An Education In For-Profit Education: Infographic

What does a for-profit education really look like? Find out below, courtesy of our friends at Campus Progress.

Comments

[tomteboda]

07:54 PM on 05/26/2011

The scam with the federal fund availability is that it is determined based on the cost of the school you go to, not a base amount. Grants should be base-set and not off the exorbitant prices that both private and public schools charge.

[lostnacfgop]

09:24 AM on 05/03/2011

Well, looks like you have pinpointed the next big Scam - first it was the S&L's then it was Enron, then it was the mortgage companies/banks and their bundling of crummy, risky loans; now its for profit Universities, taking advantage of the poor and poorly educated, and looking to the Gov't to keep them propped up. So, this is better than providing more funding to state Universities and Colleges? Oh, wait, I forgot - our real problem is that poor and old people need medical care and treatment, isn't it?

[Konrad Klean]

04:13 PM on 04/11/2011

Does anyone else find it creepy that HP has advertisements for University of Phoenix on its' page?

P.S. my philosophy here is simple. You're going to college, therefore you should have some basic research skills. People who failed to research claims that sounded better than life...well, you know that saying about sleeping in the bed you made.

[berryessence]

01:05 AM on 06/02/2011

fanned and faved...I work for a "for-profit" school and actually I'm very happy to work for my employer due to the ethical way we make sure the student research the school, testing before admitting, and now give the student one term of free schooling BEFORE CHARGING...if they like the program then they are charged.

[SOD]

11:20 PM on 04/10/2011

And now for something completely different:

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-spring/school-vouchers-tax-credits.asp

[Acert]

11:44 PM on 04/10/2011

Why is it that tea-baggers claim oppose government sponsored education, but then ask for the government to pay for their private school tuition? Whatever happened to the "personal responsibility" you tout so much?

[SOD]

12:08 AM on 04/11/2011

You either didn't read the article, or you don't realize where all the money in the public school system comes from.

Should I be required to pay for the standardized education of another's child and my child's exemplary education? That's what you are really asking.

Read the article in an objective light and see what you come up with.

This is real truth to power.

[SOD]

11:47 PM on 04/10/2011

This is the sort of thing I read when I'm not trying to wake you slumbering subjectivists.

It requires a bit more abstraction than the usual HP tripe.

[Eris23Skidoo]

01:05 AM on 04/11/2011

You cannot wake those who are already awake. Although if you pinch yourself you might find yourself dreaming. "Subjectivists". I suppose that means you think of yourself as an objectivist, which is to say that you are an acolyte of Ayn Rand. You know, Ayn Rands philosophy works great in her works of fiction. But in the real world she and her followers are nothing but elitists who believe that being born rich grants them the right to rule over everyone else. Tripe, indeed.

[Babak Golshahi]

02:12 AM on 04/11/2011

Ayn Rand is TRASH...Angry reactionary TRASH - glad I woke up from that nightmare.

[sdesign]

07:32 PM on 04/10/2011

I fnd it interesting that these schools spend sooo much money on marketing and sales bonuses for those who "land" a new student contract.

A really good school can stand on it's reputation and doesn't need to "sell" itself.

[socialjustice4achange]

05:46 PM on 04/10/2011

Infographic:
Opinions represented:
Attorney Kenneth Sales
former CTU military recruiter Jason Deatherage
Representative Walter B. Jones, R. NC
Except for Deatherage's first hand experiences, does anybody know what make the opinions of Sales and Jones any more worthy than those of anybody else? In contrast to Jones, one could argue that for profits provide a needed service. Where is the counterpart opinion represented on the infographic? Or are we trying to be as fair and balanced as Fox News?

Deatherage left CTU before the Harkin Commission hearings. Is there any view here of what has been accomplished in the last six months? CTU and others like it are aware that laws and policies are changing. They have changed practices so that what Deatherage experienced is no longer the norm. But no infographic tells you that this is the case.

[sdesign]

07:20 PM on 04/10/2011

Then put one together and display it, as your response, if ou believe there are inaccuracies that need to be corrected.

