Live Blogging D.E.'s Town Hall
There is no reason for me to be the only person doing this, especially if anyone else was thinking of doing something similar. But how to make it easy for others to play along from home, or the office, or the other side of Booth Auditorium? Here is what I came up with:
I'll transcribe the questions and answers in the comments section, in real time. That way the forum will be wide open for anyone to contribute. And this (60 minuets early) shout out will serve as a heads up. That way anyone can tune in (or tune out) as they see fit.
Does that work? Hope so.
See you at 12:45.
I'll transcribe the questions and answers in the comments section, in real time. That way the forum will be wide open for anyone to contribute. And this (60 minuets early) shout out will serve as a heads up. That way anyone can tune in (or tune out) as they see fit.
Does that work? Hope so.
See you at 12:45.
Labels: DE, Law School, LRAP, Rankings And Associated Bullshit
posted by Patrick Bageant at 11:58 AM
61 Comments:
Not town hall related, but I just learned something worth sharing. If you were thinking about donating to BLF, today is the day!
K professor ET has generously offered to match donations made today, up to $500 per student.
Hey, if he has that kind of money to spare, I say help him spare it! And it's for a good cause.
DE called us ladies and gentlemen.
(Then asked who is going to run this?)
Big issues. LRAP, construction and noise, faculty hiring, enrollment.
Q: Any chance you will leave boalt to work for a white house administration? Will you be here for the next three years?
A: I plan to be around. I have zero interest in going back to washington.
"The truth of the matter is [my wife] still has Potomac fever. If she decides to take a job, it would have to be a really great job. But I would stay. My fantasy life is not to go to washington, but to go sailing in the bay"
Q: I want to advance environmental standards in schools, education, etc. [something incomprehensible about precious metals]. Can we digitize textbooks? [more incomprehensible stuff about the alumni network]. Can you tell me about Boalt's place as an environmental leader?
A: [trying to figure out what student said] I agree with you on the vision. I do want us to be the center of the universe in teaching and research relating to environmental issues, broadly. [see generally, seek help]. Our current plan with the new building is to rank as "silver," hopefully "gold" on environmental friendliness.
"To the extent that we can save money on the new building, we can renovate and improve student space in the current building. That's the tradeoff."
Digitizing textbooks. Good idea? Maybe. But like the library lady (whose name I didn't catch) just said, students tend to take their digitized books and print them off (often, one-sided instead of two), leading to twice the waste in paper. I, personally, need something tangible in my hand.
Q: "I want to use my law degree to work in legislative and grassroots advocacy. When will the LRAP recognize such work for the purposes of paying back my loans?"
[applause]
A: Well, if it hasn't, it now does! [more applause] Do I need to elaborate? My understanding is that there are very few examples of people who have been denied jobs under the LRAP. We are going to work on that, and the financial aid committee discussed this this morning. Here are a couple of principles: my view is that any kind of public interest/service job for which it is not weird to have a law degree, should be covered. If having the law credential is useful and not unusual, we should be covering it. A way to think about it: is it fair to ask your comrades to cross subsidize that career choice? In generally, 501(c) organizations are useful, but not determinative. The basic idea is meant to be broad. This could include private "low bono" jobs too, depending on the how things work on a case-by-case basis. It is difficult to set up standards up front for these private jobs, and there can be huge gray areas, so we want to take those case-by-case until we can better understand some principles.
sorry to interrupt this thread, but Patrick, whoever you are: you rock.
yes! patrick for NY GOV!
DE: "It would be nice to figure out a way to get advisory onions from [financial aid] prior to actually taking a job."
Q: [will the LRAP cap rise?]
