For Profit Colleges & Universities

Here is the issue: I am against for-profit colleges. Part of me wants to dedicate a significant amount of attention to shutting them down in my lifetime, while the other part knows they are not all bad. In general, the schools have low graduation rates. They prey on people who can secure financial aid, which means that they have a very high percentage of low-income students taking on lots of debt. I learned recently that for-profits aggressively recruit veterans and their military tuition assistance (read about that here). They do not usually put resources into ensuring quality content delivery, nor do they pay any attention to retention or outcomes unless they are forced to by a new law. But, there are exceptions.

Some for-profit universities do not operate this way so it does not make sense to apply blanket legislation or regulations to the whole industry. Some for-profit institutions provide high quality education in flexible formats to non-traditional college students. The educational models and theories that allow for that are valuable. If postsecondary institutions could use those models with some kind of accountability, it would be fine.  

How do we even begin to implement mechanisms for measuring accountability? Not-for-profit institutions, particularly private schools who have become accustomed to a relatively high degree of political autonomy,  have resisted some of the major legislative pushes toward accountability, such as graduation rate requirements. Some non-profit institutions would be in trouble if graduation rates determined whether an institution can or should exists. This business of trying to untangle nuance in arguments about the validity of for-profit institutions quickly becomes very tricky.

In one of my classes, Contemporary Issues in Higher Education, I am working on a short documentary about the for-profit education sector in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The biggest challenge for me is going to be staying objective in light of my opinions on for-profit higher education.

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 I wanted to include this post I read on an anonymous online forum just to give you some background on the kinds of practices that I disagree with. DISCLAIMER: this person is very upset and their language usage reflects that.

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I work for a for-profit education company. There are a few things I have to get off my chest. . . .  the industry is a complete joke and I'm sickened by what we do .  .  .  First, we accept anybody. A student is merely a conduit in which student loan money flows from the federal government, to us. We could give two sh**s if we think a student will succeed. A student is a revenue unit (and is referred to as such). We'd let everybody in if we could. Unfortunately for us, we can't.

Why? Well, the federal government only allows us to generate 90% of our revenue from their loans. Last I checked, we're at 89.something. We are "private, for-profit" and nearly 100% government subsidized through their loan program. Think about that. Almost 90% of our revenue comes directly from the government and we can keep as much profit out of that as we want with zero obligation. Oh, there’s this thing called gainful employment floating around that’s a feeble attempt to regulate us, but everybody’s pretty sure most of the regulations will be stripped away or watered down to the point of uselessness.
While we’re on the subject of loans, let’s talk about how our students get them. In short, we handle everything. All we need is their name and their consent. We process all the paperwork on their behalf. It's probably our most important function. It's how we stay in business.

Here’s a fun tidbit: We encourage students to take out the maximum loan amount allowed even though they don't need it all to cover their tuition. Why? Because it’s "free money" for the student, that’s why. Let’s just say we charge $25,000 a semester (we actually charge more if you can believe it) and when we talk to the student we'll advise them to take out $30,000 so the student can use the extra $5000 towards whatever they want; perhaps a computer for their online courses or a car to commute to our brick and mortar facility, whatever. We also point out that they don't have to pay this loan back for, like, years so who gives a s***? By that time they’ll have landed a sweet job because of the awesome education their going to get from us.

This might be a really good time to mention our one rule when hiring: If a candidate submits a resume and lists an online for-profit education school as their education (ours included), it is immediately thrown out. Let's just say we know our product.
Our product. My god. I've seen the courses we offer online and they're beyond a joke. I wish I could be more specific, but I'd probably give myself away. I've seen passing grades given for essays that wouldn't have gotten past my 6th grade english teacher. I s*** you not. Don't get me started on the technical degrees.

If all that isn't bad enough, here's the best scam we pull. As a “benefit to our students”, we've established a "Foundation”. We solicit donations for the foundation that go towards student tuition in the form of "scholarships". This is akin to a company like Best Buy taking donations for a self-administered Best Buy Foundation and then giving that money to Best Buy customers and forcing them to use it at Best Buy. We use scholarships as a means to launder our foundation money to our bottom line. The scholarships we hand out usually go to the students who we think we can squeeze a little more out of, probably because they've hit their maximum lifetime limit of how much they can receive in government financial aid. Our scholarships make up the difference so we can get whatever government cash they're still entitled to.

