The Department of Education Cracks Down on For-Profit Colleges
I had students that caused me to wonder what they were doing there. One student took a state and local government class from me twice and failed both times. She was reasonably intelligent. She would have done fine in a community college. But she only turned in a few assignments. I finally asked my supervisor what was going on with this — these classes were not cheap. She told me that this girl would almost certainly continue to fail classes until she exhausted her student loan money, drop out, and then start paying $500 a month in loan payments — for a program that she did not complete.
Another student was a short-haul truck driver. Writing at about a seventh grade level on a good day, he was in a program called Criminal Justice Administration, theoretically preparing students to become police officers or work in criminal forensics. By his own admission, he graduated near the top of his high school class even though he was barely literate because he had a 98 mph fastball, and teachers knew better than to demand anything out of the high school’s star athlete. He was a good person, but I cannot see how he had any hope of working as a police officer. At best, he might become a heavily indebted security guard.
Teaching was not always a disaster. I taught an intermediate computer class that had a bunch of recently returned Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. While many of these young men were highly motivated, only a couple of them would have survived the academic demands of a community college. I believed that most of them would be able to do computer repair and troubleshooting when they completed the program — assuming there were any jobs when they graduated.
Here’s a harsh truth that few people want to hear: the government needs to stop subsidizing post-secondary education in the shotgun way that it does now. I really believe in the merits of a traditional liberal arts education — but it needs to be done in high school, where we used to do it. The government should not be making grants or loans for the overproduction of degrees in medieval French literature, history, psychology, or any of the other degrees for which there are few jobs. Nor should it be funding students who lack either the ambition or the ability to complete an educational program, whether at a for-profit institution, a non-profit private college, or a public university.
This country is about to go bankrupt. There are students out there who, to be blunt, are unqualified to be shift manager at McDonald’s. They are wasting the federal government’s grant money, and they are getting themselves in way over their heads with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans that will eventually be cleared only when they die of old age. Along the way, they will have suffered continual torment from having to service these loans. At the same time, by creating an artificial demand for education, these unqualified students are making it that much more expensive for those who might benefit from a technical or trade school. Stacked up against this grim reality, the abuses on display at America’s for-profit colleges virtually pale in comparison.
This tactic is par for the course for those who want ULTIMATE control over the youth.The Feds have more in mind than student debt.Absolutely.
Lost in the conversation is the following – no one twists a student’s arm to go to a for profit school, regardless of the outcome.To be sure, prices at many pricey schools aren’t worth a damn, but heck, the US (used) to be a free country.Moreover, whatever happened to due diligence and buyer beware?
Consider:I forked over upwards of $ 45,000(and that is a low ball estimate) for each son to attend MIT & Caltech.Does anyone in their right mind think that a parent would expend such monies without the expectation of gainful employment after graduation?Of course not.In fact, both sons have their choice of jobs, highly qualified graduates in advanced technical professions usually do, even in poor economic times.
However, the same cannot be said about graduates in the humanities/soft sciences, regardless of the school’s name recognition.
Besides, it is up to the parents to guide their kids in the right direction, it is DEFINITELY not the government’s concern, unless they are seeking TOTAL control over what is taught and who teaches it!!
And herein lies the issue……
There is the additional complex of the technilogical revolution that the world is undergoing. For the last quarter century I have been involved in remote computer aided instruction for hardware and software for the US navy submarines. You have a crew of a hundred out to sea for as much as sixty days at a normal stretch and you can not deliver a college instructor on site, it made good sense to spend heavily to further their educations. A curricum development station at the end of Reagan’s administration cost was $90,000 and needed a great deal of additional hardware to produce a workable course. Now a a quad core computer with the cameras, scanners and software can be set up for under four thousand and produce finished courses for DVDs or publish right to the web.
Does anyone think that technology will slow or halt in the next twenty years?
The great costs of hardware and development of computer courses (for the Navy about $50,000 per hour)have limited the exporation of what can be done with computer instruction. This has passed the price point and service to the commercial market is increasing.
