. On the whole there's too many people doing it for real for raw cheerleading to go unchallenged for long.)

People have been getting led on about the value of their degree for a while now. The economic situation is bringing things to a head but it's not new.

Also, I doubt this is a serious call for a refund, in the sense that he has even the remote expectation of one. This is a warning to others dressed up with a rhetorical flourish.

Technically true, but many (most?) law schools have indeed, marketed themselves to students using statistics about post-graduation employment. Of course, the reality is that they count any employment, and in some cases have inflated statistics by hiring recent graduates for positions within the school itself, which last only for 6 weeks but happen to include the period ending 3 months after graduation (which is what's measured in the US News & World Report rankings). It's a perfect storm of too many government subsidies (qua student loans), expanding market (bad economy? maybe stay in school), and regulatory capture.

That said, this guy doesn't seem cut out for the trade in the first place, although it's possible that that I'm wrong and this is actually a shrewd exercise in personal branding.

Not only do law schools more or less lie about employment stats, the Fed subsidizes the loans so there is no signal to the consumer in the form of borrowing rate as to how risky the undertaking is. Also there is a disconnect between the cultural cachet of law as a profession and the modern reality, and tuition rates have absolutely exploded as a result of schools milking the government teet, all at the detriment of the students. Law is really winner take all. The winners get $160k/yr starting and 60-70 hour workweeks and will pay off their loans in roughly 10 years at ~$1500-$2000 a month. The "losers" will, after 9 months of searching, start at $30k (not necessarily in law) and will die in debt. It's really not as simple as risk/reward, as most things in life are not.

If you fail as an entrepreneur, your debts are wiped. Either because the investors pay them back or you declare bankruptcy. There is no escape from student loans, even if you declare bankruptcy you are still required to pay them back.

So it's quite different than what happens to entrepreneurs, they can fail and comeback several times, tabula rasa. Someone saddled with student debt is forced to live with that choice until they pay it off or they die.

Agreed. Two and a half years of law school and/or a degree are an assest. People are hiring lawyers, so become one of the ones that gets hired; or become one of those guys on TV.

I doubt he will be refunded, nor do I think he should.

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