Hey, we're non-profit!!!

My non-profit school (Baker College, Michigan) decided to purchase a unaccredited law school in California (Earn Your Juris Doctor Degree Online | St. Francis School of Law) and a dying school in Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile . . . no scholarships, adjunct salaries declining . . .

 

Baker College does offer scholarships and so do some for-profits, but usually not on a large scale. Baker College says it has the lowest tuition rate of any private college in the state of Michigan. If the alumni really cared about having more full-time instructors, they could donate to the school. Purchasing a non-profit law school (the first non-profit, online law school that is meant to be convenient for working adults) and saving another school from closing is in line with their mission.

We could go tit for tat with anecdotal experiences. I, too, worked at a for-profit and public university. While the public university had some issues, they pale in comparison to the issues at the for-profit school. To be fair, though, the for-profit school was accredited by ACCSC. My theory is that ACCSC and ACICS schools, as a whole, are the worst accredited colleges in the U.S. regardless of tax status.

 

Harvard has an endowment of $37 billion (billion with a "B"), yet recently told the campus police that they couldn't afford a reasonable pay raise and some adjustment for benefits. I can't think of many things more important than the safety of students and employees of a school, but I guess that's okay, because Harvard is "non-profit".

I'm quite certain that will deter the next madman who wants to shoot-up a campus, they'll just move on to one of those evil proprietary schools.

 

I looked at the Baker College website, and they have about four dozen scholarships listed. Some of the scholarships are internal and some are external. One of the internal scholarships is worth $20,000.

 

The overwhelming majority of proprietary schools with brick and mortar campuses do not have campus police at all. You're lucky to see an armed security guard. Harvard pays an officer with less than 6 mos experience $52k, which is actually pretty high for university police. The salary is probably that high because of the cost of living in that area.

 

When I started my DBA program in Sept 2015, no scholarships for Masters or DBA programs. Only AS and BBA. You also must be on some type of state aid.

 

I want to add that, after two years, campus police are making $73k which is ridiculously high for campus police. Most municipal police officers don't make that much with just two years on the job. The base salary for NYPD after 2.5 years is only $55k.

 

Scholarships are extremely rare for graduate students across the board. What is more common is a research or teaching assistantship or fellowships at research universities, and Baker College is not a research university.

 

There are always exceptions. There are bad private non-profits, bad public universities, and bad for-profit colleges. There are good private non-profits, good public universities, and decent for-profits. I don't think I've come across an amazing for-profit. In general, schools accredited by ACICS and ACCSC are way overpriced and have to follow their accreditor's stupid rules. I don't have direct experience working for a school accredited by ACICS, but I do with a school accredited by ACCSC. They were too concerned about things that had nothing to do with the quality of education being provided. The instructors had to spend so much time on paperwork; it was ridiculous.