The old business model University is going to come under increasing pressure from not just Rossetta Stone teaching languages but other firms teaching standard buisiness process and an ever widening range of material. Even mental process instruction via computers has been successfully demonstrated in the nation’s graduate schools.
There is the additional complex of the Technological revolution that the world is undergoing. For the last quarter century I have been involved in remote computer aided instruction for hardware and software for the US navy submarines. You have a crew of a hundred out to sea for as much as sixty days at a normal stretch and you cannot deliver a college instructor on site, it made good sense to spend heavily to further their educations. A curium development station at the end of Reagan’s administration cost was $90,000 and needed a great deal of additional hardware to produce a workable course. Now a quad core computer with the cameras, scanners and software can be set up for under four thousand and produce finished courses for DVDs or publish right to the web.
Does anyone think that technology will slow or stand still in the next twenty years?
The great costs of hardware and development of computer courses (for the Navy about $50,000 per hour) has limited the exploration of what can be done with computer instruction. This has passed the price point and service to the commercial market is increasing.
The old business model University is going to come under increasing cost pressure from not just Rosetta Stone teaching languages but other firms teaching standard business process and an ever widening range of material. Even mental process instruction via computers has been successfully demonstrated in the nation’s graduate schools.
What I always find kind of amusing is that private colleges are always in such lousy financial shape, even though most (if not all of them) teach kids “Business Management.” The also probably have MBA courses available too, yet none of them can seem to keep costs, let alone tuitions, down. Even though inflation has been incredibly low over the last few years (when you don’t look at either food or fuel, like the government does), private college tuitions have been skyrocketing.
Some colleges say all the financial aid and scholarships they give to poorer students are the reasons why their tuitions are soaring. Well, perhaps if they didn’t do that and allowed the poorer kids to attend state or community colleges, then their tuitions would be lower? Forget it. Colleges are big business in this country, and it’s one that supports the Democrats as well. To me, Colleges are no different than the unions to the Democratic party. Almost all of the faculty and administrators are heavily liberal Democracts and support whatever Democratic candidate is running for office. Why? Because ALL Democrats running for anything give big bucks to unions and to education. It’s their mantra. And the Democrats also force the government to fund as much as possible in student loans, covering these outrageous college tuitions. Why? Well the colleges make more money that way, the government gets more in interest payments, and the kids get stuck with a bill they have no hope of paying back. Works great, right? Sure, unless you’re the poor sap that gets stuck with the bill.
Stop government-funded student loans. Start forcing private colleges to be more competitive by reducing their tuitions. If that means they have to cut costs to do that, then so be it. And maybe the colleges could plow back some of the money they make off of football into their academic curriculums, rather than plowing it back into more football? Force the private colleges to charge what the state schools charge. And if the kids want a student loan, have them apply for one with a bank, not the Federal government. If a bank thinks its a good investment, fine, because they actually want to get paid back, unlike the government who can afford to lose the money if the graduate goes bankrupt.
Stop this slush fund for Democrats. Let the private colleges be as reasonably priced as the pulic colleges. And if the private colleges don’t like it, well, they ARE PRIVATE colleges. Let them stand on their own two feet. At least financially and without any government help, subsidies, grants, OR STUDENT LOANS.
“And if the kids want a student loan, have them apply for one with a bank, not the Federal government.”
But that would mean less young adults having to spend four years listening to a bunch of liberal progressive college professors talk about a subject (if its in the arts) that the student will have absolutely no need of when they begin their careers. And that would mean less young people being brainwashed and less people voting for “hope and change” liberals. And that would mean less people paying the salaries of hundreds of thousands of university faculty who give money to unions and Democrat politicians.
I’m of course being facisious in a way. Problem now is though, even private student loans are backed by the government just like risky housing loans are, so even private banks can give away loans to students just out of high school wanting a useless liberal arts degree which they won’t be able to pay back since there is no market for people with history or sociology majors.
