Mind the Gap!

In an article from the Huffington Post, I learned that the division between the poor and the rich is greater than ever before. Obama even went as far as to call the problem of income inequality "a bigger threat to the United States economy than the federal budget deficit."

In a Ted Talk that I watched recently, Michael Sandel, an American political philosopher and professor at Harvard University, discusses the role of money in American society, and he explains the implications of this division between rich and poor. According to Sandel, America has gone from “having a market economy to being a market society”. This means that market thinking and values “begin to dominate every aspect of life.” For example, at amusement parks, costumers can purchase fast passes which allow them to avoid waiting in lines if they are willing to pay more. It used to be that no matter how much money you had, everyone had to wait in line. Now, people can be separated based on their incomes.

Another example would be the airplane class system. People with means who are seated in first class are actually separated from the rest of the passengers; the flight attendants will usually put up a curtain between the first and second-class passengers to act as a sort of barrier. Essentially, the market society leads to affluent people living completely different lives and being completely separated from the rest of the population.

But this division between rich and poor, upper class and lower class means much more than just different seats on an airplane or having to wait in lines. It means the rich control America. The wealthy have access to a good education, they have access to the highly respected schools. They are the ones who have the most political influence. They control the laws. They are the powerful ones. American society rewards wealth with not only respect and admiration, but with power. With the physical separations between the rich and the poor, it’s harder for those with means to identify with and have compassion for those who are less fortunate.

I wondered it America had always been divided in this manner. I was surprised to learn that even in the beginnings of the United States, there was a separation between the rich and the poor; only the rich could buy a ticket for the voyage across the Atlantic. It makes sense now that I think about it, but I never imagined that the U.S. was formed on the basis of this division.

Law Schools or Law Factories?

            According to The Law School Tuition Bubble, in 2011, the United States produced 44,495 law school graduates. The nation has, on average,  only 21,300 job openings that require a law degree. This means that there are more than two graduates per each job opening.

           

            New York Law School, ranked in the bottom third of all law schools in the nation, charges their students almost $50,000 a year, which is more than Harvard charges. According to an article from the New York Times, even after hiring in the law profession had just “imploded”, N.Y.L.S. still increased their class size in 2009 by 30 percent from the previous year. It is not just N.Y.L.S. either; according to the same article, in 2010, law schools all around the nation enrolled 49,700 students, the largest number in history.

            After reading this, I wondered “how can students be so dumb as to spend so much money on an education that they might not even get to use?” The answer: law schools trick their students. For example, N.Y.L.S. claimed, in a U.S. news survey, that the average salary among alums that graduated in 2009 was $160,000. This statistic is true… but only for 26 percent of the 2009 class. The other 74 percent is mysteriously not accounted for. The actual average is believed to be much lower.

            To me, law schools appear to be far more concerned with their own well-being than that of their students. It seems deceptive and cruel to have students pay $150,000 for an education that may be of little value to them. Using a false promise of a lucrative career to entice applicants into spending three years and money most of them will need to borrow, seems highly unethical.  Law school administrators must know that less than half of their graduates will find the job they have been prepared for and anticipated.

            Though some may say that the purpose of education is to learn and not to just for the purpose of ensuring yourself a job, not everyone has the luxury of spending $150,000 without a reasonable income after graduation. Many of these young, talented law school graduates will unfortunately not be able to use their talents in law. This delays the start of their career, and wastes precious education money. Law schools are just cranking out graduates, without concern about what will become of the oversupply of these graduates. The schools have lost sight of the responsibility they have to their students, making education just another big business.