I sympathize with Elaine as per her note on blackboard about the difficulty of trying to find evidence in favor of for-profit educational institutions. The “For-Profit Schools” article she assigned did make me briefly consider how the resulting increases in efficiency and innovation from operating for-profit could work wonders in a school system, but it was almost instantly defeated in the few short and contradictory paragraphs present in the article. The article claims using business strategies for improving school systems is controversial because, “The fundamental purpose of a school is to educate, not make money.” Agreed. Shortly before that however, it states that using business creates an environment such that “the main concern of management is realizing profits and promoting growth. Proponents of for-profit schools claim business models will benefit students, because financial success depends on providing a quality education. Schools must improve if they are to compete for students.” Realizing profits is quite a different fundamental purpose than educating. I do wish that there were more options for higher education and job training for nontraditional students who can’t or don’t want to access a “typical” four-year institution, but I don’t think for-profit colleges are the answer.
“Fed Up at the University of Phoenix” and “Will the For-Profit Education Bubble Burst in 2011?” were very similar articles and I think helped further my sentiments against for-profit colleges. Both articles highlighted a lot of deception to students about benefits of graduating from Kaplan or one of the other colleges, and how most for-profit colleges have painfully low graduation rates. They didn’t really give any hard facts or figures I thought, but I feel like the picture they painted for me about those kinds of schools wasn’t very pretty.
The “Subprime Opportunity” article definitely had a lot of facts and figures. However, I think the thing that stuck out to me the most from that article was actually the part about how representatives of for-profit schools claim that their graduation rates are totally justifiable because of the demographics that they’re serving, namely those who are least prepared and most disadvantaged. That seems like pretty terrible logic to me, and certainly doesn’t instill very much hope into their students I bet.
This is an interesting article I found while trying to find out more about for-profit colleges. Greg Cappelli is the Co-CEO of the Apollo Group, the company behind the University of Phoenix. I thought it was really admirable that he pointed out that people, myself included, usually tend to associate “convenience” with “easy” but that truly the University of Phoenix is not easy. I also appreciated reading about some of the proposed changes in regulations of federal dollars for for-profit colleges the article talks about.
Yeah wow the Subprime Opportunity article was a bit irking to me. I think it is really unfair when minorities have the bar lowered on them for being brown. As a minority, I have been asked time and time again if I run track, if I am in any way related to MLK and if I can translate ebonics. The answer is no. To all three. Yes the rate that minorities attend college is lesser than the majority. But the reason is a history of oppression and a culture that for years has been taught to devalue education. These for profit colleges saying that their graduation rates are acceptable because their students are black and hispanic and making less than 20k a year is frankly, a load of BS.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, I think there should be other options for higher education. Those options should have the same standards and accreditation that Public Universities have, maybe not all of the broad breath of knowledge policies, but study discipline specific. That way when people graduate from the program, they have an equal chance at employment. The low graduation rate among the for profit schools are not because they are serving minorities. It's because they are not spending enough resources on remedial education. If a student is prepared for the material they will always be more successful. Most of our class has had at least one basic sociology class. Could you imagine how little we would take away from this course without that background? I really think that is what is happening at some of these for profit schools.
ReplyDeleteI think you brought up a good point about the difference between convenience and easy. I've never taken any strictly online classes because for me, that would be more difficult than attending lectures, etc. I know that I need to have someone there to explain things again if I do not understand the first way the information was presented, and I need peers around me to engage with and open my mind. Without these things I think the quality of my education goes down too. I got the impression from the readings that recruiters from these colleges are one of the biggest problems in their whole system (second only to the quality of education) because they are not only seeking out vulnerable people. but presenting a completely skewed image of what they will have to do in order to earn their degree (e.g. cost, effort required, etc).
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