Trump student loan plans Forum

[Desert Fox]

That way some asshole who goes DOJ honors for 10 years then biglaw, pays his fair share.

Yeah, this is totally the normal scenario for PSLF. Everyone knows that people are just using the DOJ honors program as a cheat code to avoid paying back their loans while they get super-rich off those phat government salaries.

it's not a cheat code, but if someone ends up making $$$$$$$ money later why should be forgive the loans.

shit I don't even think DOJ should qualify. They make pretty good money.

[Desert Fox]

Making people pay for the loans they took isn't some huge penalty.

It is if the availability of forgiveness was a condition of their taking out the loans.

I don't get the attitude like these are people who are trying to cheat the system. This IS the system. They borrowed money on the terms of, you can either (a) pay it all back or (b) pay some of it back and get the rest forgiven if you follow these rules. You can't just get rid of option b and then call people deadbeats for not wanting to do option a.

They are getting grandfathered, I'm talking about going forward. I think allowing some sort of write off is fine, but not 10 years and 300k.

[elendinel]

That way some asshole who goes DOJ honors for 10 years then biglaw, pays his fair share.

Yeah, this is totally the normal scenario for PSLF. Everyone knows that people are just using the DOJ honors program as a cheat code to avoid paying back their loans while they get super-rich off those phat government salaries.

it's not a cheat code, but if someone ends up making $$$$$$$ money later why should be forgive the loans.

shit I don't even think DOJ should qualify. They make pretty good money.

Because they still deferred making $$$$$$$ money for 10 years early in their career to work for the government/a nonprofit/etc.

Aside from the fact that saving early is more important than how much one can save at the end of their career, the point of PSLF in general is to incentivize people to go into fields they wouldn't normally go into because of the loss of income/saving power in the infancy of their careers. That goal is still realized even when the person is able to jump ship to get into a lucrative field a decade later. If you take away a person's flexibility to move to a better-paying career 10+ years down the road, you're frustrating the goal of PSLF, because there will no longer be a strong incentive for people to try PI careers (or to stick with them for longer than a year or two).

[Desert Fox]

But we don't need the incentivization at all. Does anyone think we'd struggle to find people if there was no PLIF?

Why should we should tax middle class people to let Upper middle class assholes follow their dreams. It's welfare for the privileged.

[cavalier1138]

But we don't need the incentivization at all. Does anyone think we'd struggle to find people if there was no PLIF?

Yes.

That's precisely why PSLF was started. And it's not like it only affects lawyers. More importantly, the lawyers who it does affect are making much less money than they would be if they went the biglaw route, and without the program (or a school with a good LRAP), no, they would not go into low-paying government and public service jobs right out of school. Students graduating with six figures of debt who want to work in PI would have to spend years working in a big firm just to pay their debts down before they could get a job, if the jobs were still available after they were financially secure.

Honestly, you're like the old white guy in line at the supermarket who starts screaming about socialism when he sees someone with food stamps buying a birthday cake.

[MCFC]

I read this story today and yeah I think I'd need all the incentives I could get. https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-new-yor ... 1495553416

[dixiecupdrinking]

Making people pay for the loans they took isn't some huge penalty.

It is if the availability of forgiveness was a condition of their taking out the loans.

I don't get the attitude like these are people who are trying to cheat the system. This IS the system. They borrowed money on the terms of, you can either (a) pay it all back or (b) pay some of it back and get the rest forgiven if you follow these rules. You can't just get rid of option b and then call people deadbeats for not wanting to do option a.

They are getting grandfathered, I'm talking about going forward. I think allowing some sort of write off is fine, but not 10 years and 300k.

Ah yeah. I generally agree. Mainly because law schools will continue to use it to justify tuition increases until people are paying a million bucks for a degree, because "it'll just get forgiven anyway."

As far as the borrowers, I can't get too upset. Education should be free or close to it, my contempt is reserved for the people who make it the cost of a house, not those who try to pay for it however they can manage.

[elendinel]

But we don't need the incentivization at all. Does anyone think we'd struggle to find people if there was no PLIF?

Why should we should tax middle class people to let Upper middle class assholes follow their dreams. It's welfare for the privileged.

