For-Profits Fight New Rules

Seriously Mr. Neuhaus ? SNHU award worthless degree??? Why not ASU (Arizona State University)? Why not NAU (Northern Arizona University)? or Excelsior college with overpriced tuition? Thank you.

 

Well, two of those are state schools. My point was regarding private non-profit schools. Second, I used SNHU as an example but any private non-profit school would have fit the bill just as nicely.

I chose SNHU because it borrows heavily from the University of Phoenix marketing playbook while loudly bragging that they are non-profit.

Have you looked at some of the unemployed or underemployed people out there? There are people with degrees from well established B&M schools who are working for minimum wage while paying off six figure debts. So, if not SNHU then the University of Scranton, Temple, Ithaca College, Syracuse University, please, by all means, take your pick.

 

Everest will not be exempt from the new rules. Their certificate programs will fall under the new rules. It still remains to be seen whether or not Everest will improve. The switch to non-profit status just occurred.

 

Everest University closed, or is in the process of closing, a large number of campuses. Their online program includes zero certificate programs and their on-campus certificate programs are significantly dialed back to fields that are much more likely to, at a minimum, make sure you can get a job.

Gone are the sketchy IT programs. But they'll train you as a Pharmacy Technician or Medical Assistant (which typically have respectable placement rates).

It's absolutely ridiculous to assume that Everest's move to non-profit is going to change anything. It's being run by the same people. The people who were at the helm of Corinthian Schools are at the helm of Zenith. It would be like me forming the Neuhaus Corporation, it being heavily fined and censured, and me selling the assets to Neuhaus Consolidated, LLC and then saying "Well, phew, thus begins the road to success."\

I'm not saying Everest is going to fail. I'm not even sure that Everest deserves to fail. What I am saying is that, in the eyes of the USDOE, the Everest that was so widely blasted in the press is free of some of the burden from these new rules even though the schools themselves have not changed and their operators remain in charge. If Corinthian had sold its assets to another for-profit company (run by the same people) there is no way that would have flown. But to a non-profit run by the same people? No problem. All of this, despite the fact that Everest was arguably the impetus for many of these new rules.

I just fail to see the wisdom in a move like that. It would have been like creating the sex offender registry and then immediately making Jesse Timmendequas exempt from it.

 

Job placement is not the only issue. Pharmacy technician and medical assisting jobs are usually low-paying. If the students' debt to income ratio is high, then they will not be meeting standards. In other words, they wouldn't be able to get away with charging outrageous tuition rates for these types of programs.

 

They're still offering the IT programs at Texas campuses. I didn't check the other states.
Everest College Programs in Texas - Everest

 

No IT in Florida or Colorado.

What I did do was check out the tuition.

Wanna be a Pharmacy Tech? $15,000

That's about what I paid for my B.S. Even if financial aid cut that price in half, that's about $6k more than that program should reasonably cost.

But then again, is $10k in student loan debt for a job that pays $22,000 -$28,000 (Up here I have seen Pharm Tech jobs posted for $13/hr, so I'm being optimistic) reasonable?

The question that enters my mind is how Everest and others will adapt. Lower prices and try to drive volume? Push harder for GI Bill money?

I didn't think Everest was cheap but $15k for a job that doesn't actually require formal training in most areas seems a bit ridiculous.