The industry has been excoriated for preying on the poor, veterans and minorities, charging exorbitant fees for degrees that mostly don’t deliver promised jobs and skills.
Source: For-Profit Colleges Accused of Fraud Still Receive U.S. Funds – The New York Times
I tried to point out the rest with this comment.
The government’s problem is obvious. Just look at their own data (I give some examples below.) and ask these two questions.
Does the government want to shut down all of those non-profits that also don’t meet any reasonable standards – and alienate all of the politicians, bankers and construction companies that those “colleges” support?
Will the academic-financial complex let the government open Pandora’s Box?
Opening Pandora’s box would lead to the public’s inexorable conclusion that the problem with American education starts with many “top” colleges and leads through less elite schools all the way down to K-12. (How that works can be found, with stories and documents, on my blog inside-higher-ed .)
Now for the data I promised. (It was discussed in Kevin Carey’s latest piece in the Upshot in this paper, and I will put a link to it on my blog.)
Here are a few schools with their 3 year Fed loan repayment rate, followed by their 7 year rate.
ITT Seattle 40% 65%
ITT Nashville 39% 58%
Miss Valley St. Univ. 30% 58%
Elizabeth City St. Univ. 37% 57%
Ark Baptist College 12% 36%
As a former professor, I have seen the terrible effects of this, both on individual lives, and on our country – economically and politically. I hope people will wake up and take the political action that is necessary to go back to a well educated (not just degreed) America – the one Thomas Jefferson understood that a democracy needs.
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