If private banks were not backed by the gub’mint the only people who would be getting loans would be those in the sciences or teachers or lawyers, professions where there is a big market for those skills and where 4+ years of education is actually required. The other kids who aren’t bright enough or don’t work hard enough to go into one of the programs mentioned above, well they’ll be better off without wasting four years of their life and being saddled with a boat-load of debt. They can go to a community college or technical/vocational school where they can have a clear path to a job in probably only two years and half of the debt that they’d accumulate at a public university.
Those who don’t want to go to secondary school at all should instead try their hand at a multi-year internship or apprenticeship, while at the same time maybe taking a few business school classes so they can eventually rise up through the ranks.
There are other options for secondary-education which should not be treated as education (if you need more “education” then the primary school system failed you or you failed it) but as helping someone get a job; unfortunately the Federal governemnt does not want these options to come out in the open since it would mean the fast demise of the BA degree and therefore result in less brainwashed youth voting for Obama.
Liberty, maybe you know something I don’t know, but it is my understanding that the Obama administration, by law, prohibited private banks from providing student loans. The only provider of student loans is the federal government and one private bank in Wyoming(?) that was given that right during the Obamacare payoffs before passage of Obamacare. Am I wrong or do I misunderstand?
You are correct. Buried in the 2000+ pages of the Obamacare act is a section that turned all loans over to the Federal Government.
Except for the Wyoming part, you understood perfectly. When Congress was trying to “reconcile” Obammycare in 2010, Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (DEMOCRAT-ND) gave HIMSELF (oops, I mean the STATE-OWNED Bank of North Dakota) the ONLY “carve-out” from the Federal takeover of student loans. The “Bismarck Bank Job” was right up there on the greedy gimmick index with the “Cornhusker Kickback,” “Gator-aid” & the “Louisiana Purchase.” Conrad (DEMOCRAT-ND) decided it wasn’t in HIS (I mean North Dakota’s) best interest to waste time on a “distraction” & asked the House to drop it (BUT, who knows what happened? Nancy Pelosi?) Any day now the “profits” from student loans (well, “profits” on paper, so to speak) will begin to “offset” the zillions it’ll cost taxpayers to purchase “affordable” healthcare for 33+ million poor, but deserving, flat-screen TV & iPad owners AND millions who just don’t like paying for their own “stuff”. FREE healthcare, FREE college…can “The Totally FREE Chevy Volt for the Needy Act” be far behind? BTW, Senator Kent Conrad (DEMOCRAT-ND) will not run for re-election in 2012, probably making him eligible for the FREE Chevy Volt. Did I mention he’s a DEMOCRAT?
You are correct. That’s why I said, “And if the kids want a student loan, have them apply for one with a bank, not the Federal government. If a bank thinks its a good investment, fine, because they actually want to get paid back, unlike the government who can afford to lose the money if the graduate goes bankrupt.” How and why the Federal Government got into guaranteeing student loans is anybody’s guess. You would think a bank would scrutinize a bank loan more carefully than the Federal Government would. So now what are the Feds going to do if a kid defaults in his or her loan? Are the Feds also going into the delinquent fund collecting business too? The bureaucracies just keep getting bigger and bigger and it ends up costing us more and more, all to keep far-left liberal colleges in business. And people wonder why we want Obama out of office in 2012.
Now you know why Pelosi was so thrilled with the govt takeover of student loans. More students going to colleges that have to meet the govt victim quota. The universities are nothing more than a Dem money laundering operation like that of the unions, plus they have the benefit of propagandizing our youth. The next Dem platform will be to buy the votes of people who are sinking under the weight of their student loans. Remember Obama’s State of the Union address: loans would be forgiven after 20 years of working in the private sector, but only 10 years if you worked for the govt. The Dems have quite the mob operation going for them.
The only federal money for higher education should be the GI Bill.
No one else has earned it.
College costs would drop if the colleges had to compete for students.
I’m with you, except for the price-control “force private college tuition to be the same as State college tuition”. This type of price-fixing is really, really, bad. Private institutions should be free to charge what the heck they want! And to force them to charge the same tuition as those schools that are tax subsidized will only result in the destruction of private education.
I would much rather see the State get out of education altogether. It is not society’s responsibility to educate everyone; instead, it’s the individual’s responsibility to decide what to learn, and then go learn it.
