"Always Be Closing" is the slogan of "Premiere Properties," the fictional Chicago real estate office in David Mamet's play, Glengarry Glen Ross. "Always Be Closing" is not only the theme of Mamet's examination of the tyranny of the "bottom line" over human relationships, but also appears to be the driving principle behind the "University" of Phoenix's administrators who crafted guidelines for their enrollment officers. So cynical are Phoenix's instructions to its underlings they might even defy Mamet's imagination. The goal is simple: rope in as many unsuspecting students as possible into as much bankruptcy-proof financial debt as possible:
Creating Urgency:
Getting Them to Apply NOWRemember. . . .
*Students don't buy benefits
*They buy to ease or avoid pain
*Finding and burrowing into that pain moves the sale to a
CLOSE*Also, the close of the sale is really just a beginning
Any institution that calls itself a "university" yet tells its enrollment officers to "burrow" down deep into the "pain" of its students with the aim of hooking them into government-subsidized debt to rake in the profits not only doesn't deserve to be accredited, but should be barred from having any access to federal student aid programs.
It turns out that if a for-profit "college" can "close" the sale (enrollment) of a student who only stays in school for a couple of weeks it gets to pocket a big share of that student's federal aid. Pretty Sweet, Uh?
Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa is right now trying to change this unsatisfactory situation. In the last 10 years enrollment in these for-profit diploma mills, which have their hands deep inside the till of federal student aid programs, grew from 600,000 to two million students. The federal financial aid to students at the for-profit "universities" has gone from $4.6 billion in 2000 to more than $23 billion in 2010. And the "University" of Phoenix and other "for-profits" won't even release their dropout rate numbers!
When the Government Accountability Office (GAO) under George Kutz recently sent out "secret shoppers" to enroll in the "University" of Phoenix, and other for-profit "colleges," it found that 100 percent of the time -- in fifteen out of fifteen cases, (and all caught on video tape!) -- the enrollment officials followed the "Always Be Closing" guidelines. Fifteen out of fifteen times they refused to answer students' basic questions, denied them the opportunity to speak with a financial aid counselor, and even refused to provide them with information about the size of the loan they were about to sign and the timetable for repayment.
The incentives are all wrong. Instead of being there to help students receive an education at an affordable cost to better prepare them to join the workforce, these "for-profits" are employing the most egregious money-grubbing tactics to bilk their students and the federal government. How's that for an Alma Mater? Senator Harkin and the GAO's work has exposed once and for all how utterly corrupt these for-profit "universities" and "colleges" really are.
At a time when the faculties of public colleges and universities are being told by their administrators how they should imitate the for-profits like the "University" of Phoenix (as USC Education Professor William Tierney argued in an op-ed to the Sacramento Bee) -- because they represent some sort of idealized "private sector" efficiency model -- Senator Harkin's and the GAO's revelations are all the more stunning. In California, the community college brass recently tried to ram through a transfer of credit deal with Kaplan as a way to stretch its budget. Luckily, the faculty senate refused to go along. Harkin and the GAO have just driven a stake in the heart of the monster that insists on privatizing public colleges and universities.
The "University" of Phoenix, which is owned by something called "the Apollo Group," (probably named after the moon landing because its profits are astronomical), has resisted providing documents to Harkin's committee, the most important body in the federal government dealing with education. And where is Arne Duncan our vaunted Secretary of Education? Too busy privatizing public K through 12 schools to be bothered with reining in the for-profits that are ripping off America's college students.
The only "student learning outcomes" these for-profit corporations posing as colleges recognize are those that fill their own pockets with tax dollars that are supposed to be going to deserving students who just want an education.
Follow Joseph A. Palermo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JPalermo
Sounds like a big story to me. Won't this kind of fraud involving federal student aid funds do scary things to the deficit? The media is always harping on scary deficit things. Why not this?
I am going to Full Sail University's Online Bachelor's Degree Program.
This program is absolutely amazing. I have been in this industry for the last 10 years,
and I know you could not possibly get this type of specialized education from a typical
non-profit college.
The information and training I am receiving are valid and CURRENT!!
I would not be able to attend college without this online program - my life does not permit it.
Everything I am learning is something I can use TODAY and I can audit classes after
I graduate to update my skills. That makes it MY decision to stay employable.
The tuition I am paying is FAR LESS than I would have paid as an "out of state" student
at the non-profit colleges I looked at - and my education is better suited to the job market.
It is also equivalent in terms of required classes - I have a 3.91 GPA.
It would have been 4.0 except for that B+ I got in Physics class,
a required part of my curriculum!
How many Internet Marketing "experts"do you know that have taken Physics??
I bet hardly anyone knows WHY that is a required class for Internet Marketing.
What I have learned already gives me a TON of options for employment,
now it's up to ME to make my education valuable - which I am already doing!
I attended the Unversity of Phoenix and received a Bachelor's Degree in Healthcare Administration, I only attended because I know that I am not a good test taker (GRE) And (GMAT). By the way, I graduate in 2007, with a GPA of 3.37. So this could be a reason why some do not attend traditional college. But would it really make a difference. I am well on my way, and I am going to pay back my tuition when I finish my Master's Degrees with Unversity of Maryland. You just have to have faith that you will get a job and the lord will provide, guide, and lead you through and to your destiny.
Tggrjen compared student loans through the for-profit model to those who handed out sub-prime mortgages to people unable to pay. There are two major differences: one, student loans are fixed low interest. Two, you can lose a house, but not an education. Limits are placed on all government loans. Shouldn't people have the freedom to choose where they want to spend their allocation without someone else legislating what they think is good for them? Judge any school by its curriculum, faculty, job success rate and academic integrity.
The GAO report doesn't state that "100 percent of the time -- in fifteen out of fifteen cases, (and all caught on video tape!) -- the enrollment officials followed the "Always Be Closing" guidelines" or "fifteen out of fifteen times they refused to answer students' basic questions, denied them the opportunity to speak with a financial aid counselor, and even refused to provide them with information about the size of the loan they were about to sign and the timetable for repayment." It states that "all 15 made deceptive or otherwise questionable statements to GAO's undercover applicants", and with no threshold given for what is a "deceptive or questionable statement", nor any attribution of the statements to any of the specific schools, simply mentioning the states and in some cases the type of program being enrolled into. A Washington Post article (not the Sacramento Bee, but a paper of record), mentions that two Phoenix campuses were mentioned in the report, and none of them were the four that were cited as having "encouraged fraudulent practices" in meetings with undercover investigators. You cherry picked information and this article is disturbing fear mongering.