It's not just about "are there enough applicants to fill these positions," but also "are there enough good and qualified applicants to fill these positions." The goals of PSLF aren't met just because the government can scrape the bottom of the barrel to fill positions; they also want to attract quality applicants who wouldn't choose PI over better-paying jobs elsewhere without some incentives to do so. E.g., Miami Dade PD doesn't want to have to just rely on big/mid/shitlaw rejects for its incoming class; it also wants to be able to attract people who could get biglaw but are willing to do PD for 10 years if they can get some financial incentives for that choice (to offset the financial loss of doing so). Almost no one who has plans to start a family/buy property/retire well/etc., who is leaving school with 5-6 figures of debt, and who is qualified to go into biglaw/other prestigious and well-paying careers, is going to choose to go into a PI career for 10 years if they're also going to be expected to pay as much of it back as they would if they took their biglaw/etc. offer, even if they have a passion for PI.

Even if 90% of PSLF workers are rich assholes following their dreams (which I think you're likely grossly over-exaggerating), they're still helping the government/non-profits do what needs to be done for 10+ years, so I think the mild annoyance I may feel that someone whose parents earn $300k is using PSLF to flit around in the DA's office is still balanced out by the 10 years' service they still provided by working in the DA's office and foregoing early earning potential that I or others chose not to forego. It's no worse than your paying taxes so that some upper middle class student can take out Direct loans for his or her "design-your-own-major" degree.

[Desert Fox]

It's just worth 300k to make a baby lawyer, full stop. go to Cuny or something you entitled bernie bros

[Johann]

Yeah I mean if we do away with pslf and start a free govt law school in D.C. That guarantees 100% employment or acts as a feeder system for govt jobs that'd also be cool. In the meantime, gotta have a way of getting public interest at the T14 cheap degrees for bypassing biglaw.

Price discrimination is good. It's efficient. This is just price discrimination - people who make big dollars from a law degree arguably got a higher ROI and should pay more than people who used the diploma to do something else. Maybe make it so OCI takes a commission so to speak every time a student gets an SAbut bottom line is someone who makes 1M in their cumulative life and someone who makes 30M (and both parties knew going in that would be the case so no hindsight bias) should not pay the same price for a good. It's not worth the same to either of them. Basic Econ 101. Pslf is a kind of fucked up way of achieveing it but fucked up means and right end result.

[Desert Fox]

CUNY costs like 22k tution for an entire degree. Expecting 200k to pay for NYU is ridiculous.

[Johann]

Not really cause NYu has the job opps they want.

[Desert Fox]

Not really cause NYu has the job opps they want.

Thats why it might be worth it for you. But that's not worth it for society.

[elendinel]

It's just worth 300k to make a baby lawyer, full stop. go to Cuny or something you entitled bernie bros

Okay but then how does the government incentivize someone who went to Harvard or Columbia to give up biglaw to work for them?

You're assuming PSLF is about allowing entitled rich kids to do whatever they please and are completely forgetting that PSLF is equally/actually about the government trying to find ways to not have to rely on CUNY students alone (who, as with the vast majority law schools in the country, are a mixed bag in terms of quality) to fill their ranks, and about the government trying to find ways to convince Harvard grads that they wouldn't be complete idiots if they worked for the government for 10 years rather than spending those 10 years in much better paying positions. As with literally everything there will be a handful of people who don't absolutely need the service who end up using it all the same, but you're basically asking the government to chop off its nose to spite its face by insinuating there is no rhyme or reason to incentivize people to go into PI.

[Anonymous User]

It's just worth 300k to make a baby lawyer, full stop. go to Cuny or something you entitled bernie bros

There are more nuances to PSLF than you are factoring in. For example, consider my situation where I am married to a biglaw attorney but am a GS-14 attorney. To do IBR, we are forced to file separately or factor in my husband's income into the IBR equation. Therefore, my husband and I both pay a higher income tax rate because of IBR and PSLF. The savings we get as a result of IBR and PSLF are negligible. At the end of the day, the government is getting 95 cents on the dollar. Additionally, we lose the student loan interest rate tax deduction. It's really not that great for a lot of married couples.