The Throwing of the Toast

So, tomorrow I am going to the home football game against Yale. Kurt, the self-proclaimed cruise director of our cohort and the graduate assistant at Penn's Executive Doctorate in Higher Education Program, organized this event so that people in the Higher Education Master's Program could meet the exec. doc folks. I am really excited to go to the game tomorrow for a few reasons.

• A) I am a little stressed and will jump on any chance to not do work/school stuff right now even though I should
• B) my undergraduate institution did not have a football team so this is the first time I will be at a college football game for a school I actually go to (or a college football game at all for that matter). 
• C) The undergraduate work study person in Admissions and Emily, also from Admissions, told me that there is a tradition of throwing actual pieces of toast on the football game after the third quarter is over in response to lyrics to a sports song and the fact that the stadium banned alcohol in the 1970's.
• D) I am very excited to meet the people from exec. doc. and maybe learn a little bit about their career trajectories.

Well, I have my one and only midterm on Tuesday and need to get to this Higher Education Finance studying! I will leave you with a video of the 'throwing of the toast'. 

P.S. The look on Lindsey's face when she learned about the throwing of the toast was priceless!

AND I spend far too much time at Admissions! : )

If This Were Just About Getting A Job

I had a revelation yesterday when meeting with my advisor, Pamela Felder. We were talking about which courses I would be taking next semester and somehow we got on the topic of jobs (Pamela is also the professional Development teacher, so you see how this could easily happen). We discussed how in this one year program, it is difficult for some students not to be overly focused on the practical: how to network, how to get a  job. For me, though I know the whole job search process looms over all our futures, things have never been that way. Pamela and I started discussing this and in our conversation, I just stopped at one point and said, ""if this were just about a job, I wouldn't need a master's degree." The job application process does not worry me. I know that after this I can get a job. Even before this I could. Admissions, the area I am most interested in, does not require a master's degree. I have experience too. I could have walked out of my undergraduate degree and into a decent job working as an admissions counselor. Allotting this time to learning and growing as a professional is not about the difference between having a job or not, it is about having the job I want.

Dr. Felder agreed. This whole process is about gaining a knowledge base around higher education. Learning about governance, access, higher education finance, college choice and campus culture helps me to understand my career path. What kind of institution will I work for? Will it be a small, selective private school or a large state school? Studying here and going on a visit to the Community College of Philadelphia has even opened my eyes to the possibility of working in the community college setting. Where will it be? What exactly do I feel comfortable doing and what are the areas in which I stand to gain competency? These are the kinds of questions that I think about rather than whether or not I will find work at all.

It is my belief that people thrive in situations in which they were meant to be, kind of like soul mates for jobs. Mushy, I know. But that's me. This year, I am soaking in all that I can in terms of information, connections and skills so that when I do start looking for that job, I know precisely what is going to help me thrive.

By the way, I got that mentorship! Starting this November, I will be assisting a low income high school student in the Kensington area of Philadelphia with their college application process! I will keep you updated!

Week of Papers

I think that I had an assignment due in 4 of 5 classes this week and that a lot of others in the cohort had the same. Everyone, including me, looked wiped out! The good in all this is that we learned a lot this week and that I think it is fair to say we are officially back in the swing of this school thing. In addition to school work and my assistantship, I have been looking into college access volunteer opportunities.

Last week, the perfect opportunity came to me via the Higher Education Program listserv! An organization in Philadelphia called "one little DID" is looking for mentors to walk young Philadelphians through their college application process. I like that one little DID uses a one-on-one model and that they orient mentorship around the college application process. They also don't just help high achieving students, they help anyone who wants to go to college. I am very excited about the possibility of volunteering with one little DID. Later today, I will find out if i got the position. Wish me luck!

A bunch of people in the cohort are going to the NASPA regional conferences today, some to the one in Baltimore and others to the one at PACE in NYC. I was interested in going, but decided against it because it is still pretty early in the year and we had a ton of work to do for classes this week. As the year progresses, I will probably be more inclined to go off and network. First, I had better learn how to do it!

Recently, I have had some really valuable conversations with people in the cohort. One student in the program here is a full time admissions representative at John Hopkins and  a part time student. Another student came to Penn GSE from having been a high school college counselor. Their experiences are helping inform my approach to college admissions. I am learning so much from them.

This week, Matt Hartley's class was about boards of trustees. We learned about the intricacies of board responsibilities and about some of the basic differences between public and private boards. It is impressive how Matt can take things that sound so boring and really bring them to life.  I never thought I would be interested in academic governance, but he has showed how vital an understanding of governance is to any academic administrator.