Rick Santorum is apparently going to run on promoting for-profit colleges.
“This comes as a shock to some people, that the president would have a war on something. But this is consistent. He believes that private sector schools are somehow evil and they’re abusive, and his Education Department has done everything they could to make it harder for them to compete for loans and other things and to stay in business.”
Under the Department of Education’s “ Gainful Employment” provisions of 2011 for-profit colleges are cut off from federal student aid funding if more than 35 percent of former students aren’t paying off their loans and/or if the average former student spends more than 12 percent of his total earnings servicing student loans.
A study published earlier this month in the Journal of Economic Perspectives indicated that the average former for-profit student earned $19,950 a year in 2009. The average former community college student, in contrast, earned $24,795. Some 40 percent of former for-profit students were unemployed more than 3 months after leaving their programs.
The claim that President Obama is hostile to for-profit education is nonsense. As I’ve written here before my main problem with President Obama’s education approach is he is not hostile enough towards for-profit education in general, whether it’s colleges or K-12. It’s a big problem for me. I wish he’d occasionally defend or promote public education. For-profit education has more than enough lobbyists and sales people. We don’t need Obama’s Secretary of Education volunteering for those positions.
Rick Santorum is (allegedly) the rural, populist candidate on the Right, so I’m thrilled he’s going to be out there promoting for-profit colleges, because in my opinion, based on unscientific and unreliable metrics (the marked change in attitudes of the people who wander into this law office) for-profit colleges have created a vast pool of angry customers. I went to two public community colleges in this area, so when people come in and complain, we compare and contrast, thus allowing them to fully flesh out their rant. I’m more than happy to help gin up a little anger on this issue.
Enrollment at for-profit colleges has “plunged” in recent months, by more than 45 percent in some cases, the Wall Street Journal reports, as the empty promise of these “subprime schools” comes to light to potential students. The colleges “have pulled back on aggressive recruiting practices amid criticism over their high student-loan default rates,” and “many would-be students are questioning the potential pay-off for degrees that can cost considerably more than what’s available at local community colleges.” The Washington Post Co.’s Kaplan reports enrollment down 47 percent while large for-profit operator Corinthian Colleges Inc.’s stocks sank to an 11-year low. The schools receive millions in taxpayer subsidies via student loans, but often deliver a sub-standard education. For these reasons, the Justice Department has joined a lawsuit against the industry.
I think we could assemble 300 enraged former students of for-profit on-line colleges in this county alone, and there are about 30,000 people in this county. They are deeply in debt, they can’t discharge the debt in bankruptcy, they are making 9 dollars an hour after investing years and borrowing tens of thousands of dollars, and they are angry. Then there’s the whole ripping off veterans angle. Rick Santorum may not be aware that veterans were and are targeted by these places, but there are plenty of real live veterans who can tell him all about it. Rural areas were a more fertile field for marketing on-line for-profits, because they have fewer education choices and longer travel times.
Republicans need to run up huge margins in rural counties like mine in states like Ohio, to offset the numbers in the populous counties, where Democrats run up huge margins. I don’t think shilling for these places is a winning message.
My hope is public opinion has turned on for-profit colleges in a meaningful, ground level, word of mouth way, among the people who actually used them and pundits and conservative politicians just don’t know it yet.
4tehlulz
inb4 WaPo endorsement
Zandar
But Rick Santorum doesn’t want a meaningful conversation on for-profit colleges versus universities. He wants public universities gone, like all Tea Party fanatics.
You want an education? Better be rich. Otherwise, world needs ditch diggers and burger flippers too. Want to advance in the greatest country on earth? You’d be rich already if God meant it to be.
Otherwise, know your role and shut your mouth.
sb
@Zandar: Basically this.
Repugs want to eliminate public education entirely. Full stop.
They’re crazy.
c u n d gulag
Maybe Rick doesn’t know that “The Founding Fathers” advocated public education.
I think he, and the rest of his stupid ilk, think of them as ‘The Funding Fathers,’ because they think they were for privatizing everything, according to how they read The Constitution – which is rarely, and usually upside-down.
ET
I have always felt that many of these for profit “colleges” are basically diploma mills or borderline scams so the fact that the Dept. of Ed may not be enthused by them isn’t a problem for me.
aimai
I hang out on a website that is a bulletin board for women with families from all over the country–people range in class from very high to very, very, low and they are from extremely rural areas, shift work, long term unemployed etc… My unscientific survey reveals that a huge proportion of these people are using online schools to try to bump up their pay, or their husband’s pay, while working full time often at jobs that have no set hours. Its seen as the only way to get ahead. But whether it pays off or not is totally unclear. I don’t think a lot of people have yet figured out that its the same bubble economy as the housing bubble–they are still in the think of running up this debt because they make their decisions based on information and “what everyone is doing” that is a few years out of date.
aimai
Steve
Speaking of ripping off veterans, I just saw that the CFPB is stepping up its efforts to protect the military community from investment scams. More important work by Elizabeth Warren’s agency, the one Republicans are desperate to kill.
eric
OT…in case the suggestion has not yet been made, but we should refer to the Romney-Paul alliance as RoPaul. that is all
sock puppet
Didn’t anyone see last week’s Frontline on how for-profit colleges are screwing over vets via the GI Bill? It was brutal. Boil that sucker down to 30 seconds and it makes a compelling attack ad. Check it out.