[Howard Roark Laughed]

05:30 PM on 04/10/2011

And again the Liberal propaganda comes down from the class-jealous Left. What they dont tell you isl that when education is run like a business, it is more efficient because the teachers have to perform or get FIRED. No tenure means they will teach job skills and American values NOT waste time on Leftist indoctrination. All schools should be for profit, that way the best people will be trained for the best jobs, and those with less promise can do what there fit for.

[GreenJello]

05:40 PM on 04/10/2011

Respectfully, that's not how for profit schools work. For profit schools fire their excellent teachers because those teachers see that their talents are in demand at that for profit school that has those classes full of students paying huge tuitions. But for profit schools don't pay their excellent teachers high wages, instead, they replace the excellent teachers with average joes with no skills except the ability to act like excellent teachers. But the sub par teachers lack the real world experience that made the valuable teachers valuabe. Valuable teachers want to be paid appropriately for their valuable assets but for profits schools don't want to pay them because it cuts into the owner's profit margin. So the for profit school fires the valuable excellent teacher, replaces that teacher with a chump chimp and pays that low value teacher just enough to keep the low value teacher around to teach classes and get evicerated by unhappy students. The low value teachers perform and don't get fired because they are cheap! You assume that the for profit college cares about the quality of the education that they are providing. They don't. They only care about their profit margins. And if they can squeeze more profit out of every federal dollar they collect by paying 80% salaries to staff and demanding 120% of their time and effort, they can and will becasue people need jobs right now.

[Welshish]

10:33 PM on 04/11/2011

Say it!

[Pembrokelib]

05:45 PM on 04/10/2011

How can you possibly say that given the deplorable record of the for profit schools? Do you really think Wall St was efficient given the problems caused by their excesses? Even Ayn Rand would not agree with you. I'm assuming you chose your pseudonym from " The Fountainhead."

[CDL1]

05:30 PM on 04/10/2011

All politicians who support for profit colleges need to ensure their legitimacy by having their children enrolled in them...

[GreenJello]

05:48 PM on 04/10/2011

interestingly, the children of politicians all get into ivy league schools! they must all be super smart having attended the best public schools the country has to offer!

or they went to private schools and are legacys whose parents donated enough money to build a library... america wasn't founded with the idea of an entrenched aristocracy... oh well.

[sdesign]

07:28 PM on 04/10/2011

OR the children are from parents who looked over the shoulder of their child and assisted with homework when needed. The parents also stayed in touch with teachers to insure that the child stayed on task and assisted with adjustments as needed, for the best overall result.

[This American]

11:45 PM on 04/10/2011

And the money their parents "donated" to build the library wasn't theirs, it was the taxpayer's money. Good deal if you can get it.

On another subject, the problems outlined in the comic strip, are no doubt caused by the fact that higher education gets a veritable geyser of tax money. I haven't heard of such scandals with supermarkets, or fast food restaurants. Their customers generally spend their own money.

[sporty1]

04:33 PM on 04/10/2011

rYes this was obvious from the start. And of course the Republicans are in favor of for profit colleges. They support the massive hard sell for a crummy product and suck off millions for a few rich con artists at the top. This advertising, "marketing" thing has gone off the deep end, it is making life even crappier than the Republicans are making it otherwise. We need more regulatory control in this country, an economy based on misleading advertising is not good for the people.

[Acert]

04:31 PM on 04/10/2011

The number of cr@zies, who think private non-profit schools like Stanford, Notre Dame, etc are comparable to the University of Phoenix is just ghastly.

[CDL1]

05:22 PM on 04/10/2011

They also think a fine cultural night out consists of a Nascar race event followed by dinner at Old Country Buffet.

[This American]

11:48 PM on 04/10/2011

The calculus you learn at Stanford is the same calculus you learn at Phoenix. Neither school really teaches it. The student must learn it.

[Acert]

11:53 PM on 04/10/2011

There's more to college than just calculus. Can an online course replicate the experience of working in a science lab? How effective is it with languages (unless you have a 1:1 student:teacher ratio for every class)?

[Caleb Owens]

10:12 PM on 04/11/2011

Of course, that's why most people learning calculus just read it themselves without any teacher. The person teaching doesn't matter; they're all the same.

