<p>I don't imagine anyone on this board is actually considering a for-profit school... </p>
<p>But anyways; what is the point of attending a for-profit school? There's been hard evidence that they exist only to soak up federal funding. I don't think anyone is actually better off after graduating from a for-profit school than they were before -- more often than not, they're far worse because they're tacked with 50k+ in student loans that need to be paid off with a job that you don't have because employers rarely regard educations received at for-profit schools as legitimate. </p>
<p>Why do they still exist? Why do people go? Community colleges offer a far superior education with a much cheaper price tag. I'm not trying to sound like an elitist, it just seems like if you're really motivated to go back to school or enroll in classes, CC will serve you so much better. Do they have success stories? </p>
<p>yeah if you’re really motivated a cc might serve you so much better. i think the for profit schools are for those who aren’t really motivated haha. yet for people who still want a degree, even if it may not help employ them in any higher paying work. but then why do they want it. kind of strange. maybe its just so they can say that have such and such degree without outright lying about it because of how empowering it would be to be able to say that. maybe it helps you feel good about yourself to know you have a degree, so what if it was from a for profit school, who gives a damn where it’s from, it’s still a degree. do you know how many people waste money on things that have little no value but in raising their self esteem. what about nice clothes, wearing nice clothes feels good. it doesn’t change the person that you are, but it feels like it. so does hanging a degree on your wall. does it matter that the clothes is a knock off made in china, or its not the really high end label that you couldn’t ever afford, but something that looks close to it. not really, and this is the best you could ever do anyway. couldn’t make it through college at a state school or city college, but you could get the online degree, second best is good enough. besides, the reasons a lot of kids go to college these days is very mysterious. this isn’t an economically rational decision, not for the parents, not for the student, and yet a college education is pushed while all evidence to the contrary, that it may not be wise or worth it, is pushed aside. without a college education you won’t be respected, you won’t move up in life, all the respectable kids are going to college, if you go it’s respectable, the family isn’t embarrassed, it isn’t ashamed, actually they’re proud, their kids are going to college too! this is how they can rest easy at night, their kids are in college, that’s where they’re supposed to be, they got there. and when the student gets the degree (if he does) then you too can rest easy at night as well. economic security be damned, you have a college degree. honestly, there’s lots of people who can live in poverty but still feel good about themselves because of things they own. sometimes the poverty is a sacrifice for the items that elevate their self worth, the way they feel about themselves and the way others see them. who is to say a college degree is not one such item, something which can make poverty more tolerable even as it traps you in it. i know a college degree was supposed to get people <em>out</em> of such circumstances but maybe that’s the old way of thinking or what it used to do. now more often that not it does the opposite. now it has all this symbolic meaning, it transcends its practical value, it’s like the family crests from medieval england in some ways possibly, except this is a modern reincarnation of that (have a nice one of those, however dubiously acquired, and you can rest easy; get an official looking college degree, and the same is true). </p>
<p>I’m sorry but there is absolutely no way that a degree from a for-profit school that put someone in 50,000 dollars or more in debt makes poverty more tolerable. It actually makes it far worse - the burden of debt makes the lives of men and women who graduate from such institutes almost intolerable. PBS Frontline did a documentary on the For-Profit schools called College, Inc and many of the women (they focused primarily on women) left their community colleges because they were promised that they could attain a higher degree in shorter time from the for-profits - only to find that after 2 or 3 years, their degree was worthless; and they had an upwards of 100k in debt with a massive interest rate. </p>
<p>Also, as for the “status” of having a degree – unless everyone in your immediate circle is deluded into thinking that a for-profit degree is of any worth or value; people tend to ridicule those who actually choose to attend a for-profit school. Community colleges provide a better education and you don’t have to hang your head when you tell people that you went to one. </p>