It’s not surprising that unemployed young lawyers are quick to file lawsuits. But a series of recent legal actions reflects a growing and serious problem in higher education.

Law students in several states recently filed multimillion-dollar suits against law schools for misrepresenting the employability and earning power of prior students. Several similar suits have been dismissed.

But the point is legitimate: College consumers (often young people and their parents) need to know how much a degree is likely to be worth before committing themselves to enormous loans that can make their lives very difficult for decades to come.

The plaintiffs argue they have borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars based upon overly rosy income projections provided by their law schools.

The young lawyers are in a tough situation, in no small part because they graduated into the worst recession in 70 years.

The slowdown has reduced economic activity, thus the need for legal work. Computers and outsourcing have also cut the demand for more inexperienced lawyers.

Still, our newly created Bureau of Consumer Protection should establish an easy way for students and parents to fairly compare and rank educational programs based upon real data from recent graduates.

The college tuition increases have generally been about twice the inflation rate since 1958, while family incomes have been relatively flat since 1980 and have even dropped since 2007.

There are two reasons this is important for everyone, not just college-bound students and their families.

First, many of these students rely on student loans that are provided by or guaranteed by the federal government. When students end up bitter and disillusioned about their educational outcomes, they are much more likely to default on their loans.

Second, the economy needs a sound way to match trained people with growth industries and occupations, whether those are electricians or electrical engineers.

Colleges are sometimes reluctant to supply such information because they have massive investments in things like law schools and highly paid faculty.

Accurate information can drastically cut enrollment in less remunerative majors.

In the end, family circumstances all differ. A wealthy family may be perfectly comfortable paying for their son’s degree in Greek mythology.

A middle-income family, however, may be unable or unwilling to incur debt for a degree that is unlikely to result in a job paying enough to comfortably cover that debt.

Their students may decide to move into more practical majors or select less costly schools.

The wrong series of choices can be disastrous. A student borrowing for an undergrad and professional degree can easily end up with more than $200,000 in loans and no easy way to repay that.

It is, of course, always difficult to accurately project the short-term demands for various majors and professional schools.

But students and parents deserve accurate information in order to make informed choices.

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The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and the editorial board.