Government student loans hove really messed things up for higher education, though, more than anything else I can think of at this time.
After exhausting over half of the prepaid tuition purchased and without sufficient credits for the time and money spent, I advised my kid to either go back to community college and get an AS in a technical field with a marketable skill attached, or give it up since they hadn’t the resources to complete a BA in an as yet undeclared major. I told him he’d be wasting his time and my money to continue nickle-and-diming a rudderless educational tack. It wasn’t for a lack of intellect, but simply for a lack of direction or a goal, decisions I could not make for him. He’s a hard worker and an asset to every employer he’s had, but unless one has the discretionary resources to pursue higher education as a “hobby” I think many who insist on college are wasting their time. A high school diploma from the ’40s or ’50s likely signified more rigorous discipline than a liberal arts BA does today.
You’ve made many good points, Snake. I hope many people read these and pass them on.
Perhaps the DOE should also crack down on PhD programs in the humanities, if they are so worried about students who may leave educational programs with crippling amounts of debt and without the certainty of securing employment/salaries commensurate with their degrees. Many of the English PhDs I know (from a top-rated public school in the South) cannot even find work in the field, and many who do are under-paid and overworked.
Yes. For decades now, departments in the humanities and so-called social sciences have been graduating far too many PhDs. There also has been a drastic lowering of standards in many PhD programs. Thus, we graduate far more students with PhDs, but few of them are worthy of the degree.
The problem is that departments at many universities are judged by the number of PhDs they graduate. And at a few universities, some departments have added a new PhD program simply for the prestige, knowing full well that the market is glutted.
Student loans are a path to financial ruin. There are few, or no, jobs even for those students who graduate with some genuine skills. I blame much of that on the totally unnecessary H-1b visa program and on the offshoring of jobs on account of corporate taxes and excessive federal regulation.
Student loan debts cannot be discharged through bankruptcy.
I strongly suggest that everyone wait a few years, until the prices come down and there is some major housecleaning, before going to college or graduate school.
College tuition: The next speculative bubble to burst
The incentives are wrong. If the lenders faced a bit more risk, if the colleges and universities had a stake in the gainful employment of their graduates — not the risk of total expulsion from the federal student loan program, but some significant risk — they would all do some screening of applicants which would cut down on all the problems mentioned above, even the excess PhD.s in the humanities.
As matters now stand the colleges are free to milk a student and his loan for every dollar he can borrow with no risk to themselves, and the lenders have such draconian collection powers that they face little risk as well. Couple that with some kind of requirement for reasonable progress toward a degree to weed out the professional students, and the loan program might be rescued and turned from being just another government boondoggle into a useful financing tool for the worthy and hardworking students who lack any other means to pay for their education.
Adina, Israel, obviously also of the US, mixes braggadocio about her own kids with a over-regard for a credit sharks heartlessness.
Has she seen the kids at these private tech schools, uneducated innocents lured by EASY UP-FRONT money and promises of learning a valuable trade skill, living in modern versions of stuffed chaotic flophouses, drowning in a irresponsible “college life” of drugs, booze, classes, then to crash and burn — the majority of them — into take 20 years of take home pay of under $200 a week (that’s $7 in 1930 dollars) after garnishment to pay the $50K of non-extinguishable student debt? I have. A sampling of a few dozens of cases seen in case files at the debt collection outfit I worked with for a while, and in conversation and handshake of those known up-close and personal, another half-dozen.
I also see similar abuse of the young by the current rapacious generation running the “schools” and the “banks”, with kids at public colleges, including the best of them, from good families, in Ivy or equal level schools. Which of the two beasts grinds down the innocent to rawer meat? The private schools, but ONLY because the kids in those have less of a family safety net on average.
BVW, you miss the central point entirely.Again, where is the due diligence, either by the parents or the kids?
The fact of the matter is that NO ONE twists their arms to get into debt which will likely strangle them financially for many years to come.To place the onus on money making institutions is to pass the buck-in more ways than one.