[runinthefront]

It's just worth 300k to make a baby lawyer, full stop. go to Cuny or something you entitled bernie bros

Okay but then how does the government incentivize someone who went to Harvard or Columbia to give up biglaw to work for them?

You're assuming PSLF is about allowing entitled rich kids to do whatever they please and are completely forgetting that PSLF is equally/actually about the government trying to find ways to not have to rely on CUNY students alone (who, as with the vast majority law schools in the country, are a mixed bag in terms of quality) to fill their ranks, and about the government trying to find ways to convince Harvard grads that they wouldn't be complete idiots if they worked for the government for 10 years rather than spending those 10 years in much better paying positions. As with literally everything there will be a handful of people who don't absolutely need the service who end up using it all the same, but you're basically asking the government to chop off its nose to spite its face by insinuating there is no rhyme or reason to incentivize people to go into PI.

I'm not so sure government jobs "need" to give people incentives. Like DF said, the DOJ programs already pay well. There are only a finite number of biglaw jobs, too, so if PSLF went away, presumably schools would have to lower their costs to keep their class sizes the same, reducing the debt burden for those wanting to go into government. Maybe poor students from t14s won't want to work as a DA in Miami when K&E is their other option, but many other perfectly capable law graduates from other schools will jump at that opportunity

Something does seem pretty crazy about allowing a K-JD the ability to take out $320k loans for NYU and work as a PD somewhere/DA somewhere for ten years and have the entire loan balance forgiven, when they could've gone to UTennesee and achieved the same result

[Desert Fox]

It's just worth 300k to make a baby lawyer, full stop. go to Cuny or something you entitled bernie bros

Okay but then how does the government incentivize someone who went to Harvard or Columbia to give up biglaw to work for them?

You're assuming PSLF is about allowing entitled rich kids to do whatever they please and are completely forgetting that PSLF is equally/actually about the government trying to find ways to not have to rely on CUNY students alone (who, as with the vast majority law schools in the country, are a mixed bag in terms of quality) to fill their ranks, and about the government trying to find ways to convince Harvard grads that they wouldn't be complete idiots if they worked for the government for 10 years rather than spending those 10 years in much better paying positions. As with literally everything there will be a handful of people who don't absolutely need the service who end up using it all the same, but you're basically asking the government to chop off its nose to spite its face by insinuating there is no rhyme or reason to incentivize people to go into PI.

They don't? The horrors of the DOJ having slightly less T13 grads is not a compelling use of public money.

[plus harvard and columbia can afford to give private loan assistance. In fact they did before PLIF]

[Desert Fox]

It's just worth 300k to make a baby lawyer, full stop. go to Cuny or something you entitled bernie bros

There are more nuances to PSLF than you are factoring in. For example, consider my situation where I am married to a biglaw attorney but am a GS-14 attorney. To do IBR, we are forced to file separately or factor in my husband's income into the IBR equation. Therefore, my husband and I both pay a higher income tax rate because of IBR and PSLF. The savings we get as a result of IBR and PSLF are negligible. At the end of the day, the government is getting 95 cents on the dollar. Additionally, we lose the student loan interest rate tax deduction. It's really not that great for a lot of married couples.

sounds like it doesn't really matter if we take it away then.

[Desert Fox]

It's just worth 300k to make a baby lawyer, full stop. go to Cuny or something you entitled bernie bros

Okay but then how does the government incentivize someone who went to Harvard or Columbia to give up biglaw to work for them?

You're assuming PSLF is about allowing entitled rich kids to do whatever they please and are completely forgetting that PSLF is equally/actually about the government trying to find ways to not have to rely on CUNY students alone (who, as with the vast majority law schools in the country, are a mixed bag in terms of quality) to fill their ranks, and about the government trying to find ways to convince Harvard grads that they wouldn't be complete idiots if they worked for the government for 10 years rather than spending those 10 years in much better paying positions. As with literally everything there will be a handful of people who don't absolutely need the service who end up using it all the same, but you're basically asking the government to chop off its nose to spite its face by insinuating there is no rhyme or reason to incentivize people to go into PI.

