It sounds like your root cause here is not “I’m not happy as a journalist” but “I don’t have enough money to live how I’d like and pay my student loans. Because of this, I’ve entered into a bargain with my parents that they are now calling due, but that will involve more loans.”
So there are three issues.
Are you happy as a journalist and would you be happy as an attorney?
What is the risk analysis of law school? Who is going to pay all those loans for law school if you don’t get an $80k a year job? Your parents? And if so, can they really afford it?
Is it time to cut your ties to your parents? Are you comfortable with “you do what we want or we stop paying your bills?” Are you comfortable with extending that relationship through more debt?
(and msmith - MOST MBAs spend years scraping by on $40k-80k - like a lot of attorneys. They get their degrees from “schools that provide them” instead of “schools known for them.” Like a JD, an MBA is no guarantee of making much at all. And in this economy, with a similar glut of graduates to law school - you can get out of business school with a lot of debt and no prospects.)
Hey, that’s still more than our journalism friend is making.
Really what it comes down to though is should the OP stay where he is at barely making ends meet? Or should he take a chance and pursue a career with a chance to earn a great deal more?
Or if it is just about money, are there other career choices that pay more, but maybe don’t have the costly academic requirements?
Sure, but then again, he currently only holds a B.A. A B.A. in plain old Business or Marketing or HR won’t see much more than he is making starting out either in much of the country.
And there ARE other career choices out there that are pretty cheap. If he can get two and a half years of working on project type of work under his belt and pass a PMP exam - you can do that for less than $3000 and frankly anyone with some experience and a few brain cells can pass it - and get paid while you do the work experience. PMPs make around $80-100k.
Where is the OP living where he’s “just getting by” with $38K? He doesn’t have student debt that he’s paying, correct? Unless he’s living in San Fran or NYC or some other expensive place where he really would be scraping, I just can’t see why he can’t fix this problem by paying the debt to his parents. Unless they’re evil, self-centered people who have raised him to believe that money is everything, I don’t see why they would force him to go to law school when he’s just getting his feet wet doing something he wants to do.
Maybe I just can’t find it easy to relate to this because I busted my ass getting an advanced degree and seven years after the fact, I’ve just now crossed over into comfortable middle-classdom. And never once during those “poor” days did I consider going back to school to increase my income, even when the alligators and mosquitos were both nipping at my feet and I thought I was going to die from all the work. I was more concerned about making sure that my skills were in top-notch shape so that I could increase my job security with the education I had already possessed. So it doesn’t seem that big of a deal to me to have a job making $38K with no kids, with plenty of potential to grow and evolve in the future. With or without a degree. Not in this freakin’ economy. The OP seems to think his life is going in a bad direction because he’s not making a gazillion dollars. Who in the hell is making a gazillion dollars (or even thinking about a gazillion dollars) with just a bachelor’s degree and little experience? That sounds like he’s trying to live up to someone else’s standards, not those based in reality.
The OP didn’t call his parents that, though. He seems quite passive about this, IMHO. Too passive. Especially for a potential lawyer.
The only way I can view this “arrangement” as being fair is if the parents had said from the get-go, “Before we sign off on paying for your student loans, you have to consent to going to law school if you don’t get a high-paying job X years after college.” Even then, it still seems like a messed-up deal. But at least they would have been upfront about it and give him a way to say, “No way! I’ll pay my own way, thankyouverymuch.”
I’m all for parents tying strings to college money (such as, you cannot major in basket-weaving or take seven years to graduate). But once your child has found a job that he enjoys? Either eat up the expensive tuition silently and be grateful that everyone’s happy and came out with all their brain cells intact, or gently inform him that he needs to be ponying up some dough, $38K or not. What would suck is potentially screwing up what might be a good thing for him simply because you want him to be on some career fast-track. That’s what makes people leap out of windows, for pete’s sake.
That’s why I advise the OP to stop this train wreck and tell the parents that he’ll pay them back, on terms that are reasonable. That is, if he has any reservations about going to law school. If he wants to go, then by all means he should take them up on their offer. But he shouldn’t be doing it for them. They should figure nada in the entire equation.
I just wish the government would collect information about jobs so we could analyze it and make career decision. Hell, they already have a “Bureau of Labor Statistics” I wonder why they don’t put out any publications about this?
The legal profession is projected to grow at a rate that is about average when compared to other professions (13% growth), and is expected to have higher competition than average for available jobs.
Median earnings are around $150,000 but as with any job numbers you need to explore those statistics and look in your area (if you plan on staying there) to have a better idea what you could make personally.
I’ll sort of agree with the people who say that getting a degree in law solely to help pay off student loan debt may not be the best move. I think if you don’t have a “burning desire to practice law” and are just going into law to pay off debt, it’s highly likely you will not excel at law school because you would not be properly motivated. If you do not excel at law school you could end up working for $45k a year in State or Local government and that’s not a significant raise over $38k when it costs you over $100k in debt to get there.
