<p>I honestly don't understand what compels a person to spend $25K+ per year on a university that has a NASDAQ ticker symbol. Why do people still attend DeVry, ITT Tech, University of Pheonix, etc. even amidst the countless Federal lawsuits, audits, stories of fraud, debt, inability to find employment, and inability to transfer credit? Many employers openly laugh at DeVry resumes before proceeding to throw them in the trash. Don't people realize that community colleges offer far superior prospects for 1/6 the cost of a for-profit?</p>
<p>I feel like society has a moral obligation to end an industry whose entire livelihood depends on exploiting the poor and gullible. It's more than just a personal ideological bias against the very idea of for-profit education though. Taxpayers are literally funding this fraud. The for-profit colleges mislead customers who are financially unable and academically unfit for college with the promise of Federal loans to fund their entire program and high salaries post-graduation. Until recently I was unaware that DoE Federal aid was even an option for for-profit university customers. For-profit customers make up 10% of all higher ed students yet they constitute over 45% of defaults on Federal student loans. The inability to find gainful employment with a for-profit degree along with a presumably poor prior financial background frequently preclude the repayment of DoE loans. It seems like there are many parallels between for-profit student defaults and the sub prime crisis. Predatory tactics to lure unfit applicants. Perhaps a wave of mass defaults is looming?</p>
<p>A small part of me feels that if somebody is sincerely stupid enough to think a DeVry degree will land them a six-figure salary, then that person deserves to be exploited but I guess that's not a civically responsible position to take.</p>
<p>IMO, you got it right at the end. If you’re stupid enough to not Wiki the colleges you’re applying to, just like if you’re stupid enough to believe in psychics, homeopathy or the gay apocalypse that will destroy civilization if you don’t donate to one of the modern successors to the KKK, you deserve to be exploited.</p>
<p>Exactly. Well, a community college pushes your argument a bit too far, but yes, 25k is too much for a degree which will not give a lot more than just a degree. Let’s not forget there a rich kids of businessmen who just need a degree for themselves to say, “yeah we are educated”. It takes all to make a world. </p>
<p>Still, personally I feel your argument makes sense.</p>
<p>I absolutely agree. At my high school we received tons of these presentations from for-profit schools and it made me so angry. I couldn’t figure out why multiple of my classes were taking away class time to listen to these crappy presentations and then I found out my high school got paid to have these guests speak to us. My high school would rather make a few extra bucks to let these scam artists try to take advantage of students than have any real opportunities offered. I told one DeVry representative I was planning on going to a UC and he said I would just be another number swallowed up in a big university and probably not make it.</p>
<p>Yeah, my high school had a student news program, which had commercials for all the for-profit universities. I suppose they were paying the school. I mean, at least people are trying to better themselves. There is no excuse, however, for the “universities” that are for profit.</p>
<p>There is a maxim in Roman law - there is no injury to the willing. For-profit education per se is not harmful, rather, they are offering a product that is tailored to working adults. Without profit motive, the non-profit colleges have no motivation to offer a competitive product, though that is slowly starting to change since distance and online learning is less costly than on-site education.</p>
<p>Oh hahahahahahahahaha. Yeah you’re right. I misread it as physics. Sorry, my bad. Thanks for clarifying. I kinda knew I was reading it wrong, I just didn’t know what I mis-reading.</p>
<p>most people who apply to for-profit colleges know fully well their bad reputation…they enroll not because they’re the best, but because they can provide a decent education with conveniently timed classes</p>
<p>only a few nonprofit four year colleges offer online degree programs or night classes…</p>
<p>So it’s okay to play the morality card to shut down joke universities, but it’s not okay to play the morality card for other policies? I guess it’s only acceptable to use the morality card when it’s something you support, but the second you disagree with a policy, you yell about how people are inserting morality into politics.</p>
<p>You can’t have it both ways.</p>
<p>If people are dumb enough to not research the company or “college” they are investing their money in, too bad. People need to make informed decisions, if they don’t, it’s not my problem to “protect” them, I don’t have a moral obligation to defend their poor decision making skills. This is exactly the type of thing people used to justify the bailout/recovery act. That worked out really well for us…</p>
<p>Just saying, the field of noetic sciences is getting some pretty hefty studies done…don’t throw psychics out to the looney bin (well, yeah to the typical ones, but the mind is a powerful tool).</p>
<p>Many of the degrees that are offered are not very competitive to begin with; I do not watch the television anymore but when I used to, the degrees were mostly for business and some liberal arts nonsense.</p>
As I said, it’s easy to sympathize with this position. However, the exploitation of these people has wider ranging implications. It’s not a purely self-regarding issue and issues that aren’t purely self-regarding do fall under the realm of morality. </p>
<p>Taxpayers indirectly fund the for-profit industry’s fraud through the Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid program. The joke universities lure buyers with the promise of Federal loans (which they more often than not obtain) to cover expenses. These people are poor and would otherwise not be able to pay for college. Federal loans often constitute their entire funding source. </p>
<p>The problem arises when they default on their loans. For profit students make up 10% of the higher ed market but constitute 45% of Federal loan defaults. If you think your (and my) tax dollars should help fund billionaire investors and venture capitalists who back for-profit educational companies like Apollo Group (aka U of Pheonix online) or EDMC, then that’s your prerogative but when a society constructs policy or determines what to fund via tax dollars, these are, at their core, moral judgements of what we value.</p>
<p>Caillebotte- then the solution is to eliminate or decrease federal loans to the students at the for-profit universities. Make is so that you can only get private loans.</p>
<p>The solution is not shut down the for-profits.</p>
<p>However, I do agree with you that there is clearly a problem if 45% of loan defaults are from students who attended these for-profits.</p>
<p>Class warfare is so 1850s. Get with the times.</p>
<p>That said, ‘default’ does not mean ‘expunge’; these loans cannot be terminated via bankruptcy. The money can be garnished from wages and tax returns, so to say it is a loss is fallacy. </p>
<p>Additionally, just because those who attend private colleges are predisposed to default upon loans are not themselves grounds to deny loans to the students in question. The demographic in question is likely marginal compared to the traditional student population who just got out of high school on account that they are paying more for flexibility. That would suggest work or child-rearing obligations, otherwise they could pay less to attend a traditional college. In summary, it is an issue of the sample in question.</p>
<p>If the DoE wanted to do something about this, why not create an ‘open college’ where one could pursue an accredited degree online in exchange for 100% of one’s Pell Grant?</p>
<p>Another major problem is that these “universities” are totally inflating the value of a college degree.</p>
<p>I read somewhere that University of Phoenix has some 400,000 students. Now, take that number and multiple it by 10 (for years), and think about how many degrees will be issued. Throw in all the other online schools and you are taking a complete devaluation (if that’s a real word) of a college education.</p>
<p>College degree? No big deal - you can get on online cheap and fast. </p>
<p>These for-profit schools are totally ripping of the taxpayer. </p>
<p>These schools have zero admission requirements and NO STANDARDS!</p>
<p>They are recruiting homeless people, prostitutes and drug addicts (felons) and signing them up for federal funding. They know these people either won’t finish or won’t find a job. Hell, they are knowingly signing up students for programs that they can’t legally work in because of their criminal records (people with drug charges going to school for medical careers that gives access to medication/narcotics).</p>