Law school. I mean, it seemed like an interesting intellectual endeavor at the time. It was also personally enriching and more than a little eye-opening. The ABA has apparently begun to recommend college students not to go to law school:
The ABA is now making the case to persuade college students not to go to law school.
According to the association, over the past 25 years law school tuition has consistently risen two times faster than inflation.
[…]
Before the recession, the ABA cites statistics that show an average starting salary for an associate of a large law firm of about $160,000 a year. But by 2009, about 42 percent of graduates began with an annual salary of less than $65,000.
That last paragraph contains a rather hilarious bit of meaningless statistics: comparing the average salary of people who graduate and go to BigLaw against all people who graduate is silly. That’s a little like comparing NCAA athletes who graduate and go play professional sports to NCAA athletes who graduate and work as public schoolteachers.
That being said, I started law school in August 2007, about a year before the economy began to burst into flames. When I began, the Dow Jones was at 13,378 and rose to 14,093 before sinking to a low of 6,624. When I graduated in May 2010, the Dow was at 10,616., about halfway between the wild extremes of the bubble and the basement.
It’s been a hell of a ride, folks. Next time I go to law school, I’m planning ahead for these sorts of econopocalypses.