A: We intend to increase the cap level over time, as tuition and debit level rises. We have not figured out how/how much to adjust it . But here is the issue: the year before we instituted the reforms in LRAP,t eh average graduating debt was about 65-68k. That was 2.5 years ago. Last year it was 74k for average students, and 95k for LRAP students. That includes bar studies costs. When we instituted the program, there was a surge in borrowing by students entering the LRAP program. This is what economists call moral hazard. It could be because students are taking PI jobs int eh summer, so it's not all bad. But there was a big jump in loan behavior. Some of this surge is also related to changing patterns in parental contribution. We think that the current loan caps are about right, as long as our financial aid expectations are about right. If someone has higher loans because they didn't have parental contribution, do the rest of you want to do that cross subsidy?
students [YES!]
Okay. The average debut graduates at NYU have is 112k. Their tuition is 20k more than ours. But this is the kind of background information we have. We want to raise the cap without moral hazard, and without asking other students to subsidize to much. We also want to think about outliers (students with unusually high debt burdens) and whether they should be able to appeal the debt limit. People with family hardships, etc. We want to create some wiggle room, but we are still working on it. I would also build into the program something for undergraduate debut from a cal state school. "We are, at least in theory, still a state school. It's kind of gestural."
Q: I wanted to respond to the concept of cross subsidizing. We got a letter signed by every student group on campus, which shows that this is a really intense priority. Boalt students really do care about getting fellow students into the program. My worry is that the average debt load, at 90k, can gloss over the fact that that means a LOT of students are above that amount, and therefore being glossed over it.
[major applause]
A: Two things to keep in mind. the current cap is 20k-30k above the average debt load. A lot, in other words Second, if you have more debt than that, you can still participate in the program. It's just that the first 100k is covered. Third, relative to other programs around the country, we think our parameters are more generous than all of them, except for a couple of wrinkles (clerkships, and maybe Harvard who lets you become a history teacher . . . at a prep school somewhere). The 58k amount is higher than everywhere. The 35% marginal tax rate above that is lower tha most places.
Q: Summer judicial externships for a DE grant, or course credit?
A: I'll see that we think about it. The course credit thing is pretty plausible. If it is analogous to what you do during the term time, then that makes sense. My concern is that in general I think clerkships ar resume enhancing, more than they are public interest-y. I have doubts about spending summer grants on internships that I would spending LRAP funds on judicial clerkships. Having said that, I'll make sure we think about that. Regarding post graduate clerkships: my original thinking was that LRAP shouldn't support these. But a better posture might be that people who apply to clerkships may also apply to LRAP, and if accepted to LRAP, there would be loan forbearance while you are clerking. When you finish your clerkship, we can evaluate what kind of job you take. The idea would be to relive the financial pressure for PI folks to do a clerkship, without subsidizing people who end up making big bucks. We would examine the Yale model for this. We are not likely to implement this this summer, but maybe next year.
At some point, raising the LRAP cap will have diminishing returns. The higher the cap, the more likely it is that people will choose to go into public interest careers, the more money that is needed to fund LRAP. The LRAP funding comes from many places, but a primary source is from one's classmates. So, by raising the LRAP cap, we will be raising the burden and decreasing the number of people (non-LRAP students) able to shoulder that burden. This seems to be a serious problem because the students who will want to pursue non-LRAP jobs might very well choose not to come to berkeley.
I'm not saying that I'm against raising the LRAP cap. I'm just concerned with the way we are having a discussion, where the general conclusion (judging by applause) is that the LRAP cap should be raised, without looking at hard data on incentives.
I like Edley's proposal regarding post-graduate clerkships: you get forbearance during your post-graduate clerkship. Afterward, if you go into an LRAP-supported position, you go right into LRAP. If you go work for MoFo, you still have all your debt. Seems like a fair compromise to me. Because, while a clerkship may be an investment in a credential, there shouldn't be a reason that the credential cannot be applied to a public interest position.
Q: I'm worried about the reputation of the school. I hear people say we are a great school, but our facilities are horrible. [provides some examples] Our reputation, well, stuff like this make us look bad.
A: We are in here every saturday! I agree completely. What year are you? A 1L? How many of you are 3L's? Yeah. [back to student] Are you a whiner, or what?
