Monday, May 8, 2017

Vermont Growing Stronger with USDA Loan

No matter how fiscally conservative you are, sometimes you have to admit that the federal government makes really good lending investments in various remote New England wealth transfer schemes.
Vermont Law School officials say a $17 million loan [at 2.4% interest!  suck it, GradPlus borrowers!] from the federal government is helping the school to restructure debt and invest in a fundamentally different education model in which year-round and online courses offer more flexibility for students.
...
“Our students may be on a Coast Guard ship. Or running a bank in Ohio,” [President and Dean Mark] Mihaly said. “They’re doing all sorts of things. They’re not going to quit their jobs and move their families to Vermont.”
Christ no - who the hell would?  That no one wants to live there shouldn't stop the location from having a thriving law school that pilfers money from all over the place and benefit small-town America by bankrolling a faculty of 135.
“[The USDA was] attracted because we’re an economic engine [eight cylinders, right? - ed.], and a part of rural America that needs investment,” Mihaly said. “Also, they were attracted because there was a crisis in law schools. There was a rapid decline. We had been through that and more than stabilized.”
Indeed, there was a crisis. If you'll recall, it lasted until about the time we stopped denying its existence.  Then it was poof, a clap of the hands, finished, past tense.  All stable now.  (Does "more than stabilized" mean a rollover?)

For the fall of 2016, Vermont Law School enrolled a class of 139 with an LSAT 25-75 spread of 145-156 and a 25-75 GPA spread of 2.77-3.5.  Its most recent bar passage rate was 60.2%.  Starting cost in the fall for sticker is $261,691 per LST.

Sure, it may seem peculiar, ludicrous, offensive, ridiculous, outrageous, dimwitted, cockamamied, and all sorts of other words that our federal government is lending a piece of dogshit, negative externality, crony capitalist exploitation mill in the forested, folksy corner of the U.S. $17 million to help maintain the economy of a sleepy metro area of 2,700 by sustaining wealth-shifting to a bloated faculty of brave souls willing - gasp - to live there a good part of the year and maintain an institution that should not exist in the first place.

Well step off the ledge, Skippy!  Have some faith!  Your federal government knows how to manage a loan portfolio. 

After all, look how many Vermont Law School students they've funded already, and every dime paid back with interest.  Those coins from heaven are coated in maple syrup - and don't worry, they float to the Earth like feathers. This is fluffland, and not even the metaphorical bodies of dead legal careers tossed out of the Million Dollar Jetxpress follow that queer 9.8 m/s^2 acceleration bullshit.

13 comments:

  1. Shit! Didn't I write about this idiocy less than a year ago?

    http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.ca/2016/08/usda-to-fund-toilet-law-school-in.html

    And now the fucking application has been approved? Jesus H. Christ.

    Economic engine? Vermont Law School? Whose bonds were rated as junk? Which has been getting rid of employees because it cannot pay the bills? Which will hardly be able to repay this loan?

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  2. Mihaly said U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., brokered talks between the school and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and that the idea for a loan grew out of the USDA’s interest in investing in the educational model…

    I bolded the salient part of this article. Also, I remember Old Guy's post vividly. The USDA's money would have been better spent on a sap bucket factory.

    Sap buckets for the saps

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    Replies
    1. Hell, the USDA's money would have been better put to use on pizzas and hookers. How many Biglaw practitioners does this pile of rot produce each year? The same as a cat's litter box.

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    2. Thanks for finding the photo.

      I still remember that gas station after all these years. It was the most prominent site in the area, after the toilet law skule across the two-lane highway. And it still had the sign about the buckets. I only regret not stopping in and buying a bucket as a souvenir. Probably they are all gone now: Mihaly and his fellow scamsters must have taken them all to the USDA in order to tap Uncle $ugar for some $weet $ap.

      May as well write that $17M "loan" off right now. Repayment is about as likely as being dealt a full house with no wild cards.

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  3. Buckets of my money
    And Other People’s Money [OPM]
    Money in Vermont

    Middle finger waves
    [Radio edit] trails down a mountain side
    OPM in Vermont

    Guaranteed loans, how they sing down the highway
    As they travel each bend in the road
    And when they meet, in this [Radio edit] setting
    All but a few are poorer and poorer ...

    Buckets of my money
    And Other People’s Money
    Money in Vermont

    (w/apologies to Blackburn and Suessdorf)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks. I was tempted to write "Toilet in Vermont" to the same tune but couldn't be bothered.

      Maybe "Mooncalves in Vermont"? It would be off by only one syllable.

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  4. Deliverance North
    I hear dulcimer music
    Now squeal like a moose.

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  5. Old Guy or Dybukk or LSTC or Nando or need to file a FOIA request on any and all documents relating to this "loan."

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  6. Shrewd survival mode: The Department of Agriculture supporting a law school - what an idea! All life is political these days, and Republicans are much less likely to attack funding by Agriculture than Education (family farmers, you know). And a Democratic Senator helped set it all up (while bringing the bacon home to Vermont). Stroke of genius; looks like a triple (TTT) win! Now, as soon as VLS can figure out how to convince USNews that Federal assistance from Cabinet departments other than Education should be calculated into the law school ranking formula, VLS will be poised on a high-pitched trajectory for a rankings boost that will bring it way, w-a-y, w-a-a-a-y up to ... T3.

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  7. Oh, did Vermont have to give up its bankruptcy right and agree to piercing of its corporate veil, and/or have faculty make personal guarantees to repay the loan also with no bankruptcy right???? Is that why they got a 2.4% interest loan???

    I am so fucking sick of, and disgusted with, the federal government. They used the younger generations as slaves. They fucked them over with careful intention. Fuck them. They deserve nothing. They are broke, and they have already destroyed this county and her economy. The Congress can all go to hell. The President and Trump University can go fuck themselves.

    Immoral, depraved, lying piece of shit. And racist.

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  8. I love the part about "economic engine" because that only works if the students are there spending their student loan money in the community but we learned that the students actually aren't going to move to Vermont but may be out "on a Coast Guard ship." This of course is bullshit.

    Essentially, VLS now has a $17 million loan to keep VLS open so VLS students can spend their student loan money in the community. This is scam squared and even Dean Satan should be humbled by the scamistry.

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    Replies
    1. How much money would the spend in the "community" anyway? There's almost nothing on which to spend it, save tuition at the toilet law school. One can cross the street and buy a maple-tapping bucket at the gas station, but not much else. Even buying groceries requires a half-hour drive into New Hampshire.

      And how does the Department of Agriculture have any mother-fucking business funding a moribund law toilet whose "students" supposedly are off in the Coast Guard somewhere (landlocked Vermont not having much need for their services) and wouldn't have a goddamn thing to do with agriculture anyway?

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