Private forProfit Universities

[Jon Miller]

These seem to be a mess. I knew they weren't very good, but I didn't recognize that they had such bad placement rates and practices.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/business/14schools.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/education/06gain.html

There was some new post on the New York Times which I can't seem to get to now.

I think the problem is that the government supports education, but not really for everyone. Just for the people that the not for profits provide education for. So the fix would be for the government loans/etc to be for nonprofit universities only or for all universities to be for profit. Which might not work at all either.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

Jon, a big part of the problem is the students themselves. A lot of them are marginal.

Also,

I think the problem is that the government supports education, but not really for everyone. Just for the people that the not for profits provide education for.

depends on what government you're talking about

Direct federal subsidization of undergraduate education comes through things like the Pell grants, as well as subsidized student loans. Both are applicable to students attending for-profit schools, as is mentioned in the article.

State subsidies go mostly to state schools, which are by definition not-for-profit.

Most educational subsidies end up being simple giveaways to the upper-middle and upper classes, whose children are far more likely to attend university. Students themselves reap most of the benefits of their education, so I see no problem with forcing them to pay the full cost of it. This would also focus their minds on gaining marketable skills. Education has been given away for far too long, and is treated as a consumption good by far too many students.

[KrazyHorse]

The only real abuse here seems to be of the federal government's largesse (grants and loan guarantees).

Where there's a subsidy there's a way to game it.

As far as the rest of the whining, I have no idea why, precisely, schools are to be held responsible for overly optimistic students. If they made any truly false claims then they should be prosecuted for fraud. If not, then all I have to say is caveat emptor

[Heraclitus]

I suppose that yes that the buyer should beware, but its not that surprising that students have unrealistic expectations of what they are going to get. Our culture as a whole has a major disconnect between what it implicitly and explicitly touts education as doing and what it actually does.

[Jon Miller]

Exactly, the abuse is of the federal government system. Which previously supported education of those who were selectively chosen and were good students, and now doesn't (due to forprofits not being selective).

What I am saying is that government provides aid to students the wrong way. It provides aid to all students, which it shouldn't. It should just provide aid to students which are selected by the nonprofit selection process.

The profits look at the current mechanism, rightly, as free money. Which it is for them.

An educated populace is a resource, one unlike any other. And it is an especially important resource for governments, since the populace is what makes up the nation. Hence, the government has good cause to subsidize this.

I would probably never have been able to get an education without my education being subsidized. If I was unable to get an education, I would definitely have my skills wasted in a unskilled job. I had 0 money, and 0 support, when I went to college. I could and did get a scholarship, but that scholarship was subsidized (from the college, so if the college was for profit, I wouldn't have had it). I also had federal grants, federally supported work, and federally subsidized loans.

The government currently supports education for people who attend any school. The laws were created with the expectation that the universities are selective. The for profit universities/colleges aren't (and have reason not to be), and so the government should not support education in them.

If you go to a for profit school and don't have any scholarships/etc, you pay ~200k for a full degree (from one of the new york time articles). Only a few degrees are worth that, and even fewer middle-class parents are capable of paying it (even people with subsidized loans are paying >10% interest on such loans). We would end up with a lot less engineers/etc, and a much less educated populace, if we switched all education to for profit and removed our education subsidies.

I am not sure why you often argue against benefits to the middle class, considering they are the group who carry capitalism.

JM
(Edited horrific English, I wonder if being in a foreign country has made mine worse?)

[Jon Miller]

I would actually guess that taking away the subsidizes for education would cause most of society to privatize.

I can't imagine the public school education could survive without subsidies for higher education.

I think the result would be that the attempt to provide education to the poor would end.

JM

[DriXnaK]

The best thing they can do is remove all useless liberal arts degrees from Universities. That would reduce universities and the number of students by about 75%. Lets face it, anything that isn't science or technical based is useless, and that includes most the business degrees. The only business degrees I'd keep are accounting, finance, and economics. The other business degrees are only marginally more useful than say a degree in literature or psychology. Also, the standard for the work done in these universities needs to be significantly raised. My god, half the people in these classes can't even write a complete sentence. There are so many things wrong with the University system it's ridiculous. I think math/science/technically based degrees like computer science should be the only thing offered at Universities. You seriously don't need a degree in Management to go be a manager somewhere. It's just a ****ing scam.

[Cort Haus]

I'd almost agree with Drixie were it not for the fact that other people having sh*t degrees makes those of us who've made the right decision more marketable.

[rah]

Actually LAS degrees do provide a purpose. Most companies hire people with generic skills for generic positions. A LAS degree usually means you're not an absolute idiot, but more importantly it shows that you were willing to put in considerable effort and money just to try to fit in. You will make a good corporate slave.

[Jon Miller]

Here is an interesting and relevant paper:

http://economics.uwo.ca/faculty/caucutt/papers/jedc.pdf

JM

[MikeH]

Actually LAS degrees do provide a purpose. Most companies hire people with generic skills for generic positions. A LAS degree usually means you're not an absolute idiot, but more importantly it shows that you were willing to put in considerable effort and money just to try to fit in. You will make a good corporate slave.

And even more importantly, you won't cost much to employ.

[rah]

More than someone that doesn't have a degree.

[Dinner]

Personally, I think for profit universities are fine and people should have the option to go to them but like Religious schools they shouldn't get a thin penny from the public. Unfortunately, Republicans have made sure that both religious schools and for profit schools that just want to milk as much public money as possible both get subsidized by the taxpayers.

[Jon Miller]

What do you consider a religious school, Harvard? Yale?

JM

[OzzyKP]

The trouble is degrees and education don't have much in common with each other anymore. As people focus more and more on the slip of paper you get handed after graduating, people worry more and more about getting that slip of paper and thus a huge demand is created for them which diploma-mills like many of these for-profit universities fill. The reality is that college isn't necessary for everyone and shouldn't be seen as a golden ticket to prosperity.