You didn't have the experience of the library reading room two years ago. We renovated that room at a cost of 1.5 million. We redid the three big lecture halls at a cost of 2 million, replacing the chairs that had been there since 1951. This coming summer we will renovate more classrooms, including the locker room 140, and 145. The donor lobby seems scuzzy because we have taken care of the really bad stuff. We have spend 6 million over the last few years, and we are making big progress, and moving in the right direction.
What we are doing this summer after classes are over: We are putting student journal offices under 105-110. The west terrace will be redone by 30%. The trees are coming down, better trees are going up. The building itself will be worked don starting in september. Dont' worry -- there will not be a sound. Except for the two years while the construction is going on. The strategy there is that he courtyard will have a 1 story facility that occupies 50% of the current courtyard, and a green roof. We want a bridge from the roof to the steinhard(?) courtyard area. We would like to relocate an expand Zeb to the courtyard.
I don't get it. a 1 story facility that occupies 50% of the courtyard? what is that, like 6-10 offices? what's the point?
Just to clarify: the courtyard building will be one story above ground and multiple (I believe 2-3) stories below. This, Edley said at the fall town-hall.
Q: I was shocked by the way you discussed as the moral hazard analysis. [isn't this pretty easily explained by firm job acceptance in non PI students]
A: We really are looking at it. That's why we can't make a decision yet. My own view is that the moral hazard describes the sharp up take in loan taking behavior that occurred when we made the LRAP more generous. It's rational -- moral hazard is a rational response to that situation. The rational thing to do would be to tell parents not to contribute to my education, because Boalt will subsidize me instead. It's perfectly rational. There is no moral taint to it, but we have to consider how to structure our resources accordingly. We need to figure out how many people have debt loads above the cap, and why. The why is important -- maybe they are taking PI summer jobs. That would be a good result. All of this bears more analysis.
is the general feeling that most of the audience members are there for LRAP issues?
What?!? Someone suggested blogs were bad?!?
Q: You mentioned possibly taking out some trees. Should we be telling people about that, or given Berkeley protests of late, should we keep that o the down-low?
DE: Yes. The sacred stinky trees. Yes. Well. I don't know whether any trees will be "sacrificed." That's the official line.
Q: Can student review of professors be made available to students? [we would like to see the actual narratives]
DE: I gotta tell you, seems weird to me, too. It was always available at my previous institution. I should tell you that the teaching ratings matter a lot. Every three years there is a merit process to decide whether they should get a salary increase. Tenured or not
DO: The online evaluations. The only way faculty were persuaded it would be useful was by giving faculty permission to restrict what is released.
[Student]: Students have been using other forums, like blogs --
DE: That's gotta stop!!
[laughter]
DE: At harvard, the whole idea of student rating was created, instituted, and operated by a student organization.
Re 1:38pm. There was strong applause for anything LRAP related. I may be the only in currently in Booth concerned about further mandatory cross-subsidizing. I haven't thought it out enough to ask Edley a coherent question. I'm also a bit scared to ask the question.
Q: 38% of the 1L class is representing an asylum client. [we suffer financially and need more funding]. At the moment we have no faculty support, there are liability concerns with 1L's represent clients. But they ARE. Can we get some faculty help?
[applause]
DE: I have actually raised this question. It should be on the agenda of the clinical committee. but here is my view: student practice organizations are very important. the question is, which students organizations should be supported? One can imagine lots of different models. There are indeed liability issues, which is why I wanted to to put it to the clinical committee.
Q: At the 3L town hall you said you would look into the bar passage rate. results?
DE: we will try to circulate something soon.
I don't know if this opinion will prove unpopular, but I've been clerking for two years and it pays really well. You start at around $60K and then it moves to $70K+ near the end of the year and for your second year (then jumps again). I've had absolutely no problem making the payments on my $100K in school debt and living a very nice lifestyle, much better than before I came to law school.
