BRIAN TAMANAHA: The irresponsibility of law schools. (Via TaxProf). “Many law schools continue to report that more than 90% of their recent graduates have obtained jobs. Those of us on the inside scoff at these numbers–but many prospective students, who lack the same information, might rely upon these numbers to conclude that law school is a relatively good option during a recession.”

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Pittman writes:

I’m 58 and got my BA in Psychology at considerable expense back in the 1970s. It qualified me to apply for a job as a Mobile Home sales rep, which I got, but I didn’t do very well at it and quit before they fired me. It also qualified me to apply for a job as a VW sales rep at a local dealership, but I didn’t get as far as the interview because I wasn’t aggressive enough to insist on being interviewed. So I moved on to a much cheaper two-year community college/tech school, got an Associate degree in computer programming, and have been pulling down six figures for some time now. At least in my field, it’s all about what you can do, not whether you can satisfy some Prima Donna faculty member who wants to demonstrate his/her superiority to you, and who will give you bad grades if you dare to disagree with him or her. I ran into a bunch of those back in my college days.

Law school students probably have a legit complaint about their schools’ over-promising and under-delivering, but liberal arts students have at least as much to complain about. Maybe all higher ed students should start looking seriously at ROI. My otherwise-worthless BA has admittedly gotten my foot in the door a couple of times, but my far-from-prestigious Associate degree is what paid off my mortgage.

Oh, I certainly doubt that law schools are the worst offenders. There are loads of Ph.D. programs that graduate people who are very unlikely to find serious work, and lots of undergraduate degrees that are no more than an expensive ticket-punch.