<p>The basic claim is that with less space in public community colleges and state universities due to budget cuts, for-profit colleges enroll more students. But they have higher tuition rates, much of which comes from government backed student loans, while their graduation rates are much lower than those of public and private non-profit colleges.</p>
<p>I only read the abstract but I gotta wonder: is the poor record of American for-profit colleges the fault of the college, or due to the student body they enroll? </p>
<p>I also wonder why students choose to enroll in colleges (for-profit or not) with abysmal graduation rates at high debt? Judging from the abstract, the author seems to blame it on the scarcity of cheaper alternatives. That seems unlikely though, because I haven’t met too many students who got shut out of community colleges and local publics. </p>
<p>It seems much more likely to me that poor decision-making is due to a lack of information: knowing the vast array of options out there and awareness of factors to pay attention to. How many young adults know what’s a typical or sane amount of debt to take on for a college education? If their main source of advice is the marketing advice of a for-profit company, I am not surprised by the outcome…</p>
<p>A ho-hum no college employee will not become the next member of the board if he/she graduates from University of Burned Feathers (UBF) and stays put. May get a small raise or get to keep his/her job because someone else did not graduate from UBF…</p>
<p>Out in the real world, UBF or no UBF, the market is flooded with resumes and the automatic resume readers rule. It’s a game of numbers, from which there is little reprieve.</p>
<p>The for-profits have much higher marketing budgets than the community colleges. The parents of these students don’t have enough knowledge of the system to steer them to better alternatives.</p>
<p>I just read some info that said that community college full-time equivalent enrollments in Pa. are actually declining after years of high growth. The reason is that fewer students can afford to go to school full-time, even to community colleges. There has been a big shift from full-time to part-time students. </p>
<p>When the recession first hit, the college with the biggest percentage decrease in applications in PA. was Temple University in Phila. That was blamed on a big shift towards community colleges.</p>
<p>I think it is the result of combination of irresponsible lending, irresponsible borrowing and the idea that everyone should (and deserves to) go to college.</p>