I guess I don't see why the LRAP repayment reaches such high salaries. If you are making $30-45K doing pro bono, of course, but $60K+ just seems like too much. That's in the upper percentile of incomes nationwide, and it's more than enough to pay loans and live well. Even to raise a family with a second income. I know no one in my family ever made more than that. Anyway, just one clerk's thoughts. I think I'd prefer to see the money go to facilities and expansion of the faculty, and to those working the lowest paying public interest jobs.
DO's comment re: faculty evaluations... Why do we care if the faculty thinks its useful?
re: faculty evaluations -
if we want to see them all and to see whatever we want, we should do them ourselves. although, i don't really think having 90 comments per semester regarding the quality of professor X's lectures is necessarily going to be useful.
12:54 was talking about LEED certification - it's an international system for ranking how environmentally sensitive/sound a building is. Experts watch your building from the time construction starts, and when it's done they rank it: bronze, silver, gold, platinum. I think his point is that we should sort of put our money where our mouth is: since Boalt is well-known for its Environmental Law program, we should try to make our building as environmentally sound as possible.
I would add from my own experience that, insofar as the LEED standards measure the amount of energy that it takes to run a building, it's not only environmentally sound but also cost-effective in the long term to try to meet the highest standard possible.
You can debate the other values embodied in LEED: natural building materials, low embodied energy, non-toxic building materials, recycled materials, low-waste building practices, etc.
(not patrick but correcting somethinhg above)
from what i could tell, it appeare dthat BTLJ did NOT sign the letter. so the letter is not, in fact, signed by every student group on campus.
Was the BTLJ approached to sign it?
I mean, has anyone asked what the PROCEDURE is for getting an "organization" to sign this letter? Do the members get to VOTE on whether to endorses it or not? I mean, I'm in 2 of the student orgs listed (plus BTLJ, which IS notably missing). None of these groups have called a meeting or sent e-mails or otherwise approached the membership to see if we support the letter. I'm not saying I would've voted against it, but it does seems like the signature of an organizations without the will of the membership behind it doesn't really mean a whole lot.
3:46--are you on the boards of either of those organizations? I'm sure there is something in the bylaws of all the student organizations that the board can make a decision without emailing its entire membership. You don't get to help make a decision just by showing up for pizza at lunch. If you're really curious, you could, you know, ASK the head of one of these organizations of whose procedures you are so suspicious.
I'm not 3:46, but I'm pretty sure his/her point was more that the signature of an organization on this letter really only reflects the opinion of 4-10 people, not the opinion of the entire body of the group.
I don't think (s)he's attacking the way groups make their decisions, but rather the weight of a group's signature on that list.
I'd like to see an anonymous survey of student support for increasing LRAP. The survey should say, "The average non-LRAP recipient pays $X per semester to fund the LRAP program. Should we increase this to $Y?" I'm sure DE has the numbers and could find out the true support for the program. I have a feeling that it would be lower than the town hall suggests.
3:46 here. And 4:39 misunderstands my point. I'm saying it is deceptive to make it SEEM like the signature represents this vast majority of students at Boalt because so many student GROUPS signed the letter. While it MIGHT represent a popular sentiment at Boalt, this LETTER only represents the belief of the few leaders of each organization. It's misleading to imply that 40 entire organizations endorse it.
Whether or not all the members of a journal signed on seems trivial to me. It seems very safe to say that in general Boalties support the LRAP. The journals example was a passing comment in a laundry list of reasons (not all well documented by me -- sorry about that) to think that Boalt students want to find ways to fund LRAP.
It is worth noting that every single time somebody mentioned finding ways to fund LRAP, students at the town hall cheered. The tone the of conversation was definitely "how can we do more," not "should we do more," or "do we all even want to do more?"
For the record, it was actually DE who described LRAP in terms of one group of students "subsidizing" another. Not students. I'm certainly not criticizing anyone's point of view here or telling them what to support, but *in general* the students at the town hall meeting were very vocal about and interested in all things LRAP. And they were very supportive of the program.
