For-Profit Colleges Disproportionately Responsible for Increase in Debt and Defaults

I've attended many, many schools mostly to transfer credits to TESU. From my experience, there is a difference between the work required at non-traditional schools (regardless of profit status) and traditional schools. Non-traditional schools feel like they have something to prove, so they require a lot of busy work that focuses more on APA formatting and word count than learning content.

 

I've never been a student of Nations University, but I've had the chance to look at a lot of their courses and they certainly require an awful lot of work. More work than many graduate programs I've either enrolled in or audited. On the one hand, a person will learn a lot about the Bible. On the other hand, the amount of work may make a person hate the Bible and begin to question God.

 

Regarding undergraduate programs, the education is supposed to be broad. You're supposed to be learning the basic facts of your field. Here's my issue with non-traditional schools focusing so much on writing long papers. I was in 5.5-week courses at Colorado Technical University. We had to write a bunch of papers and discussion board posts. I had no time to read the textbook, and I didn't need to read the textbook to complete the assignments. So, the information I learned was the information I had to research for a paper. So, instead of learning about different theories of punishment in corrections, I would only learn about the one I chose to write about for a paper.

Take space studies, for example. I compared American Public University/American Military University and University of North Dakota's programs. UND proudly lists the companies where their graduates have obtained jobs. APUS lists possible positions graduates might be able to obtain. So, I had to do more digging to learn about APUS' program and where their graduates go. From reviews, APUS' space studies program is not heavy on math, but it's heavy on writing. Students mistakenly think that this makes the program "rigorous." Sorry, but writing papers on why the federal government should be increasing funding for NASA is not likely to get you a high-paying job with Boeing or some other aerospace company or defense contractor. UND graduates are getting jobs that often go to engineers.

 

About the textbooks, that reminds me of my experience with Ashford University many moons ago. $200 or so each for books that were barely if ever used. Horrible professors, terrible administration. I hear very little has changed.

 

I couldn't add this yesterday for some reason:

The thing with Nations is that the work goes beyond just basics, and the writing requirements when I looked into it were above and beyond what I would consider reasonable for an undergrad program. The writing requirement lengths for some things were closer to Post-graduate level than undergrad. I know they had a lot of trouble getting accredited so they must have thrown everything but the kitchen sink into the program in order to get through, but unless a person is REALLY serious about the Bible or just saving a boatload of money in order to get into a good grad program (their undergrads--interestingly--seem to get into very well-respected RA graduate programs) then I can't see why they would torture themselves in that program.

 

We should be comparing total costs to the taxpayers, not just loan defaults. Taxpayers subsidize state and community colleges.

To students perhaps, but not necessarily in terms of total social cost per student. CC's typically have very nice campuses and facilities that somebody obviously paid a lot of money for. Somebody pays their instructors, they aren't working for free.

Are public CC's ever going to pay the taxpayers back? Certainly not directly, like students are "for profits" are expected to do with their loans.

 

The government also subsidizes many of the student loans for-profit colleges get paid from. For-profit colleges are also beneficiaries of the Pell Grant, TA, and the GI Bill.

College graduates, on average, make more money and pay more taxes. The single moms dropping out of college are just going to have debt and continue to collect welfare.

But, let's look at colleges that don't depend on government subsidies. Private, non-profit colleges tend to have higher sticker prices than for-profit colleges, but students usually end up paying less due to generous financial aid packages. For-profit colleges will offer a handful of scholarships for marketing purposes, but their first responsibility is to their shareholders. They can't be as generous as non-profits with handing out institutional grants and scholarships.

 

I will argue that CC is just as necessary like other institutions such as ntsb, military, police, roads, bridges, etc. There are something that that is best covered by taxpayers.

 

It makes me wonder if perhaps schools are required to offer some kinds of scholarships in order to obtain accreditation.
Just a guess....

 

Why would a public CC OWNED by the taxpayers pay the taxpayers back? Does a county pay back taxpayers for its investments in roads and parks?

 

You mean the CC's pay their instructors?

 

There is nothing elitist about suggesting that some people might do well to bypass college. Nor is there anything damning a person to low earning career paths if they don't have college degrees.

A welder at my company starts around $42k. Just gotta pass the weld test.

A brand new marketing specialist comes in around $38k. The key difference is that the welder has in series promotions (i.e. you can go from "Welder 1" to "Welder 2" and still work in the same area as the promotion doesn't change responsibilities, just reflects increased expertise) and be making $55k. The marketing specialist will cap out at $45k and then be frozen with only COLA raises annually. Their only step forward is to wait for a management position to open up. The bad news for them is that, historically, those go to outside candidates.

Our finance people do just fine. They make a very nice living. Not every field enjoys that high earning potential.

The problem I have with this notion that one is "elitist" for proposing that a "poor kid" should, maybe, consider becoming a welder is that it implies that the welder is somehow less desirable than being a marketing specialist. Sure, if you prefer office work you might choose the latter. The welder, however, still has a viable career (and many more employment opportunities than said marketing specialist). The welder can rise through the ranks quite a ways before they run into a degree barrier. At that point they would have been making well into the six figures since two promotions prior.

We have electricians making $60k - $70k.

We also have low skilled positions which pay in the 30's.

We have poor kids who grew up to become managers. We have the kids of doctors and lawyers slapping labels on pallets for $16/hr (our lowest hourly rate).

Statistics can show us trends. Trends are generally meaningless to individuals when they don't match up to their experience. It's like the statistician who drowned crossing a river that averaged only 2 feet deep. A person should be driven toward a career based on interest and hopefully taking into consideration ROI and likelihood of successfully breaking into that industry and role. A person should not decide how to proceed with their livelihood based on how their demographic trends. 90% of people like me having accomplished something is not the same thing as me having a 90% chance of succeeding if I undertake the same task.

 

A person very close to me went to college to become a welder. I am not sure if one can exit HS as a welder, plumber, or an electrician.

 

GCU is no longer for profit but even so one of the reason would easily be that the schools do not have hard requirements getting accepted into the program. They are a relatively good school at least from my standpoint working on my doctorate but because of the ease of getting into the program, people who do not belong there get in. I fell the teachers in most of my classes, especially the residency have been up to par but some of the other students struggled with basic things. I assume its the same with bachelors degrees where student gets in, get a bunch of debt and then drop out.

 

An individual, regardless of his or her economic background, should pursue a career based on his or her skills in combination with his or her interests. But, it's poor kids who are usually discouraged from advancing their socioeconomic status, and black blue collar workers are mostly competing with undocumented immigrants for jobs. We should not be in a position where most of us are competing with unskilled and low-skilled laborers who can't speak English and probably didn't even finish secondary school. That's why black people are hit the hardest during economic downturns.

There are thousands of occupations to choose from, so handpicking a handful to compare is meaningless.

 

GCU very recently became non-profit, so all of the stats come from when it was a for-profit college. As I understand it, they're still run by the same people.

 

I do not believe it requires college but you not going to come right out of high school knowing what you're doing. Usually, you start working for someone who gives you the experience and then to get into the really big money, you go into business on your own.

 

My high school provided basic welding and electrical training, but I went to high school in a mostly middle class district. A lot of poor districts and individual schools don't have the funds for career training programs. When schools do have funding, girls usually pick cosmetology, nurse assisting, and childcare courses -- all low-paying fields.

When I looked at apprenticeships in Texas, I would say that most of them require you to already have enough training to be licensed by the state as an apprentice. Many go to CCs, public technical colleges, and for-profit colleges for the initial training. As shown in one of the articles I linked to, the outcomes at these one and two-year for-profit colleges are not good.