However if you really want to be a lawyer, I think law school is always a good move. Some people say that lawyers have high job dissatisfaction, but the statistics show that about 75% of lawyers are happy with their chosen profession. However it may be the case that the numbers are so high because many dissatisfied lawyers end up leaving the legal field. Even if true that’s not a bad thing, having a law degree and having some experience as a lawyer can actually enable you to become very successful in fields outside the practice of the law, and in a way can help you get job opportunities you could not otherwise pursue.
I’ve yet to hear (and I reread the thread) are these student loans Federal loans? If so you can get forbearances on them essentially forever. You can also sign up for an income contingent repayment plan.
If they are private loans, are your parents cosigners? If so I wouldn’t take their threat to stop paying too seriously…
To answer the last question, yes they’re private so I can’t consolidate.
I guess I didn’t explain my situation as well. I’ve been a journalist for 5 years and this is my fourth job. And the first one over $30K! I don’t live at home; I live on my own. If I paid all my bills (and loans), I’d have about $400 bucks for gas/food and whatever else since I also have a car payment/insurance. I know that could probably work, but I think i want a better lifestyle than living paycheck to paycheck.
My question, really, is that I’m in a situation where, yes, I’m happy right now, but is it sustainable forever? The journalism ceiling is so low; I mean the most I’d probably ever make in journalism is pretty close to what I’d likely at least make out of law school (i’d say somewhere around 60K). I like the job, but not enough to be poor and scraping by my whole life.
My parents want me to do this because it will likely give me a more secure future, with obviously much higher potential earnings as an attorney. Though, there is so much unknown with the economy it’s hard to give up a paycheck to go to school without knowing how the heck it will end up.
I’ve tried to get non-journalism jobs for the past 2 years with no luck, so this seems like the only option. It just seems crazy to go into more debt b/c I have too much debt right now.
BTW, I got into a Top 30 school, so I know if I do well I should… should, be OK.
You can’t say, “Well, I don’t want to do what most people do when they start out (and you are still in the “paying dues” part of your career, btw) and live paycheck to paycheck. I’ll choose the easier life where I let my parents protect me from that” AND then waffle about doing what your parents want you to do. Every decision comes with a trade-off. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve decided to trade a more comfortable life with having your parents be your puppet-masters. You can either cut the strings (which would mean paying your debts) or let them dictate the terms of your life.
The fact that you seem so totally unconcerned about paying your own way makes me less sympathetic. It seems you’re accomstomed to a certain lifestyle and like being taken care of. Well, to me, that means you are still a dependent. Which means your parents aren’t jerks for pushing you to get a better job. If I were paying my kid’s debts and he was all la-ti-da about it, that would make me want to exert some tough love myself.
OK, where do you live where $60K is poor? Even in NYC, that’s not poor.
Secondly, you are still paying dues, dude. I know you feel like you deserve more, but you are working in a stiff economy, in a competitive field that is not known for high salaries. This last was true even before the recession. Did you not realize this before you started out?
Thirdly, you’re going to be scrambling your whole life. Maybe not financially, but metaphorically. Lawyers may not necessarily be poor, but they deal with stresses that aren’t even on your radar yet. Like trying to find a high-paying job and pass the bar, while paying down their student debts. If you’re already worried about being poor and you’re making close to $40K, then you’re gonna shrivel up like a raisin in the sun when you get out of a law school and your parents aren’t there to help you pick up the slack, which will be a ton heavier than what you are dealing with now.
I’m a realistic, so I know happiness isn’t everything. You do have to eat. But equating your situation with poverty shows immaturity. Especially with so many people out there who would kill to have a job, let alone one that they like.
You will be okay even if you don’t go to law school. I don’t know why you think this isn’t true unless someone is pumping you up with a whole bunch of crap.
As my Property professor told us before our exam (the first one of our first semester): All of you want to be in the top ten percent. Ninety percent of you are going to be disappointed.
Yes, if you do well at Notre Dame or Fordham, you will have a very good shot at a Biglaw gig in Chicago or NYC. But there’s the rub: it’s hard enough to do well in law school, which requires you to compete with plenty of people who were always the smartest guy or gal in the room too, and, perhaps even more importantly in law school, have tremendous reserves of industriousness and self-discipline.
Perhaps you’re one of them and can even overcome your lack of enthusiasm for actually going to law school. One quick reality check is this: What was your LSAT score? What was your GPA as an undergrad? What have your four jobs in five years been? Have they been progressively more demanding and responsible, or will a Biglaw hiring committee see it as your not exactly having set the journalism world on fire? Because they’ll take that into account when deciding who gets offers to summer.
For Biglaw, I think the following are rough minimums to guide you: LSAT >= 165; UGPA >= 3.5; no more than one lateral move in your journalism career, with the remainder of the new jobs representing promtions in responsibilities/title.
Got a 166 and my GPA was 3.4. All my jobs have been better, so I’m not worried about that. When I hit the wall in law school, which I know will happen, either I’ll suck it up and kick butt or fizzle since I’m not 100 percent sure it’s what I want to do. I guess I’ll see when that happens.
Fizzling will be an expensive risk. Just mentioning because your risk analysis here is on the financial equation. If you had a $2M trust fund, you could give law school a try and not worry about fizzling.
If you’re already considering dropping out after a year because you’re not sure what you want to do, why don’t you just set $40,000 on fire? It’s faster and less trouble.