That's why I think the accuracy of journals as a measure for Boalties' positions on paying for LRAP is pretty ancillary to the message DE got at the Town Hall. As a student body, it seems like we support it very strongly. If there really is a large subset of students who are violently opposed to the LRAP, where were they this afternoon and why didn't they speak up? Because it would have been controversial or weird? They why didn't they submit their concerns anonymously ahead of time?
Actually, I am surprised this is the focus of conversation. I had sort of anticipated the comments here would have zeroed for the kill in one DE's rather disturbing moral hazard observation:
When LRAP benefits were made much more generous over the last two years, student's borrowing habits adjusted immediately.
What is THAT all about?
"When LRAP benefits were made much more generous over the last two years, student's borrowing habits adjusted immediately.
What is THAT all about?"
Let me guess. You didn't major in econ.
A few responses to Patrick:
"It seems very safe to say that in general Boalties support the LRAP."
While Boalties generally support the LRAP, they don't necessarily support its broad expansion.
"*in general* the students at the town hall meeting were very vocal about and interested in all things LRAP."
The views of 850 Boalt Hall students aren't represented by thirty people who came to a Student Forum to advocate an LRAP expansion. And I don't know if you've noticed this yet, but Boalt isn't really a hospitable place for "unpopular" opinions.
"accuracy of journals as a measure for Boalties' positions on paying for LRAP"
There was ABSOLUTELY NO discussion in CLR about this issue. Neither was there any notification that CLR was taking a position: no email, no memo, no sign in the CLR Lounge. They didn't even mention it in the weekly Eggplant. I've heard that there was no discussion at BBLJ, either. And BTLJ--the largest journal at Boalt--didn't sign.
If there really is a large subset of students who are violently opposed to the LRAP, where were they this afternoon and why didn't they speak up?
They weren't there because this wasn't a forum on the LRAP. And people that say unpopular things at Boalt become social pariahs.
I'm pretty sure if you voice any violent opposition to LRAP around Boalt you get tarred and feathered in the name justice, freedom, and etc. The fact that journal members weren't informed of the decision to sign on to the letter shows the real lack of debate or discussion.
I don't support an expansion of LRAP. I didn't go to the forum today because:
1) Within Boalt, it doesn't matter what I think.
2) The social cost of speaking publicly against LRAP isn't worth the (nonexistent) benefit of speaking up.
Before anyone accuses me of whining, I should point out that I don't particularly care that I don't get my way. I knew Boalt was like this when I came here. I didn't come here expecting to change anything. I have no real interested in changing anything. I only post now to explain why the town hall audience was not representative.
Ouch.
Well, for what it's worth, DE seemed to treat it like an opportunity for student input. And anonymous submissions for topic discussions were accepted in advance. So there was an opportunity to get your point of view out there without being tarred and feathered.
I'm not trying to argue, though. My observations are, first that DE seemed to treat it as an opportunity for student input, and (for better or worse -- better in my humble opinion) the input he got was that Boalties (or at least Boalties who came to today's talk) are very pro-LRAP, and pro-LRAP expansion. And second, that the list of journals was a passing note in a very long discussion. It was by no means the pivotal moment in the conversation. I'm sorry I didn't document it better for you -- if I had, it probably wouldn't seem so glaring.
#1: I'm not very much in favor of raising the cap either. My position on that has been well documented in the LRAP posting a couple days ago. It's good to see that despite what anyone says about him, DE is still good at taking into account (at least sometimes) the views of a silent majority - especially when he discussed the moral hazard of raising the cap.
We had a good discussion emerge in the comments of that post. It's good to see that the primary concern that everyone felt needed addressed - that people who deserve to be covered by LRAP possibly wouldn't be covered - was addressed by DE and we can hopefully all sleep better at night.
#2: Patrick- you probably weren't aware that there was an organized effort by a certain pro-LRAP 2L group to make their case at the event. It was no accident there was a substantially high number of pro-LRAP people there, and it certainly wasn't representative of the entire population (though I think you're probably right that there's a lot of people who at least in principle agree with LRAP's purposes).