HyperIon
Kay wrote:
Me, too.
Gin & Tonic
Yup, WaPo Q4 earnings down 22% due to declining enrollment at Kaplan.
Trinity
I worked for a for-profit college company several years ago. My boss ran the admissions departments and her title?…
VP of SALES.
Horrible place. Shameful practices.
daveNYC
@aimai: Eh, I don’t think it’s a bubble. I’d use term if there were hundreds of on-line schools opening up and looking for investors. On-line for-profit edumacation falls into the ‘scam’ category for me.
Functionally, they’re roughly the same as quack cure scams. Take people desperate to improve their situation, take their money, give them something worthless in return.
jharp
“they can’t discharge the debt in bankruptcy”
I had no idea. What in the fuck is that all about?
D. Mason
I used to get telemarketed from university of phoenix online in which they started out talking about the loan programs they offered instead of the education programs…. wtf.
Culture of Truth
So at the Washington Post, the schools are for-profit and the newspaper is non-profit.
Culture of Truth
Student loan debt is not dischargeable, like first homes. But not vacation homes, naturally not those debts.
EconWatcher
Wow. He makes it sound as if “for profit” colleges are a form of rugged, private entrepreneurship. Many of them are just scams for getting federal student aid dollars. Crony capitalism at taxpayer expense. Nice target for Obama.
Gromitt Gunn
Unless you can literally never pay it off (I.e. you’re in your 60s and Social Security is your only source of income), federal student loan debt is non-dis chargeable in personal bankruptcy, regardless of educational outcome.
People can still go on income sensitive repayment plans. But you can’t kill it entirely.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Remember… these people think the government can’t do anything right and a lot of colleges are state institutions.
CarolDuhart2
Why can’t student loan debt be dischargeable?
As for for-profit schools, the for-profit schools fill a niche that other non-profit schools haven’t tried to really fill: the adult learner who needs to finish but can’t take time off for meatspace classes. People with uneven hours, etc.
I wish the regular colleges stop being so negative about online classes and realize that while the method may vary from the traditional, and the student from the traditional, a good education can be done online. I learned a bit from my online experience, although it did not end all that well for me. In many ways, what is the difference between an adjunct who teaches a 700 student class from the online counterpart except method?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Remember… these people think the government can’t do anything right and a lot of colleges are state institutions.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@HyperIon: Likewsie I’d love to see that happen. Please advise on how one could help.
nitpicker
I believe much of the problem with getting for-profit students hired is based on the stigma surrounding those degrees, the idea that they are somehow inferior. Yet these schools have to meet the same accreditation requirements of private and state colleges. As a veteran, I relied on a for-profit school to get my degree–people like me were, in fact, the reason schools like University of Phoenix exist (and before them, correspondence schools, right, Radar?)–and I’m comfortably employed. I do think for-profit schools recruiting practices need to be examined carefully, but trashing the education quality of those schools without evidence is detrimental to those working stiffs like me who dreamed of a post grad education but still had to hold down a job.
jibeaux
I think they’re very scammy. In addition to community colleges, plenty of good public universities offer distance education programs. Either one has lower costs and better chances of improving your job/salary than some kind of U of Phoenix or similar coursework.
Gin & Tonic
@CarolDuhart2:
Because the industry lobbied *hard* for that outcome, and the last bankruptcy reform act accommodated that. It’s just about the “stickiest” debt you can carry.
Jay C
Except that it’s most likely that, for Rick Santorum, the “customer base” he is pitching his inane Obama-bashing to re education aren’t the students at online/for-profit “colleges”, but their owners and promoters.
In the business model most of these
diploma mills“institutions” follow, the students enrolled there seem to be seen as mere “consumers”, i.e. marks to get roped in for their loans: why would Santorum (or any Republican) care more about their problems than they do about ANY consumer issue (i.e. little or nothing)?Linnaeus
@EconWatcher:
Absolutely. The profitability of these schools is entirely dependent on federal student aid and they’re very aggressive in getting students to get whatever aid they can so the school gets its cut. Soshulizing the risk, privatizing the profit. One of the oldest games in American business.
kay
If there’s a market, subsidize and expand public community colleges.
There’s no reason we should be promoting a for-profit sector in k-12 or college.
They have armies of paid lobbyists already.
We don’t need volunteer lobbyists on the public payroll.
nitpicker
@jibeaux: Yes, but public universities weren’t doing that until there was a market established for it. Also, the “chances of improving your job/salary” depend on what you intend to do. For example, teachers looking for a master’s for higher pay can comfortably rely on any accredited school, because most government jobs aren’t allowed to discriminate between school quality, but have to consider only whether your degree was from an accredited institution.