True, I had the finances to finance my kids stellar educations.And yes, I am VERY proud of their accomplishments-thank you very much. Nevertheless, had they taken out full loans to pay for their educations it STILL would have been worth it.Why?Because their programs prepared them to ‘fish for life’.No handouts needed from the ‘gubment’ and no handouts from parents.Would I have paid for liberal arts degrees at such hefty prices?In a pig’s eye….
Those who end up with worthless, overpaid diplomas have themselves to blame.And another thing.NOT everyone is college material and would do well to consider other options.
Life ain’t fair.Deal with it.
Life isn’t fair. That’s the point of it.
The real question: What are you doing about it?
The kids at 18 can sign for lifetime indenture. Yet that is not how it is sold to them by every teacher, maven, counselor and the few like you able to pay. That’s right, the few. Most kids today are borrowing to pay for six years of a life of chaotic and amoral irresponsibility as prep for what?
You say your kids spent mucho dinero to learn how to be commercial fishermen. How’s that business going for them now? Or did you misrepresent? Of course you did. But everybody does that kind of metaphor, right?
What trade did they learn? And just how long will that tech degree be a meal ticket for them? Ten years? Fifteen years? The value of an engineering degree fades for nearly all in fifteen. Yes they may be in better standing now, but not for so long. And more ominously all boats get stranded when the tide goes out.
The tide in this case is a metaphor for the economic liberty of the young. That liberty is running out like a tide in the Bay of Fundy.
Metaphors can be pat excuses. Euphemisms. Devices of concealment rather than enlightenment.
The situation is very bad, but in your pilot house you only see that your boat is still afloat and you heard not the cries of those below decks that the bottom is running aground.
You and your kids will not escape the general calamity.
So, your prescription to stop this educational calamity is allowing the Feds MORE control over for-profit programs?Newsflash-EVERYTHING the Feds touch turns to crap, including education, wasting mega millions of TAXPAYER dollars in the process.
Moreover, one does not have to be a genius to understand the following fact of life-that there is always a need to adapt, either via learning new technologies or teaming up with others of like-mind when the economies of scale realign.
Further, one needn’t possess a boatload of cash to forge ones lot in life, it may make it easier but it is not the number one requirement.Far from it.
What IS mandatory is a person’s willingness to accept responsibility, stop blaming others for their lot in life and make the best of their situation.Many at MIT/Caltech don’t have a pot to piss in YET they plodded on through a combination of loans/work study.
Most importantly, it is in tough economic times that people should want LESS intervention/coddling from Feds and their surrogates.History has proven them to be the most predatory lenders of all, not the other way around.
Again, NO one is twisting their arms to sign untenable loan packages.Buyer beware applies to all-even those who place their faith in the Nanny State!!
I have a prescription, sure. It is for folks to drop the (1) “Mine is mine and f-u” attitude, (2) for folks to refuse to tolerate the “mine is mine, and yours is mine too” attitude and policies.
We see (1) in those who fight to push their kids into only the “best” schools, or who hire only those from the “best” schools. It’s fine to go for the best. The trouble is that ticket-punching, that being plotting a career trajectory based on getting certs, and the best certs one can get, is like fiat money. Fiat money ends up in the hands of those with close connections to the Treasury and Fed at higher rates than those who actually add economic value.
Like fiat money chases and attracts the corrupt, Educational Certs become untied from performance and instead tie to connections.
How to break that? Rescind government policies that require degrees for professional certifications and government jobs and replace them with tests, or proven career experience. And drop as many government requirements for professional and trade certifications as possible and then drop more too. The free market can provide them as needed. That removes the monopoly power big education know has over many professions.
The kind of destructive social pathology in (2) is checked as well by liberating markets from the bounds of onerous regulation. It is also checked by eliminating the Federal education bureaucracy, regulations, diversity programs, grants, and loans. DC sucks up everyone’s wealth, Federal bureaucrats are exceptionally greedy for power.
An earnest person can get the equivalent of a college education in any subject for well under $1,000 today, thanks to the internet. What he or she can not get is a DEGREE. Let’s open up the granting of college degrees to companies that are just testing outfits. Let the government certify them, if folks need that to feel comfortable, but let’s bust up the enslavement of the young by the modern “higher education” system of schools, financiers, and government.