#3: Did anyone else rely on Patrick's wonderful town hall live blogging and choose to skip the DE presentation to go to the 49ers presentation instead? I did. I'm still pissed off about what happened and I'm contemplating opening a dialogue about it.
For those who went: Is there any interest or am I just blowing a lot of unnecessary hot air?
[For those who didn't, it can best be summarized as an orchestrated half-hour speaker ambush regarding disability benefits in the NFL - way not cool to fellow Boalties who planned the event b/c it was way off topic - not to mention hurt future chances of bringing sports speakers to Boalt. I'll write more if there's interest.]
TJ- I'd like to hear more about what happened at the NFL event.
thanks
My feelings on the NFL lunch ambush are basically just that the topic was an important/interesting one, but that it was absolutely the inappropriate forum. I don't like the way causes, however noble, can cause people to act rudely towards speakers at our school.
OK- that's two in like twenty minutes. I'll try to gather my thoughts on the event and I'll get something up tonight. Try to hold off on comments about it now and we'll get a discussion going in its own thread.
I think 7:17 makes some good points about it not being worth it to speak up sometimes. Personally, I am pro-LRAP, and I would love for the cap to be raised...at least in theory. The problem with some of the more vocal supporters of this idea is that no one seems to have a good idea where to get the money for this. Raising tuition for this purpose doesn't make any sense at all, and I don't need to explain why.
TJ--please give details. What group did the lunch? What was the planned topic? Who were the speakers? And what was this ambush?
I think we obiously don't want students to exploit the LRAP system. Like DE said, we don't want students to max out on loans or to not take parental contributions just bc they know all their loans will be paid off in full by the LRAP. But I don't think that's happening with a 90k cap.
Students using LRAP have, on average, 20k more in loans at graduation. 10k is the bar loan - which most 3Ls at firms wouldn't have to take bc their job covers them. How much do 2Ls make at firms over the summer? It's a lot more than 10k. And the financial aid office counts 60% of your summer earnings towards your tuition. So without even calculating the 1Ls who get paid over the summer (and it seems like there are a lot of 1Ls who do work at firms, despite what CDO leads you to believe) the difference is MORE than made up for in the pay differential between firms and PI in the 2L year.
DE acknowledged that this was a possibility and would be a welcomed one, but really, the committee should analyze how much students are borrowing. I think they'll find that the LRAP currently underfunds. I'm concerned about the 50% of students that are well over the 90k cap. Maybe bc they started here out of state. Or they have families to support, or they came into law school from PI jobs were they making enough to save up for grad school.
DE says our LRAP program is the most generous of all the top ten schools - and in many ways it is. It's the reason I came to Boalt and I feel fortunate that I will be able to use it. Still I think it can be improved.
Spot on, 10:39.
95K means half the students are above that number. Many substantially above it. And as tuition is projected to rise, we should expect loans to rise with it.
Contrary to what 6:05 said, the shift in debt load is NOT easily explained by anyone with an econ degree (though that would surely help). There are a lot of factors and a lot of influences at work. The long discussion today about what kind of jobs students might take with a stronger LRAP was an eye-opener to me.
I don't pretend to know the perfect answer. Hell, I'm not even interested in applying for LRAP. But overall I was warmed by Dean E's talk today because it made me feel like he was sensitive to all the players and all the points of view, and was really interested in finding a balanced position for the school to take. I'm okay with supporting whatever he comes up with. Even if it means giving up a sliver of my BigLaw cash.
"95K means half the students are above that number."
Wrong: you are confusing median and mean. Perhaps there are just a handful of LRAP participants with 160K in debt, but many participants with 30K in debt. Better numbers, as DE intimates, would help resolve this.
In any case, the average debt load is 95K for LRAP participants--or 17K higher than the average Boaltie's. This means that LRAP participants are paying for less of their own education, either through personal funds (pre-law school savings, summer income) or family contributions. The 17K difference can be the savings of a 2L summer firm job and/or a bar stipend from a firm, but then there should be some offset for Edley grants, BLF funds, etc.
