The reason people can drive reasonably safe who can't read English because it isn't their native tongue is the same reason that people can drive reasonably safe who can't read English because they are illiterate: You rarely need to be able to read. Road signs come in different shapes and colors and designs so that you know what the sign is. You see an 8-sided sign? That means stop, and you know that even before you can read the letters. The one with a wavy arrow? Curvy road ahead, so slow down a bit. I can't read French, but if I was driving in France and saw a sign with "Caen" and an arrow pointing to an exit, I would guess that something called Caen, probably the city, was wherever the exit was going. Driving while illiterate isn't perfectly safe, but people do it everyday with reasonable success.

That said, I also wonder how much it costs to have tests in all those different languages.

"I would worry much more about someone who was used to driving on the right side of the road than I would about someone who couldn't read."

That can happen and it's scary. In college, I was riding in a car driven by a buddy of mine who was from Japan. Although he could read English, he once, out of habit, made a left hand turn into the left lane. Luckily, he corrected immediately and didn't kill anyone.

On one hand, had I not gone to law school, I wouldn't have incurred $125k in debt. I could be investing an extra $1k a month rather than paying student loans. Or driving a luxury car. Whichever.

On the other hand, if I hadn't gone to law school, I probably wouldn't make anywhere near the money I make now, having no aptitude for maths or sales. Definitely would be able to up and fly to SF for a weekend.

Leaving your home for a elite private school is expensive, but living with your parents and going to Local State University at Branch Campus when you got into Ivy U. has its own costs.

Your lips to God's ears.

"Going to law school is not having an education?"

I don't know if I would agree with the proposition that law school provides any kind of rounded education. It teaches you to think like a lawyer, but if you didn't learn to read critically and think critically and write critically before law school, then it's probably too late. Where do you learn to think critically? Ironically, often by majoring in things like history and English and political science -- those same degrees that are generally considered to be 'useless'.

Also, your best bet is to go to the best undergrad school you can. I went to USC Law, which is a nice top 20 school, but certainly not the same caliber as Stanford or Columbia, and all but a handful went to places like Rice, U Penn, UNC or a UC school (most often Cal or UCLA). I noticed this because I was one of the few who went to the proverbial 'school you never heard of.'

Law school will, however, give you a bigger debt load. There is no guarantee that you will land that job at Latham or Skadden. Nowadays, there is no guarantee that you will keep that white firm shoes job even if you did get it. Most likely, unless you go to a top 25 and probably more like top 10, you will not be making $100,000+ coming out of law school. You might be looking at something more along the lines of $65k to $80k, and that's in a big city like LA. Oh, and lower ranked schools aren't cheaper. Unless your family pays your bills, you will be looking at around $1k/month in loan payments. That's near what I pay, and I had a small scholarship!

There are far, far too many lawyers already.

That, btw, is the problem with saying that people should just shut up and major in accounting or EE. The more people have those degrees, the less each one will be worth. Except that the top firms paying the top salaries will still only (or something very close to only) take people from the top schools.

"Wealth doesn't make you better, but transactions are a function of opportunity cost. You give up something you value less, for something you value more."

Not sure that someone who has not dealt with debt -- your typical 17/18-year old high school senior or 21/22-year old college senior -- really understands what it means to live with education debt. Generally, people that age don't have mortgages or large car loans, so they don't understand what they will be losing. So the idea that they are going to make rational decisions on what college to go to or what to major in using opportunity cost analysis seems overly optimsitic.

Also, you have said a lot about learning outside of school. That's all well and good, and one can certainly learn *facts* outside of the classroom, but learning to think critically is, I believe, different. You need to be in the mix of classroom discussions, you need to be forced to encounter the unknown and you need to be judged on your efforts. Otherwise, you may just end up being a walking encyclopedia of whatever interests you.