<p>When my daughter was looking at schools I remember her college advisor said to avoid "for profit" schools. I don't think she told us why ... She ended up at a non profit - RIT;</p>
<p>Now my sister is looking at schools for her son who is interested in Game Design and a lot of the tech schools she finds are for profit ... I told her what our counselor said but I don't know why she said it .. Can anyone help? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Rachel</p>
<p>(also - she's in Arizona -- she'll be looking at the Polytechnic campus of ASU but someone suggested The</a> University of Advancing Technology which is for profit... also Neumont</a> University - Neumont University which is also for profit. If you know other tech schools -- suited to a middle of the road student -- probably a 3ish average?)</p>
<p>Many graduate schools do not recognize a for profit degree as a degree, meaning no admission to many grad programs. Even if they recognize it, most faculty on the admissions committee will give it zero cedibility. Credits are also unlikely to transfer to a school if he decides to transfer, as an example, to ASU.</p>
<p>Many employers will not hire a graduate from a for profit tech school. They often have zero or little credibility among hiring managers. Even if the do hire someone, chances for advancement are diminished.</p>
<p>Game Design is a difficult field to break into. A Computer Science or some other type of tech degree from ASU will be far more useful. One does not need a degree in Game Design to work in that field, a degree in CS would be just as good and far more versatile.</p>
<p>Many for-profit institutions do not have regional accreditation which means that other institutions are not obligated to recognize their diplomas. Often, credits earned at an institution that doesn’t have regional accreditation will not transfer if the student changes institutions. Some for-profit institutions have very poor records for graduating students in a timely fashion. Most have very limited institutional financial aid which means that the students often graduate up to their eyeballs in debt. A few are diploma mills that do not provide a solid education in exchange for the students’ tuition and fees. A number are under investigation every year for outright fraud. </p>
<p>Not all for-profit institutions are bad choices for all students. However, parents and students should scrutinize them much more intensely than they would their home-state public university.</p>
<p>My mother taught at one of those. She said the tech classes were just as hard, but the core freshman stuff gets skipped and they charge twice as much. You get the same technical background as a four year degree in two years, but it is only the Sophomore and Junior level stuff. Your salary will always be lower. You will never be promoted into management because you lack that well rounded element that is frequently linked with people skills. It can be a great thing for a kid who would have been a technician otherwise to break into the engineer title. But senior staff engineer or engineering manager will be out of reach. And this after you pay double. Same thing for accounting. You may be a fantastic bookkeeper, but you will retire with the title of bookkeeper.</p>
<p>Worse, many (if not most) of the for-profit colleges have very, very, very poor placement records despite their promises. In a number of cases, the people trained haven’t actually met the qualifications required for certifications or licenses. Plus, there are far more CS students at 4 year colleges who are interested in getting into game design than there are positions – and a real CS degree is of far more interest and value than a degree or certificate from a for-profit college with minimal prerequisite requirements and weak classes. </p>
<p>My neighbor spent quite a bit taking a program in computer technology from one of these schools and was never able to leverage it into a job. It cost her a lot of money, took two years, and other than being capable of setting up her own home wireless network, did not achieve nearly what she had been led to believe was possible – and she came to that with a masters in an unrelated field, so she was not one of those who come in with a GED and inadequate high school preparation.</p>