In any case, let's assume that an LRAP participant has 160K in debt (I personally know of at least one case of this, and there must be many more). After LRAP, that person is repaying principal and interest on 65K of debt. If the amortization period is 10 years, they pay something like $1000/month. Ouch. If the period is 30 years, they pay considerably less--maybe $400/month. That's a lot over time, yes, but recall that this example is an outlier, and this person has not paid a dime of his/her own education for 3 years. Is some additional contribution from LRAP justified? Perhaps, depending, I think, on the person's means and needs. You might even say absolutely. But should LRAP pay off everything? For everyone and anyone who has piled on debt and not paid anything for their own eduction? Here I think not.
I like the idea of case-by-case consideration of hardships like the above example. That seems to be DE's point. But the notion that anyone who amasses 160K in debt and works PI should get a free pass offends my notion of personal accountability. Especially if that person knows ex ante that Boalt (that is, the fellow students) will pick up 100% of the tab. Especially if that person could have contributed or sought help from other sources. Here's where the moral hazard comes in.
I ask this: what do current students think about their tuition subsidizing current alumni who are working PI, generally making ends meet, but just don't want to make a $400/month payment? And do you want to pay for all debts of anyone who fits this description, without exception or consideration of actual need? Because that's what a 160K LRAP cap would mean.
I agree with 6:54. I think the real issue is: what are the limits for which student tuition should be used to subsidize the income of practicing attorneys?
After all, it can't be that anyone who doesn't want to work at Skadden should be able to describe her work as pro- or "low-" bono, run up $200K of debt, and then hoist that debt onto current law students.
In other words: this is a real economic issue, in which a scarcity of resources has to be allocated most fairly and efficiently. And it's just incorrect to say that there is a student consensus only one one side.
@4:57
I conducted such a survey in 2007 during our work to improve LRAP at the time (i.e., "what are non-LRAP students willing to pay?")
The responses were overwhelmingly in support of increasing funds for LRAP even if that meant that non-LRAP students' grants would be limited.
HOWEVER, Dean Edley (rather, Laurent Heller, his staff member working on LRAP at the time) was able to limit the impact of the programs cost to non-participants. This was done in two basic ways (though implementation was more complex):
(1) few people participate in LRAP even with the improvements (less than 60 participated over the prior 10 years)
(2) alumni and student donors offered funds they otherwise were not planning on making available specifically for LRAP.
There's more to it and the program is likely to change over time (which is great, the prior program failed in that respect), but thus far things seem to be working very well for those who qualify (I've spoken with two people whose positions were not considered applicable - in reality they were borderline qualified positions but some in Fin Aid are concerned about the "moral hazard" problem which I believe/hope is a non-issue, the real reason for the higher debt among public interest students is that they don't have summer firm positions: the difference in debt levels is about $20,000 - almost the exact amount a student would be able to save less their decrease in grant money and expenses from firm work [suits, "life-style", etc]).
Thanks for working hard on this and caring about the impact on the school, students, and the state!
Abe: Do you know the actual dollar amount contributed to LRAP per non-LRAP student, per semester? It seems like making the number available could shed a lot of light on the debate.
Just one comment on the "30 students" in Booth at the DE town hall... it was more like at least 70...maybe more. The middle section of Booth was pretty full and anyone who has ever ran any event in that room knows that takes a lot of people! It certainly was not all people with LRAP interests in mind, I, for one, attended for other reasons.
How much does LRAP cost? Right now, something less than $823 per student per year. If all goes according to plan, then by 2011 it will cost something less than $1765 per student per year.
These numbers (which I calculated) are based on numbers released by Dean Edley at last semester's town hall: this year LRAP will cost $700,000. Divide that by 850 students, you get $823 per student. The administration expects LRAP to cost $1,500,000 per year by 2011. That gives us $1765 per student.
I said "something less than" because the plan is to supplement the student fees contribution with alumni donations; don't know if this has happened yet to any significant extent.