Only let’s drop the “honorary”, make it a full degree.
disclosure: I teach both at profit and nonprofit post secondary institutions.
I would hazard the problem of commissions and effectiveness are worse in the nonprofit sector as this article points out in a small way — http://www.nasfaa.org/Main/Financial_Aid_in_the_News_Format/2011/A_Non-Profit_College_Recruiting_Scandal_.aspx . The other issue is one of options. My experience, the profit schools have a targeted jobs oriented program. There are no programs in liberal arts, women’s studies, Chicano community activism or advanced basket weaving at these schools. Not so in the nonprofit sector. One could enter a program, spend $200k, graduate and not even be prepared for flipping burgers at McDonalds. Getting a WS degree from Colorado State University would be nearly useless to one’s job prospects. So now who is committing a fraud?
Generally, if a entrant can make it past the 1st year in a for profit they have a high degree of certainty for completing a 3 year program there. Most of the graduates I see do get placed in the program for which they enrolled.
One last point. Is the problem with the schools or the govt? A high preponderance of the entering students at most for profits are ex military. To the government’s credit, the discipline instilled in these individuals increases their graduation rates considerably. But here is the key. Many are not equipped for scholastic endeavors even under those circumstances. Yet, the military uses access to the GI Bill as an inducement to join up. Now who is playing the con?
There is plenty of flim-flamming to pass around to everybody. But its the govt with the pointer.
JohnMc, they are all FOR PROFIT.
Are you aware that many tech schools have programs where the classroom study portion lasts under two calendar years? A kid that drops out after one year still is in hock for $20-$25K. Perhaps the schools want a hefty percentage of such dropouts. At a lower level of indebtedness and still healthy they have better repayment numbers.
The drop out rates from your so-called (and improperly called) non-profits are not that low: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-30/for-profit-college-dropout-rate-of-57-is-likened-to-casino-odds-by-harkin.html] “About 38 percent of students at for-profit four-year colleges graduate within six years, compared with 53 percent at public institutions and 64 percent at nonprofits, according to an April report from the National Center for Education Statistics. The April report is based on first-time, fulltime students who enrolled in 2002.”
Six years of borrowing at the public and non-profit schools. I don’t know what the distinction is between “public and non-profit” in that report is either. As I said, and I’m right, there are no real non-profits. Not when staff is so very well paid, and the institution is so well-endowed with super-chique edifice and furnishings,
And how many exit sans degree? Still in the ballpark of 1 in 2 to 1 in 3. At tech “for-profit” schools? 2 in 5. There’s no real distinction, as those in the counting casualties of war business say. There’s way too many dead in all cases.
The faults are in sum the greed of the current and most-recently retiring generations in power.
In the 1990′s I worked at a non-profit literacy agency, Volunteer Instructors Teaching Adults, in Louisiana. One of our students reading skills tested at the third grade level. She was taking the course because she had signed up for a secretarial course at a local for profit college. Of course they had obtained a student loan for her, but she became fearful she could not do the work there. Our director along with some prominent members of our board managed to get her contract voided and the student loan canceled and repaid by the college. A very common happening for the first part and a very uncommon and fortunate occurrence for her for the last part.
De-fund.
The whole history of this is interesting to me.
College really took off in the 60s because of the Vietnam War as a way to get out of the draft if you had enough money. The surplus of college graduates allowed companies to start using the college degree as a filter when selecting employees on other factors became illegal or troublesome.
Companies using college degrees as a filter led to more demand for college degrees, which led to a general dumbing down of college requirements. Similarly, because going to college was then seen as necessarily for a job, high school technical track job training was gutted.
So we’re still paying for the distortions of the Vietnam War today with wasteful training for college grads in fields that frankly have no demand and little utility. And we’ve had a massive distortion in the professoriate, too, making it far more Leftist than the country since during the huge boom in building colleges to accommodate the demand the available new staff were all the first part of the boomers.
