Hey, we're non-profit!!!

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Steve Levicoff, Feb 12, 2016.

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  1. Steve Levicoff

    Steve Levicoff Well-Known Member

    So I spent the morning in Kentucky, then headed up in my "camper with a big-ass box on the back" through Illinois and into Missouri. (It's a tough life.)

    Going through St. Louis, I was met with a large billboard on I-44 that said:

    The school (Ranken Technical College) is a traditional college offering mostly two-year degrees, and they're regionally accredited.

    But c'mon, has it come to the point where the "profits" have such a soiled reputation that a non-profit school actually advertises that it's non-profit? (That's a rhetorical question, of course. Of course they do.)

    Definitely a cool billboard.
     
  2. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    I'm shocked that Meramec Cavern missed one of the billboards, I was sure they owned them all ;)
     
  3. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Southern New Hampshire University advertises quite a bit around here, and while it isn't the focal point of their ads, they always manage to mention that they're non-profit.
     
  4. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    And yet, I would recommend AMU over SNHU any day.
     
  5. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Why???????
     
  6. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Cost alone would be reason enough.

    But if you fill out an inquiry form with SNHU you're going to get bombarded with neverending phone calls and emails. With AMU you won't.

    But, if it makes a person feel better to pay $30k for an MA in History at SNHU rather than $12k at AMU so that they can proudly proclaim that they earned their degree from a "non-profit" school, then that's their prerogative.
     
  7. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I would recommend AMU/APU too, not just for that reason, but also because I've met a number of their administrators and they impressed me with their dedication and knowledgeability.
     
  8. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    I'm always puzzled that schools which have endowments that rival the GNP of some countries can call themselves "non-profit" with a straight face.
     
  9. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Endowments are donations, not profits. They are the result of fundraising and philanthropy, not the sale of goods and services. Those endowments have put thousands of students through college allowing them to either graduate debt-free or with little debt. Of course, SNHU and APUS have nothing to do with schools with large endowments, so I don't know why endowments were brought up. On average, students graduate from Princeton with less debt than either of those two. What is Princeton supposed to tell donors? "Please don't give us so much money. We'd rather not give our students excellent financial aid packages." Let me know when a for-profit school does what Stanford is doing by covering the tuition of all students who come from households making less than $125k. A for-profit college couldn't survive doing something like that.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 13, 2016
  10. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I used to argue that there was little difference between for-profits and not-for-profits, that their tax status didn't matter. Posts like the one above demonstrate how wrong I was. Nice post.
     
  11. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    My point is that lots of people profit from "non-profit" schools. When the president's salaries for some of the private schools in the US top $3 Million per year, that's some serious profit.
     
  12. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    If you're going to look at it that way, then every salary is profit. You just have profits that are low, moderate, and high. Making 50 cents on a glass of lemonade is profit. In other words, there is no such thing as a non-profit organization, according to your logic, since employees of those organizations earn a salary.
     
  13. airtorn

    airtorn Moderator

    There are all-volunteer run non-profit organizations.
     
  14. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    You're right. But the elite schools are in the minority. There are far more private, non-profit schools that graduate their students with a mountain of debt than schools that graduate them with very little debt.

    You're right, a for-profit school would go out of business of they did that. But so would a large number of non-profit schools. Perhaps there's a balance somewhere in there with schools that offer a quality education at a very reasonable price.

    I fail to see how paying $18k more for the same MA at SNHU (compared to AMU) would be worth it simply because they are "non-profit."

    How a school uses its profit is up to them. They can reinvest it and ensure tuition remains low or they can pocket it. Just like any other business. My dentist runs a for-profit practice (as do the majority of dentists). Costs for procedures are pretty low (they follow the usual and customary charges for our area to make insurance reimbursement easier since they don't accept any insurance directly). Facilities are well appointed and the equipment all looks new. Across town, there is a Medicaid practice that looks like hell and that dentist has multiple offices in multiple cities. Two different for-profit ventures, two very different levels of quality based upon how they reinvest profits back into the business.

    But yeah, if we compare them both to the Mayo clinic, they both look bad.
     
  15. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I'll concede to that, but the overwhelming majority have paid employees.

    Bruce was talking about schools with large endowments that rival the GDPs of some countries, which are in the minority. All of the other private, non-profits that don't have large endowments were not being referred to in my posts.
     
  16. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Every business makes a profit, or they don't stay in business, colleges/universities included.

    Schools like UoP are excoriated for being "for-profit", but at least they're honest about it.
     
  17. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    You're confusing profit with surplus revenues. Non-profit organizations reinvest their surplus revenues back into their facilities and anything that furthers their mission. For a non-profit in the education sector, that means spending money on scholarships, grants, fellowships, professor salaries, new academic buildings, research, etc. A for-profit company hands out surplus revenues to shareholders and private owners as dividends and profits.

    If you want to call it profit, then you can call it profit, but that doesn't change the fact that these organizations have different missions. Non-profit or not-for-profit organizations might make surplus revenues, but that is not their mission. Their funds have to be used for self-preservation and their cause to maintain their non-profit status. A for-profit company is called a for-profit company because making a profit is its ultimate goal.
     
  18. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    To me, where the surplus revenue goes is just semantics.
     
  19. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    It's not that simple. Simply put, for-profits and not-for-profits strive for different outcomes. Lumping them together isn't about honesty. It's about inaccuracy.
     
  20. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    :headache: If a non-profit clinic uses its surplus revenues to provide free healthcare to the community and a for-profit clinic pays it out to its shareholders, it's just semantics? Non-profits aren't taxed to encourage these behaviors. I can guarantee you that most of society sees the benefit of non-profits and supports their tax-exempt status as long as they don't abuse it. Simply put, a non-profit would be fine with making no money if it had no bills to pay or could get the needed supplies for free.

    If I were a student who had to choose between a school that uses surplus funds for scholarships, grants, and quality instruction and a school that maximizes profits by skimping on education expenses (on average, for-profits do spend less on education and more on marketing), I would choose the first school. It's not just semantics. These are tangible differences.
     

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