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Can For-Profit Tech Colleges Be Trusted?
snydeq found a story questioning "the quality of education on offer at institutions such as University of Phoenix, DeVry, ITT Tech, and Kaplan in the wake of increasing scrutiny for alleged deceptive practices [PDF] that leave students in high debt for jobs that pay little. 'For-profit schools carry a stigma in some eyes because of their reputation for hard sales pitches, aggressive marketing tactics, and saddling students with big loans for dubious degrees or certificates,' Robert Scheier writes. 'Should IT pros looking to increase their skills, or people seeking to enter the IT profession, consider such for-profit schools? And should employers trust their graduates' skills?'"
All other colleges are non-profit? Harvard is non-profit? Really?
that leave students in high debt for jobs that pay little
The majority of liberal arts programs would fall into that category.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
DeVry is STEEP for an ABET-T accredited program. One could go to a State school and obtain an ABET-E Engineering degree for a LOT less than the cost of DeVry.
What these colleges have over the State schools; however, is the complete lack of selectivity. They will let just about anyone in, and it'll be up to them to sink or swim. Most of them sink, and some of them swim, and I have no doubt that a very small percentage of bright people, who are otherwise inadmissible to a State School due to circumstances not related to their academic performance, do very well for themselves. That's a tiny tiny percentage though.
It's not all bad, but the lack of selectivity means most students will fail, and do so owing a lot of money. It's not entirely the school's fault. They should, however, raise the admission standards at least a little bit.
Your prospects for salary are based on how rare your skillset is multiplied by how useful it is to a private firm that exists to make money. A doctorate in philosophy might be rare, but it isn't useful to a lot of software companies. A software company might need secretaries, but there are many millions of people who have that skill set. Having one of the two doesn't mean you deserve a great starting salary, you have to have both things going for you, and as people try to achieve that, salary structures change in some industries over time. They only remain the same for jobs where entry barriers are always relatively high or relatively low.
Do student loans really help people, or do they just inflate the cost of colleges across the board? I'm 34 and still in student loan debt, probably until I'm 40+
God spoke to me.
Education is never free and those who receive a "free" education seldom appreciate it as much as the one who had to earn (and pay for) that education. That said educational institutions are far too costly in the US IMO.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
those who receive a "free" education seldom appreciate it as much as the one who had to earn (and pay for) that education.
Please support your ideological thesis with a statement of fact.
I believe there to be millions of Doctors and Engineers with publicly-funded educations, in nations all over the world, that appreciate this very much. As do the societies in which they live.
Of course, they are not so unfortunate, as to live in the United States.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
So you're saying his degree was worthless and he got $5k-$10k a year pre-tax for it? Man the last 2 years of a 4 year degree costs me as much as a decent sports car, and my salary hike after cutting taxes off for it would be... enough to pay it off in a decade. By then, the sheer volume of experience I have makes up for the gap, and my degree is so old it's worthless in the job market. Not to mention the quality of living drop; the cost is too high, I can't live like that without the ability to actually have a life and afford things (I live alone, no room mates, in a small 1br; a 2br costs twice as much, plus the heating bill, never mind a house). Buying a used car off a dealer lot was a mistake enough.
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There's no such thing as a free education to the true sense of the word. Either you end up directly paying for it, or indirectly through taxation. But don't delude yourself thinking education is "free" and the professors are donating their time 24/7 without a paycheck.
Life is not for the lazy.
I graduated from a good private university, went off to get a tech job in the finance sector and make very good money. Having been down that road now, I realize what all colleges do -- "for profit" or not. They are businesses out to make money.
First, they steer you towards bad loans. For example in New Jersey, the financial aid office steers you towards "NJClass" loans that have a 7% interest rate. You can do better if you go down to your local bank, or even shop around online. But the college gets a cut from this, so they offer you the NJClass loan. The prices you pay, especially for private schools, don't come NEAR what you will be worth in any amount of time. If you assume no scholarships (and I had a half scholarship -- more on that later), a good school can run you anywhere from $15k to $40k a year -- the former for a public state school, and the latter for a private school. Things are variable of course, whether you commute or dorm, but the minimum you can look at nowadays is about $15k, even commuting.
