No love for for-profit universities

From the Economist

For-profit, isn't that the American way?

But these institutions aren't the only ones guilty of spending more money on things other than academics and letting the quality of the education suffer. Most universities are doing that.

I think I asked this before - if teachers salaries aren't all that great, why has tuition (as a percentage of income) gone so sky-high? Where is the money going anyway?

^^To administration, athletics, and marketing.

Do for-profit universities even have athletic programs, or do they stick to practical teaching? If not, they should be charging much less for tuition.

Heard yesterday that the loan default rate is higher than the graduation rate at these places.

The VFW and IAVA have been exposing these frauds and trying to get congress to ban the G.I. Bill from being used with them.

I've just heard that my student loan, along with others issued in the UK between 1998-2004, may be sold to a commercial bank for profit, giving them the right to jack the rates up and so on. Joy.

Are these the same Americans that you say are flocking to them in the next paragraph?

Tuition fees and student spending don't have the straight correlation at public universities that they do at private. Public universities are subsidized.

If it's not for them, they should leave.

As opposed to public schools who take public funds, recruit anyone who is eligible, and care little about what happens to them afterwards.

Talk to all the recent grads of public universities who can't find jobs.

Then you needn't worry about correcting it.

We'll see. One down year in a nearly recessionary economy does not a trend make and, as noted, the for-profit schools are more expensive.

That should go for public schools as well.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. All speculation.

And shareholders.

What's wrong with for-profit universities is the same thing that's wrong with for-profit health insurers. The priorities are: shareholders, administrators, teachers and staff, and - oh, yeah, what was the other one? Right...students.

For those that care about Vets read up on the predatory practices these for-profit schools are using.

http://iava.org/press-room/press-re...aign-“defend-new-gi-bill”-protect-student-vet

Great info! My son is in The Army but plans to get out in about three years - this could help him. My nephew-in-law just joined The Navy on delayed entry. My future son-in-law BETTER STAY HIS ASS IN THE NAVY AND TAKE CARE OF MY DAUGHTER but if he gets out in about three years, he will need this since he is the smart "college" type no doubt.

Because they're frauds. They offer worthless degrees (that they themselves won't hire) and milk desperate and foolish people for student loans and government assistance.

They're a cancer on society and the economy. They should destroyed and their campuses should be salted.

For-profit entities are only concerned with their stockholders. They can't actually provide good value to customers.

Because they've been conditioned to. It's time to combat that conditioning.

Because education is exactly like any one of those.

Explain.

How many businesses turn away customers?

For a degree to have significance, a college has to be willing to say "no, you didn't make the cut" to anyone who doesn't meet the standards required for graduation. The financial incentive to push students through no matter what is a problem for public and private nonprofit schools too, of course. But in the for-profit sector, the pressure is magnified.

How is it different?

A service is offered, the buyer can accept it or not.

While some are soooo quick to jump on the private sector for doing anything to seek a profit--even though this usually means providing the most attractive deal to the consumer--they can't seem to visualize a public sector entity wanting to preserve its monopoly through the force of law.

As usual reality contradicts your ideology. For-profit universities provide significantly worse services at higher costs. They just do a better job on marketing and exploiting financial aid loopholes.

For those who have problems clicking links:

According to a report from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, eight of the top 10 recipients of New GI Bill funding are for-profit schools. Some of these schools are taking advantage of veterans in four main areas:

For-profit schools have higher dropout rates. An estimated 67% of students at most major for-profit schools never graduate from their programs.
A greater percentage of students at for-profit schools default on loans. For-profits schools represent 13% of all college students but almost half of all student loan defaults.
For profit-schools are more expensive but don’t all provide a return on investment. For-profit schools typically cost two to four times more than public universities and community colleges. For-profits capture more than a third of all GI benefits – about $1.6 billion – but enroll only a quarter of veterans. Some schools often don’t provide students with useful degrees, career training or transferable credits.
For-profit schools aggressively target veterans through a loophole in the 90/10 rule. The original intent of the 90/10 rule was to allow free market regulation of for-profit schools by preventing them from being entirely government funded. The rule states that 90% of for-profit school revenue may come from government funds; 10% must come from private sources. Military and veterans benefits like the GI Bill currently fall within that 10% of private source revenue, putting a target on every veteran's back. For each veteran that a for-profit school recruits, they can enroll nine more students using federal financial aid.

Says who? The people who CHOOSE to attend them?

Your ideology seems to be that people need their betters (meaning: YOU) to do their thinking for them.

So? That says NOTHING about the quality of education.

But leave it to a leftist to think that attendance and education are the same thing. That's the same kind of thinking that's made our public education system the envy of the world!

Then MARKETS should increase the interest rate on school loans. Oh, wait...

I doubt a degree in Environmental Studies or Medieval French Poetry from a public university provides a return on investment. We should probably stop people from pursuing those fields.

"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

Use government power to make federally backed loans more desirable, then complain when people actually use them?

Veterans should not be free to spend their own money!

This controversy is just the threatened public institutions trying to use government force to preserve their revenue streams.

And, like the good paternalist he is, Anc is here to tell you don't really know what's good for you with regards to education, so we need more bureaucracy to "guide" you to the right public institution.

Wow. So the largest Iraq and Afghan Veterans organization is leftist now?!?! It's amazing watching the knots you are tying yourself into trying to defend these sleazebags.

And I loved the canned response. You're just bleating the market fundy manta, 'Gubment Bad, Corporations Good' over and over.

Here's a hint you dumb fuck, guess what Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Sanford, MIT, University of Pennsylvania, Duke, Columbia and the University of Chicago all have in common?

But back to the point, yes they have lots of Vets wasting their G.I. Bill on their shit product. That's b/c they spend massive amounts of money on marketing to Vets. As the facts show the vast majority will get nothing out of their G.I. Bill, something they earned, besides increased debt.

And yes, the American University system IS the envy of the world.

Says the facts. The ones you keep refusing to acknowledge. Yes, the majority of Vets who go to these schools resent being scammed.

[Ben Stein]Wow.[/Ben Stein]

No, YOU are.

No tying in knots required.

I think people should be able to spend their own money how they choose. You don't. Simple as that.

The truth is the truth.

They're among the best colleges in the world. And they're private.

If they earned it, let them decide how to use it.

As for getting nothing out of it, that's true of many people entering the public system, too. Do public universities offer a "shit product?" Is offering degrees in Afro-American Studies or Art History a rip-off because there are few jobs out there for graduates in these fields?

Therein lies the threat to the public system.

So government force must be applied to keep all these people from choosing a different option.

And since we want to fling facts...

College Stats | College Completion

In your own Washington State, For-Profit two-year colleges have a BETTER graduation rate (57.8%) than public two-year colleges (25.8%).

You better get on your public two-year colleges there, Anc. They're running WAAAAAAAAAAY below the national average. At 25.8%, that's definitely a SHIT PRODUCT!

That would be a much more effective strawman if private nonprofit colleges were being discussed the same way.

There's no strawman. I'm saying that the increasing market share of for-profit institutions is a threat to revenues for the public system and that's motivating much of this.

So why isn't this big statist misinformation campaign aiming at private nonprofit colleges too?

Nice change. I wouldn't want to keep talking about 4 year v 4 year if I were in your shoes either.

2 year schools are a completely different ball game. Most for-profit schools are specific vocational schools. They actually do okay by the student. At the same time most 2 year schools are stepping stones. Go to your local community college while home on summer vacation, or to knock out general ed credits.

More nuanced and as I said for-profits don't have the dismal record in this market that they do in the 4 year realm.