A Call to Expand PSLF

PSLF (pronounced something like "Piss Life'") is in danger of getting hacked by the nickel-and-dimers on Capitol Hill, who hate law schools so much that they've built a structural framework for immune monopolistic profiteering that requires just a little too much effort for most law deans' liking.

Not only should we keep PSLF, which allows people who win the lottery of nabbing highly-competitive positions the added benefit of early loan forgiveness, or something like that (I'm far more interested in the front end than what comes out the back, if you get my drift.), we should expand it to anyone who works outside the largest, richest firms.

Let's look at the reasons:

1. We know there's a bimodal salary curve. Even though there are plenty of opportunities on the right-hand side of the curve, attorneys are still choosing to work on the left side of the curve. They may not be serving the US government, but in serving smaller private interests, they're doing extremely important work. Because, you know, keeping immigrants here and mothers getting child support and small slumlords collecting arrears is de facto public service. Why should they be treated differently than their peers at the public defender's office?

2. For even those law graduates who choose to work outside of the legal sector in competitive JD-advantage and "Other", their work is doing valuable public service, which we can know because we imagine that they're doing just as good as the people who land law jobs.

3. Have you noticed a steep decline in sound logical reasoning on these law school, particularly financing issues?  Let me explain this one:  See, the more suckers we can put on PSLF, the more credible we can sound when we claim it's a viable loan repayment option. Because otherwise, you'd have to be braindead not to get a job with that massive benefit if you had any kind of choice, which most people do not.  And really, it doesn't seem fair to add a massive benefit to jobs that would be super-competitive even in the absence of said benefit. So, fuck, let's just give the benefit to everyone who could possibly need it. Because this entire law school thing is all about obfuscating the sticker price. With discounts and IBR and PSLF and funny pages accounting, we can charge the little bastards $500k, tell them they'll only pay like $10k a year over ten years and then - BAM - everyone's happy.

4. Meanwhile, the public benefits. Here's what'll happen: once we expand PSLF to anyone choosing to make a modest income to help the bottom 99%, maybe some of those super-smart hotshot big firm lawyers will follow suit. Better yet, maybe the largest law firms will lower their salary rates to 50k a year as they realize top talent is no longer going for their top salaries but are more interested in getting a quick-ish discharge for their 500k debts. It's incredibly convoluted and stupid, but god damn it, this is America, and we need to find a foolproof way to let the high rise people drink from the top shelf while the underground dwellers suck mule urine from the shag carpet stalagmites that hang from the ceiling of the moldy work caves. Load the backs of the knaves with a ton of rocks, take some pebbles away, and then act like you've given them an amazing benefit for their feel-good make-work public service. Act offended when they mention the rocks. Counter with some story about the time you carted a sandwich on the Staten Island Ferry. Complain about freeway and prison being built near favorite golf course. Suggest that law grads hang a shingle with no knowledge or move to rustic South Dakota. Justice justice justice. Suck the teat of government until the milk runs dry, then accuse it of being a whore. Soil, wash, rinse, repeat.