Keep in mind that a number of people either don't remain in public interest jobs until their loans are paid off (10 yrs?), or start to earn more than $58,000/year after a few years of public interest work. An inside source tells me that a newly minted JD would have started at Earthjustice in Oakland this year at a salary of about $50,000. And that's a fellowship position. I'm sure it goes up reasonably if you become a staff attorney.
I would just add, on another note, that in my position on BHSA as one of the 1L reps, there has been lots of talk this year about tuition increases and LRAP, and we have several times solicited student input about these issues. And I have heard various opinions (both solicited and unsolicited) from many people about LRAP, all of them given with the understanding that their anonymity would be respected. And not a single person has told me that we should either keep LRAP at its current level or decrease it. Quite the contrary. I think my experience is representative of pretty much everyone on BHSA, which is why the student members of the Financial Aid Committee (quite apart from this independent student movement mentioned above), in conjunction with BHSA, have been advocating very strongly for an increase in the LRAP cap.
If you're a 1L, and you think LRAP shouldn't be increased, or that it should be lowered, please let me know.
6:55 here.
Abe--I'd be happy to channel the summer grant fund into the LRAP, because the latter is much more effective at promoting public interest. Nonetheless, that's a different issue than increasing tuition.
10:48--You're right, there were more than 30 people there. But if you noticed, quite a few people there weren't hooting and hollering for an LRAP expansion.
Jesse--Thanks for providing some insight into costs, although I think your math is a little simplistic. Also, I'm not sure I understand the point of your third paragraph, since that information is already accounted for into the cost projections.
If the LRAP fund was supported by alumni donations, then I think everyone would support an expansion. But that's currently not the case.
Regarding BHSA: I don't recall BHSA raising a discussion on the issue. The whole point is that there is only a small group of people that get involved in BHSA, Boalt Hall committees, etc. And they frequently agree on the same issues. That's why nearly any letter gets immediately cosigned by BHSA and many other organizations.
Most Boalt students aren't involved in these activities. And those who don't have the "right" view know or quickly learn to keep their mouths shut (see 7:17).
My point is: if nobody at BHSA has heard a contrary opinion, then that says more about BHSA and Boalt's environment for dialogue than it does about student opinion.
if nobody at BHSA has heard a contrary opinion, then that says more about BHSA and Boalt's environment for dialogue than it does about student opinion.
Whaaaaat?
Could somebody please explain how that is BHSA's failure?
Isn't it more indicative of a failure to speak to BHSA? Or send an anonymous complaint, if that's more your style?
Not having any other distractions standing between me and my WOA brief, I seized the moment to look up LEED certification. Now that I have background information and am familiar with the vocabulary, I think the confusion at 12:54 was pretty much all me. Again.
LEED ratings are certified by the U.S. Green Building Council (whose logo looks freakishly like the Canadian maple leaf). Buildings are rated platinum, gold etc., (hence the discussion of precious metals) based on standards for environmentally sustainable construction. (Hence mentioning Boalt and precious metals in the same sentence).
US GBC Here'
ELS On Boalt and LEED Here
Wiki Here
So now that I know all that, 12:54 and Jesse James at 2:40 make a lot more sense to me. I'm still not sure what phonetic error I made with "seek help" but I'm confident that's not what DE said.
Apologies for any confusion I created with . . . my confusion.
And no, 6:05, I wasn't an architecture major.
(4:06 again)
I didn't know that BHSA had been "advocating very strongly for an increase in the LRAP cap."
In fact, I didn't know anyone was talking about expanding the LRAP until I saw the letter on N&B. So I don't see how I could be faulted for "failing" to express my views on an issue that I didn't know existed.
Just to be clear: what I object to is the way that BHSA and the letter's signatories are claiming to be representing a student consensus, which they are not.
I have been one-upped. You can find an audio recording of the Town Hall here.
i think by seek help you might have meant ccelp:
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/envirolaw/
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