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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?'"
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
I'm doing hiring for my team. I don't care too much about the education: if the candidate can do a decent job on the coding quiz, they could be a Spanish major for all I care.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
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.
Long answer: In the United States at least, if you have no college degree but are interested in putting in the time, money, and effort needed to get one, you will get the biggest bang for your buck at your local community college, possibly followed by some time spent at a nearby branch of your state university system. It's not MIT, RIT, Caltech, Stanford, etc, but it's going to be a pretty solid college education at a very reasonable price, and cost considerably less than the clowns at ITT or DeVry or University of Phoenix will charge you.
The only real exception to this rule is if you qualify for significant financial aid that allows you to attend a fantastic technical school at the same or lower cost than your government-run schools.
I am officially gone from
Harvard is a private non-profit. Colleges are either public (state run, taxpayer subsidized) or private (no state funding, money comes from tuition, donations, endowments). Private colleges can either be for-profit or non-profit, which is a tax designation. non-profit colleges will gladly help you rack up 6 figures of debt for a completely useless degree.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It can be a foot in the door (albiet a rather expensive one). We have a pre-sales support engineer from DeVry. He did not have the grades/money to go to GA Tech, so he worked as a test technican while he went to DeVry. He is very good at what he does but I mostly attribute that to his intelligence rather than anything he learned at DeVry.
His degree allowed HR to "check the box" for college education and thus his manager was allowed to interview him and find out that he could be trained as well as tie his own shoes. The customers love him and he often finds very creative solutions to difficult problems. Had he not attended DeVry then he never would have made it past HR or, if he had gotten a job here, it would have been on the production floor.
There is an entire new class of educational institution that Wall Street has dreamed up. They basically use college students to suck up government and private loans. The money from the loans get deposited into the university. The students get an online degree that probably doesn't get them a job. But the student in 100% liable for the loan. You cannot even escape with bankruptcy. But the investors who never gave the student nothing more than a worthless sheet of paper is protected. This scam artist like Phoenix University are mere doppelgangers, they lack the substance of a reputable University like Harvard.
Think global, act loco
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.
I don't agree with your statements, and neither does this chart.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
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..."
Four year colleges by law have to accept all your credits obtained at accredited state community colleges. This really is a money-saver.
...and just showing up isn't good enough.
Most discussions about failure in education fails to note the student's own failure to DO THE WORK.
About 1/3rd of my students fail, not because I'm tough or the material is hard or whatever the usual excuses are - they fail because they just don't do the work! Online quizzes not even opened/started, online discussions not participated in, homework assignments not submitted (not even a "I'm confused" text file as I recommend)...I am very sensitive and responsive to even slight attempts at effort, but if they don't do anywhere close to enough work - and I mean if I gave a 100% on every assignment they did do it still wouldn't hit 60% for the course - then there is nothing anyone else can do for them.
If you are willing to do the work, you can get a fine education at any school at any price.
If you are not willing to do the work, you will fail and lose a lot of money in the process.
And yes, for-profit tech colleges can be trusted. If their product (education) sucked as bad as is implied by the question, they would soon fail because (hey, get this) they didn't do the work.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
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.
http://www.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/04/for-profits-data/
* CEOs of for-profit colleges receive up to 26 times the amount of pay that the heads of traditional universities do.
* Many of the schools make up to ninety percent of their revenue from U.S. taxpayers, through the Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, and other federal assistance used by their students. 91.5 percent of Kaplan's revenue comes from the government, along with 88 percent revenue at the University of Phoenix.
* Just 11 percent of higher education students in the country attend for-profit schools, yet they account for 26 percent of federal student loans and 44 percent of student loan defaults.