I commuted to a private university with a half scholarship, and 5 years and a major change later, I graduated 65k in debt from school. I however, am one of the luckier ones as I have a real skill and work in an industry that while full of bad ethics, pays really well. I still pay about $450 a month on my loans, and that's after consolidating and everything else. If you figure that a college graduate that comes out of school will make less than a six figure salary, that $450 is going to be debilitating to pay back. And odds are, it will be even higher just because financial firms have gotten more twisted and turned over the years. Remember how the sub prime mortgages got bundled up and sold off as good loans to other people? It happens with school loans TOO. The bank has no reason to keep the loans, and in the 10 years I've been paying back my loans, I have had six different lenders.
The only thing we can do as parents (if you are one, as I am), is to steer your kids to making good choices and spend less money on their education. The return simply doesn't work out well in their favor, especially with the debt load they will likely have to carry. Community college for two years, then a decent school for another two, and graduate with as little debt as possible. I am one of the lucky ones as I said; I have a six figure salary, I have a really good resume, I am good at what I do and I enjoy it to boot. Not everybody is that lucky, and the really unfortunate part is that it will affect their lives in a profound way, while Wall Street (and the industry I work for) will profit handsomely as they help shrink the middle class even more than they already are.
If you want to take a real stand, write your senator and get the allowance for federal student loans raised to a higher level. It's easier to repay a 1.5 or 2% loan than a 7% with variable interest and lots of legalese you can't follow.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
People don't understand what 'non-profit' means. All it means, is that it meets certain requirements as declared by the IRS that affects how it pays taxes.
There are employees who make MILLIONS OF DOLLARS while working for a non-profit organization. There are non-profit organizations that use hard-sale tactics. There are certainly public universities that do this. That employee people whose sole job is to market the school and/or the degree they are selling to CHILDREN.
My public university actually decided to bull-doze parking lots because someone did some math and declared that, 'If we had less parking, more students would park illegally, and we'd net $x million of dollars over y years.' So they tore it out. I'm also 100% convinced the average starting salaries for my major were grossly inflated. I even worked at our 'telefund' while I was a student. That was the Universities calling center that would call up former students and try to get them to give us money. We were even instructed on how to 'Get them talking about the old 'ol days' so they'd be less likely to say No. And, if you have a transcript mailed to any address (that isn't another university) - even if it's not yours - they will send junk mail to that address trying to get donations and sell homecoming tickets and alumni vacation packages. You can't stop the mailings. Even when you say, 'Look, I don't live there, the people that do were just friends who let me crash there for a few weeks while I was trying to get a job. They don't want the junk mail. Stop sending it. Please. Here is my new address, send it here'.
It's all about $$$. For-profit colleges and universities just haven't jumped through enough hoops (ahem, $$$) to get recognized as a 'real' school yet. The accreditation bodies are even worse than the universities. And thanks to Federal Student Loans, anyone can get as much money as they want. 'You want to major in Art History? And you want 70k in loans each year? Sure!'.
Ahahaha, oh my. Did you just mention Adam Smith? Have you read "Wealth of Nations?" No, don't answer that. I know you haven't. Let me quote some Adfam Smith to you, my friend, and we will see how long it takes for you to start calling him a commie. I guarantee after I am done here, you will never attempt to drop that name again.
"Laws and government may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination of the rich to oppress the poor, and to preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods which would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open violence. The government and laws hinder the poor from ever acquiring the wealth by violence which they would otherwise exert on the rich; they tell them they must either continue poor or acquire wealth in the same manner as they did."
You like that one? I'm just getting started. This next one is a bit of a long passage, but oh so worth the read:
"His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit, which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society. The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.
His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit, which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society. The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.
Their superiority over the country gentleman is, not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction, that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public.
To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens.
To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."
Good stuff, huh? He is saying that his "invisible hand" only applies to land owners and laborers (the first two of his three class
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Wow. He did not believe that the free market knows best, as demonstrated from the quotes! He thought of a free market differently than you do, he recognized that a market needs regulations in order to stay free. His work must be understood in the context of mercantilism, which he disagreed with, but he did not disagree with government regulation in general.
However, I will concede the point that education costs money, and while an education may be free to the individual, society still pays the cost. And when education is free, it is free regardless of whether the outcome involves the recipient of the education getting a better job. Finally, as I mentioned, education is a positive externality, and a free market will not allocate enough resources towards education.
What I will not concede, however, is that there exists any rational adult who is confused on what the term "free education" means. I highly doubt anyone believes teacher's pay and the cost of schools and books just materialize out of thin air, so your entire diatribe against free education is meaningless. Anyone who is capable of understanding that already does. You just wasted everyone's time in order to attempt to denigrate the role of government in education. At least you walked it back into the realm of sanity by the end, so I guess my work here is done. See you next time!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton