It's not as easy as you think.
You start out with ZERO clients. ZERO experience. ZERO officespace. ZERO money to buy officespace.
...and you have nothing clients wants.
It's much easier to fail than you people seem to realize. LSD paints a very rosy picture, but boards with actual lawyers on tell a much different story.
Here: HELL YES YOU SHOULD TAKE ON DEBT TO GO TO LOYOLA!
Boards with Lawyers: Don't go to law school. Don't even think about going to a non t14 school.
1) 90% of all new businesses fail in their first decade of operation. Failures are not limited to legal practice alone. If you are risk-averse, antisocial, unintelligent, financially liberal, or just plain unlucky, you will fail at any given business. The solo practitioners on the internet message boards you troll would be equally unsuccessful at any other entrepreneurial venture.
2) Unsuccessful people have a great deal of motivation to go to internet forum and female dog and moan about their lack of success, and blame it on their law school. Successful people have better things to do. I don't think John Edwards or W. Mark Lanier are whining on an internet bulletin board about how horrible their TTT degrees are.
3) Going into debt at Loyola is retarded, I agree with you. My interest in Tulane stems primarily from their propensity to give $60-90k scholarships to kids in my numbers range. That amount of money may well make Tulane a better option than a 14-30 school with no money.
Edit:
4) If good jobs were limited to people who went to T14 schools, market forces would make every other school go out of business for lack of utility. The JD holds a great deal of value for people who end up at the top of their TTT class, people who are interested in solo careers or people who want the JD as a steppingstone in their current career path.
Not everyone strives for a judicial clerkship - for many, a decent living is enough.