Are Some Degrees Worse Than No Degree?

Of course someone profits from "non-profit" schools. If nobody profited from them, there would be no point.

So who profits? By and large, it's the students. Non-profit schools typically charge less for tuition, room/board, etc. than it costs to provide those services. So they lose money on every student that they educate. The students, on the other hand, get more educational services than what they pay for, so the arrangement is profitable for them.

For example, Dartmouth provides a detailed breakdown of its "business model":

-- the average annual cost per student is $104,402
-- the college's "sticker price" for tuition, room and board is $49,974. However, only the wealthiest students actually pay this. Most get financial aid discounts.
-- on average, each student only pays $14,724 after financial aid.

If you can get $100,000 worth of educational services for $15,000, then you have arguably profited on the deal. Maybe that's why Dartmouth gets 15 applicants for every spot in its freshman class.

How can Dartmouth stay "in business" when they lose money on every "sale"? Because they are backed by a multi-billion dollar private endowment, built from the charitable donations of generations of satisfied alumni.

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This business model is very, very different from the way that (for example) the University of Phoenix operates. UoP has no intention of losing money on any student, and has no expectation that alumni are going to offer support via charitable donations. Their approach is to charge students more for education services than they actually cost. So they generate a financial profit from these services. Who profits in this case? The owners (if the school is privately held) or shareholders (if it is publicly traded).

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Different people may have different preferences as far as these two models go, but there is no doubt that they are very different.

 

Even if monies are donated to UoP (and many other for-profits) so that students end up paying less, they would pocket it (the CEO's salary would either increase or their bonuses would increase) and still charge students high tuition, in my opinion. While for-profit schools make alot of money, students loose; especially, if the education they get is bad or sub-standard. As a student, the only way to ensure that you maximize the benefit that you get from a for-profit school/education is to make sure the overall cost of attending such school is low (some for profits will hide the overall cost by charging low tuition but levying hidden fees that make the overall cost still high - another way of squeezing as much from you as possible). This is why for-profits like APUS (AMU and APU) are viewed favorably because their low tuition ensure higher ROI for their graduates. Schools like APUS will last for a long time because its is impossible for students to max out the $138k available in government provided loans, compared to other for profits that cost around $138k (I can provide names if you want) for a BS and MS. Also, I'm sure if the government increases student loan availability to $200k, many profits would increase their tuition so that it costs just about that; the reason why degrees from some for-profits are not take seriously.

 

Here is a really simple comparison. It's the average "net price" for beginning undergraduates in 2009-2010, after financial aid.
Data from the US Dept. of Education "College Navigator" website.

University of Phoenix - Boston Campus: $24,729
Harvard University, Cambridge: $16,459

Which school do you think spends more on faculty: Harvard, or UoP-Boston ?
Which school do you think spends more on facilities: Harvard, or UoP-Boston ?
Which school has the higher average net price ?

Based on your answers to the questions above, which school do you think turns a profit on every student ?
Which school is charging below-market prices ?

 

Doesn't one of the old Bear's Guides mention a book called Non-profit Can Be Profitable?

 

This is pretty common at state and not-for-profit schools. I applied 9 units from my first masters to my second and have no concerns over having done so.