From what I can tell, schools like University of Phoenix seem to exist solely for the purpose of driving more and more students into debt. Why do people still go there? But hey, what do I know? I’m just a high school senior with a desire to go to a college.
They market to minorities and working people that don’t have good advisors or who can’t put their lives on hold to attend a traditional school. Students generally don’t understand what a poor and expensive education they are getting. There’s a whole book about them if you’re really interested.
https://www.thenewpress.com/books/lower-ed
The previous administration was trying to crack down, but that’s not expected to continue under the current one.
Online universities are based on convenience. When considering graduate school, I looked through their IT program and it was ridiculously easy and incredibly overpriced, so I went to a traditional school instead.
@coolguy40 - It is important to remember that not all online programs are for-profit, and that not all for-profit institutions have online presences. There have been plenty of brick-and-mortar for-profits over the years - several operate in my area. Likewise, there are many, many non-profit institutions that operate online programs. In fact, in this day and age, the non-profits that only have live classes could well be in the minority.
Some students’ employer is paying for the degree, so they don’t care about cost.
Some organizations require a degree of whatever level to get or keep a job, to get promoted, or to get a raise; quality of the degree is often not an concern.
If you factor out cost & quality, the main variable left is convenience, which is what the for-profits do well.
The name says it all. They’re in it to make a profit off off students not to educate them. They’re still a thing because some students think it’ll be a shortcut and because the protections that had been set in place (also with class action law suits) are being removed.
My former SIL has a masters from U of Phoenix. Her employer paid for it and she’s a high level executive now. She is no dummy and originally went to U of Chicago (didn’t like it and graduated from another school). This was about 15 years ago.
A friend’s son just graduated from U of Phoenix. Again, employer paid. He’s moving up through his company too.
It works for some people.