University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos makes a devastating attack on for-profit law schools in this Atlantic article. Those schools bank on luring in weak students who have little chance of ever landing a law job that would enable them to pay off the debt they’ll have to incur. The schools almost certainly couldn’t succeed (and probably wouldn’t ever have been started) if it weren’t for easy government money. They are a great illustration of the point I have often made that federal financial aid is what enables a lot of educational waste and later woes for students who were suckered in.

Campos is not just attacking the for-profits, though. Non-profits do the same thing. The underlying pathology is the same — the easy availability of government loans.

After reading the article, think about the claim made so often by establishment types that higher education is still a “great investment.” They say that because, on average, people who have college degrees make more than do people who don’t have college degrees. Exactly the same argument can be made in favor of going to law school. On average, people who have law degrees earn more than people who don’t, so better take the LSAT! The obvious problem with that argument is that the average earnings for people who already have law degrees is irrelevant to students thinking about getting one now, and especially the marginal students who might make it through law school but probably won’t pass the bar.