[GreenJello]

04:30 PM on 04/10/2011

The sad part about for profit education is that it seems like a great idea. If a school is profitable, it could invest that heafty profit into its education model making the education THE BEST available. Unfortunatly, the owners of for profit education companies are super greedy and all that profit is going into the pocket of the owner.

Profit is not a) redistributed throught the company showing that the people working their asses off selling classes to suckers are doing a good job, into benefits packages, higher comissions, holiday parties or anything - just into the owner's pocket.
b) It's not reinvested into the classroom because the second a class is up and running, the highly trained professional who built that class is fired and an actor (sometimes literally) is put up front to run the class at a fraction of the cost
c) the teacher often has no industry knowledge and teaches what the industry professional put on the slides. slides are not updated with new information as the industry develops b/c that would cost money and cut into owner's profit margin.
d) sales people pitch a class at 120% awesomeness but owners are just fine delivering a class at 60% as long as the students write good reviews on yelp or in the course evaluations.

WRITE BAD REVIEWS OF FOR PROFIT COLLEGE CLASSES WHERE OTHER PEOPLE WILL READ THEM. DO NOT GET A SALLIE MAE LOAN UNLESS YOU'RE BECOMING A NURSE!!

[Amakar]

09:26 PM on 04/10/2011

The problem is that morality and nobility are gone from business.

Profit does not come from doing a job well, if come from producing results that can be marketed. In this case, the results they are trying to produce are 'programs qualifying for grant money'

Education isn't even an ideal to these folks.

[quindy]

09:14 AM on 04/11/2011

F+F

[Lou Allin]

04:29 PM on 04/10/2011

What with summer schools and three degrees, I attended four different colleges, from state-supported Ohio State and Ohio U to private Baldwin Wallace, Case Western Reserve, and another very pricey Cleveland school (sorry, this was in 1965, can't recall) where I paid the same tuition for one course as I did for an entire year at a state school. The amount paid had absolutely NOTHING to do with the quality of the education. Schools also have a responsibility to tell their incoming students the truth about the job market that will await them. It's immoral to keep on churning out graduates to nowhere.

[Pembrokelib]

05:49 PM on 04/10/2011

If you can't remember the name of a college that you attended, somehow I don't think you learned much at all those schools. College is supposed to teach you how to reason, not to find you a job. The latter is up to you.

[Lou Allin]

06:23 PM on 04/10/2011

Now that I've had a minute to think about a place I attended for six weeks 46 years ago, it was John Carroll, a Catholic university. I have never been without a post-secondary teaching job since I started in 1966 and retired in 2005. Universities and colleges should not keeping running programs which they know full well will lead nowhere. Yes, there are downturns, but placement is important. An ethical school tells its students the truth. Mine did, I'm proud to say.

[the steamer]

11:32 PM on 04/10/2011

"College is supposed to teach you how to reason, not to find you a job. The latter is up to you. "

That's a nice niche they could fill. Headhunters earn considerable commissions placing prospects in jobs. Really, what better position to be in, what better opportunity than to approach businesses with the intention of placing your graduates in their company? Seems like a win-win.

[Wellington Mwerenga]

04:26 PM on 04/10/2011

lol...............yeah! the best Capitalism has to offer............just "PROFITS"

[Alex Moschopoulos]

04:10 PM on 04/10/2011

Despicable. I don't know why education should be "for profit".

I'd want it all spent on the students. I'll give great compensation to a Dean who has a 0-10% dropout rate and can show high numbers of success stories because of the education he/she made happen...but this is pitiful.

I think perhaps at least they should make the grants/help only for select schools. If a school has a 40%+ dropout rate, then students shouldn't be able to use tax dollars to go there. Let the school go out of business.

[socialjustice4achange]

04:29 PM on 04/10/2011

Under he circumstance you raise, the tendency would be to go to enrollment limitation. If you do that, who provides anything for those not already privileged?

[Pembrokelib]

08:40 AM on 04/11/2011

We need more good trade schools and apprentice programs. It is not necessary to go to a college but high school graduates need to learn a skill in order to get most jobs. Many are persuaded to go to a school for which they are not suited and at which they learn nothing.

[Andrew FingerlickingGree]

04:01 PM on 04/10/2011

Education Incorparated..... The GOP will support anything, no matter how deceitful and wasteful it is, long as it has INC. behind its name.