Craig Biddle has a detailed article on this issue in the Summer 2011 issue of the journal, The Objective Standard:
“The Government’s Assault on Private-Sector Colleges and Universities”
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-summer/private-sector-colleges.asp
“using distasteful techniques to lure in students.”
I’ve also seen public universities do the same. They lure undergrads in using prestige and promises of six-figure careers that only lead to ordinary jobs and crushing financial aid debt.
I’ve seen public universities do the same to returning students–adults who want MBAs or who think an additional degree will get them a promotion or a job change. Again, they end up with modest promotions (if they get promotions at all) and end up as slaves to financial aid debt.
All public universities want to do is get rid of the financial competition, and they want to control access to knowledge. Someone should do to them what their more militant professors/students want to do to Big Oil and Big Corporations. Break up their oligopoly and severely regulate them.
Get rid of tenure
let “professors” compete for their positions
and get the federal government out of primary eduaction
While teachers at for-profit schools can be incented to recruit unqualified students to boost schoold revenues, teachers at non-profit schools can be incented to recruit really well qualified students into pointless, useless courses solely to provide jobs for the teachers. Where else and why else would an employer hire someone with a PhD in, say, womens’ studies?
It isn’t typically the teachers at for=profit schools that recruit students, it’s admissions officers etc.
I will say that most for-profits have some excellent teachers– all those otherwise unemployable PhD holders…
I work with many small-to-medium business owners, most of whom do not have college degrees. They are, individually and as a group, smarter and savvier than the smartest PhDs. I feel comfortable making this judgment, since I also work with many of those “smart” PhDs.
For many people, learning only makes sense if it makes sense. In other words, where academics thrive on esoterica, abstractions and obscure what-if scenarios, many engineers and business owners (and carpenters and mechanics and …) thrive on applied knowledge and skill. Show them how to do/make/fix something and they’re unmatched. Ask them to tease out a theme from The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner and they’re lost. Who can blame them?
Ok, so what’s my point? Our education system is broken, as many commenters above have noted. If your lifelong goal is to study folklore and fairy tales: go for it. Your time, your dime.
Meanwhile, we need to make the distinction between education, which builds a broad foundation in a range of core subject areas, and training, which builds and refines skills in specialized arenas. Both have value.
We’d be better served as individuals and as a country if the DOE was disbanded tomorrow. I suggest we replace those hapless bureaucrats with a volunteer panel of business people, educators and professional practitioners who meet occasionally to issue/update basic public education standards then head home to get on with their lives.
GDI- Exactly!!
College and student loans should be considered as a business decision and not as a means to do something you like. Engineering and hard sciences may be worth taking a student load to study. Business and finance may also be worth considering. Anyone that takes a student loan to study social work or art history at an Ivy League school is really just dumb. Getting an education in education at an expensive school is also questionable.
The federal government has not added any reality to student loans and is likely to continue to use them for social engineering.
Forgotten Man-you get it!
Those who are incapable of understanding that paying for an education is a business decision are not smart enough to be there in the first place.Complaining about getting snookered isn’t going to fly.
It’s just, tough luck……
Not only are there too many unprepared students in college, but far too many well-prepared and perfectly capable students who are wasting years of their lives and amassing debt for degrees that will prove of little use to them.
The problem is bad enough in colleges, but there are tens of thousands of people in grad school burning up more time and money on degrees of even more questionable worth. Consider the “100 reasons NOT to go to grad school”: http://100rsns.blogspot.com/
Too many young adults are buying the cultural message that more classroom education is always better, and they are paying a terrible price.
Yes, yes, yes. I took a leave of absence as an ABD PhD candidate to have my baby (2 years ago) and decided not to do back. The semester before, I was approached by a bright young student with questions about grad school. She was shocked that my first piece of advice was NOT to go!
Private colleges and universities have been around since this country was founded. They have always been more expensive. I am wondering if their quotas for ‘needy’ students or minorities weren’t large enough.
The best thing the obam administration could do regarding colleges is to recognize the fact that all kids should NOT go to college and the current college standards make a bachelor’s degree worthless.