Law Schools to Blame for High Unemployment?

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Law Schools to Blame for High Unemployment?

Congress pressing schools to come clean about students' job placement, debt

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," October 27, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Hundreds of law schools are getting the evil eye from Congress for misleading students about their job prospects, while burdening them with huge loans that they can't repay.

Now, the way I see it, the only people getting screwed here are future lawyers, so hooray! But this is no different than the student debt crisis overall. Rising tuition which saddles grads with piles of cash and debt, is due, of course, to being able to borrow piles of cash. And easy loans encourage directionless undergrads to go to law school as a way to put off the rest of their life.

Bottom line, no one really wants to be a lawyer. If you do, you're weird. But when you are unsure about life, you go to law school hoping for clarity. Instead, you get broke.

But make loans harder to get and tuition drops as applicants dwindle.

Or how about this solution -- which I call Greg's solution.

Make a law that for every student graduating from law school, he replaces an existing lawyer. That existing lawyer is then sent to an island to make dog bonnets and leg warmers.

(LAUGHTER)

GUTFELD: In a way, it's a lottery designed to dissuade people from wanting to be lawyers and increase the quality of our nation's dog bonnets and leg warmers.

(LAUGHTER)

GUTFELD: Why am I not president?

(LAUGHTER)

DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: What is so funny, about the monologue or that he should be president?

BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: Both.

GUTFELD: A dog in a hat makes you laugh.

PERINO: But what you just said is like cap-and-trade program for law school.

BECKEL: It's a good idea. You know, the thing that amazes me, about making this a big story about -- here you go to law school, which is in the business of teaching people to lie, and now they get in trouble for lying about their results. I mean, you know, they had -- it was a tragedy in Washington.

There was like 1,000 trial lawyers got killed on a bus wreck and we called it a beginning. We believe that to be true.

PERINO: Hardy har har.

BECKEL: That was an old joke.

But, listen, I'm telling you -- some of these law schools are counting jobs as waitresses, as garbage men, as bonnet makers, as being an assistant to Bolling. I mean, can you imagine worse jobs than that?

ANDREA TANTAROS, CO-HOST: I don't know what is funnier, your intro or Bob, who comes from politics, talking about people lying.

BECKEL: I admit, we lie. I mean, I admit that.

PERINO: In D.C., there's a very interesting thing. There are political consultant and press people like us.

TANTAROS: We don't lie.

PERINO: And you have to deal with the lawyer. They don't let you have any fun.

GUTFELD: Eric, are we going to end up paying for all this?

ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: I think during that hysterical monologue, you hit on something important. The more loans you make available, the higher the tuition is going to keep on going. Law schools are graduating more and more lawyers. Tuitions are going up and there are no jobs. There is not a job out there.

And it's sad fact of many things, you don't want me to beat up Obama but the job market stinks -- and we are enabling people to get loans that shouldn't be --

PERINO: The classic thing there is now class action lawsuits being brought by law school students against the law schools.

GUTFELD: Right.

BECKEL: Do you not think this --

GUTFELD: That creates work. There's over a million, 1.1 million lawyers.

BECKEL: Do you go to the attorney section of yellow pages? There is more of that than alcohol services. I mean, it's unbelievable.

(CROSSTALK)

BECKEL: And they're all -- they're all about the, back page of every yellow page is some guy that looks like a dink with a bad haircut saying, if you are in an accident, please call --

TANTAROS: And you called them many times.

BECKEL: Well, a couple of times. But, no, seriously, man, there's too many lawyers. They don't contribute much of anything.

And let's -- but, look, the fact is these people are being riddled with debt.

GUTFELD: Yes.

Andrea, I want to add, a new Rasmussen poll --

BECKEL: Why were hitting me?

GUTFELD: -- found that 66 percent of those polled opposed forgiveness of all student loans, which is like a big demand among the "Occupy Wall Streeters."

That's kind of reassuring, right? Does it mean anything?

TANTAROS: Very reassuring on top of the news that we got yesterday, that the president is not incentivizing any young person with easy credit, easy available credit, to default.

I mean, what's the incentive for any student to pay off all of their loans now? And you're absolutely right. These colleges and the universities -- they keep jacking up the prices for climbing walls and French bistros. I wrote about it today in The New York Daily News.

It's going to -- if these kids default, it all goes to the federal balance sheet and then we get strapped with it.

BECKEL: Are you just pitching the column on New York Daily News? I think that's good. I liked that. It was a good column.

But, having said, that --

PERINO: I was kind of surprised that President Obama's plan would only save the average person $10 a month.

GUTFELD: That's incredible.

BECKEL: That's people with only about $20,000 in debt. First of all, it's not forgiveness. That's a little misleading here. It's 15 years.

BOLLING: So what? I'm so glad you brought that up. In 15 or 20. It was 20.

TANTAROS: Twenty.

BOLLING: Imagine a home loan in 20 years, the principle is excused? Everyone would be buying homes. No one would be owing any money.

GUTFELD: If you're only paying off, say, 1,500 bucks a year on this loan and the loan is $200,000. In 20 years, you pay 25 grand.

BECKEL: Everybody should go to the University of Virginia because there, they got so many kids that do nothing, instead of calling them freshman and sophomore -- they go first year, second year, third, year, fourth year.

PERINO: Eighth year, like professional students.

BECKEL: As a matter of fact, I think that our boss went to the University of Virginia. He took 18 years to get out. That's all right.

No, I'm only kidding. He got out in four.

BOLLING: All right, Bob.

BECKEL: Yes, he's furious, you can tell. I just heard him. You never hear him yell, right? Now he is in my ear, blah blah blah.

BOLLING: You're going to be in the X block tomorrow.

GUTFELD: Coming up --

BECKEL: I can't get much lower.

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