I'm not so sure government jobs "need" to give people incentives. Like DF said, the DOJ programs already pay well. There are only a finite number of biglaw jobs, too, so if PSLF went away, presumably schools would have to lower their costs to keep their class sizes the same, reducing the debt burden for those wanting to go into government. Maybe poor students from t14s won't want to work as a DA in Miami when K&E is their other option, but many other perfectly capable law graduates from other schools will jump at that opportunity

And, if Miami PD really can't fill their spots they could pay more.

[elendinel]

It's just worth 300k to make a baby lawyer, full stop. go to Cuny or something you entitled bernie bros

Okay but then how does the government incentivize someone who went to Harvard or Columbia to give up biglaw to work for them?

You're assuming PSLF is about allowing entitled rich kids to do whatever they please and are completely forgetting that PSLF is equally/actually about the government trying to find ways to not have to rely on CUNY students alone (who, as with the vast majority law schools in the country, are a mixed bag in terms of quality) to fill their ranks, and about the government trying to find ways to convince Harvard grads that they wouldn't be complete idiots if they worked for the government for 10 years rather than spending those 10 years in much better paying positions. As with literally everything there will be a handful of people who don't absolutely need the service who end up using it all the same, but you're basically asking the government to chop off its nose to spite its face by insinuating there is no rhyme or reason to incentivize people to go into PI.

I'm not so sure government jobs "need" to give people incentives. Like DF said, the DOJ programs already pay well. There are only a finite number of biglaw jobs, too, so if PSLF went away, presumably schools would have to lower their costs to keep their class sizes the same, reducing the debt burden for those wanting to go into government. Maybe poor students from t14s won't want to work as a DA in Miami when K&E is their other option, but many other perfectly capable law graduates from other schools will jump at that opportunity

Bigfed is not the only kind of government job that qualifies for PSLF (see: ADAs, PDs, etc.). Legal jobs in general aren't the only ones that qualify for PSLF. PSLF also covers those who choose to forego prestigious corporate biomedical research positions to work for the government, those who choose to forego working for Google to write software for the government, those who forego six figure salaries to work in non-profits, etc.

Saying incentives aren't necessary because DoJ pays well makes no sense because DoJ is only a small fraction of the positions affected by incentives like PSLF.

As for "there will always be graduates," PSLF was specifically created because this was not the case.

And, if Miami PD really can't fill their spots they could pay more.

Right, because they have millions in profits to pay people whatever they want if they find their salaries aren't sufficient.

[Desert Fox]

Is Miami broke or something?

[Desert Fox]

I know at least two people who turned down a fullride at a T1 just to go to a T13 at sticker because "debt doesn't matter I want PI." Thats a ways of probably 400k to get society literally nothing. And it buttfucked one because she couldn't get a PI job and now works shitlaw.

[cavalier1138]

[runinthefront]

Bigfed is not the only kind of government job that qualifies for PSLF (see: ADAs, PDs, etc.). Legal jobs in general aren't the only ones that qualify for PSLF. PSLF also covers those who choose to forego prestigious corporate biomedical research positions to work for the government, those who choose to forego working for Google to write software for the government, those who forego six figure salaries to work in non-profits, etc.

Saying incentives aren't necessary because DoJ pays well makes no sense because DoJ is only a small fraction of the positions affected by incentives like PSLF.

As for "there will always be graduates," PSLF was specifically created because this was not the case.

And, if Miami PD really can't fill their spots they could pay more.

Right, because they have millions in profits to pay people whatever they want if they find their salaries aren't sufficient.

PSLF had law students taking on $300k of debt at UChicago to work as a DA in Minnesota in mind, particularly when the market's already saturated with lawyers? Perfectly good lawyers from other schools? What's wrong with just going to a strong regional school for a fraction of the cost that would give you the same outcome?

[runinthefront]

I know at least two people who turned down a fullride at a T1 just to go to a T13 at sticker because "debt doesn't matter I want PI." Thats a ways of probably 400k to get society literally nothing. And it buttfucked one because she couldn't get a PI job and now works shitlaw.

This is literally what comes to mind when I think about PSLF. All of my friends who decided not to retake the LSAT or go to my state's strongest school (a great school!) because the gov't would simply write off their entire debt burden. Crazy