Gromitt Gunn
For-profits are not the only online or adult learner options, but they are usually the most expensive.
In addition to traditional community colleges, Rio Salado Community College offers a wide range of online only Associate’s degrees, and classes start almost every Monday. Western Governor’s University offers online Bachelors and Masters degrees. Both are non-profits with better rates than for-profits. Rio Salado is around $225 per credit hour.
That doesn’t include option like the UT System’s Online University.
jibeaux
@nitpicker: But what line of work would you say you would be better served in by choosing a for-profit online U? I can’t think of any.
geg6
@jharp:
Student loans, whether public or private, are exempt from discharge in a bankruptcy. My professional organization has lobbied for years to get the private loans out of that equation and make them like any other sort of private debts, but there are too many big financial players (Sallie Mae, Citibank, BoA, Citizens) who rain cash on congresscritters to get the same treatment as federal loans.
I can understand having strict rules as to when or if a federal student loan can be discharged or forgiven. There are so many types of affordable payment plans for them, deferment options, and forgiveness programs that anyone in financial trouble that would lead to bankruptcy should and certainly can find something they can live with even if the loan is not discharged in a bankruptcy. Private lenders do not provide such options and, in fact, will increase the interest and fees on loans when a borrower falls behind.
CarolDuhart2
@jibeaux: I tried at first to get distance education from my former alma mater. But the courses were very limited in nature-I wasn’t interested in fire fighting or being an EMT, for example. So I went to a for-profit school and even was on the Dean’s list before a bout of depression and problems staying online nixed my dreams of a Bachelor’s Degree.
If my former alma mater had been more interested, I could have taken advantage of the resources there-the library, the counseling services and stayed in school.
jibeaux
@nitpicker: Or are you saying teachers can get the same benefit out of an online school — okay, but they’ve paid more to get an equivalent result. The other result people can have is that they’ve paid more to get a worse result, which the study kay cited would suggest is common. I can’t think of a circumstance where you’d actually get more for your having paid more.
nitpicker
@jibeaux: Well, the one who needs a degree actually offered by the for-profit institution and not the public one. As public universities dip their feet in the online water, many are offering only a few degrees–or only individual classes and no actual degrees–because they don’t want to diminish the “brand” of their traditional degrees.
Cassidy
The only thing I see wrong with for profit colleges is the price. The BSN program we were looking at for my wife seemed pretty comprehensive, but they wanted an additional 20K on top of the Pell Grant and maxed out student loans. I even looked into switching my GI Bill over but we still would have been paying out of pocket.
jibeaux
@CarolDuhart2: I’m sorry to hear that. I hope when you’re up to it you’ll be able to go back. The offerings may have changed since you last looked.
nitpicker
@jibeaux: No, I’m saying they got the same result, but paid for the convenience of being able to work and attend school at the same time.
jibeaux
@nitpicker: Around here, the master’s in teaching is probably the easiest master’s degree to get part time & in summers that there is. But I’ll acknowledge that that particular example is probably the best use of a for-profit online that there is. If you’ve done the math and figured out you can earn x more dollars with a master’s, and you can get the master’s online for y dollars, and at some reasonable point in time X is going to exceed Y, then, sure, there’s no problem with that. But as a whole I think these online mills are selling false hopes.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, this just goes to show you that while asswipes like Santorum says he’s socia1ist, he’s not socia1ist enough for my tastes!
maurinsky
I have a full-time job and a part-time job and I’m taking 4 classes this semester through my local community college. 2 of them are completely on-line, one is a hybrid, and one is a regular class that meets twice a week. And it’s costing me nothing, because I don’t make much money even with 2 jobs, and I’m also putting my oldest daughter through college, so I qualified for a Pell Grant. I’m expecting to get my Associate’s at the end of the summer. Which is good, because with the revisions to the Pell Grant program, I probably won’t be able to afford to go back for my Bachelor’s. I’d really like to see us return to a day when low-income earners could get significant, non-loan aid for school.
geg6
@nitpicker:
I don’t think that’s true actually. We have a large online “campus” at my large public university and I have colleagues who have gotten their masters degrees online from the likes of Nebraska and Rutgers.
gnomedad
Apparently it’s the evil public colleges that are doing the indoctrination:
Santorum: Obama wants to ‘indoctrinate’ students by boosting college enrollment
BDeevDad
Isn’t Harvard the most profitable school in the country because of their endowment?
nitpicker
@jibeaux: And the dance major at Fort Hays State University isn’t being sold false hopes? Education choice is in itself a test of wisdom and school quality is no predictor of success. After all, is the guy who escaped University of Michigan with a 2.0 really better than the gal who doubled his GPA at University of Phoenix? And how supposedly good were the schools that pumped out the masters of the universe at Lehman, Citibank, et al., who drove our economy into the ground?
geg6
@maurinsky:
I don’t know what revisions to Pell would make it impossible for you to get funding if you got full funding this year. If your EFC is 0, you still will qualify for $5550, the same amount as this year. The only revision is that the highest qualifying EFC to get a Pell has been lowered from 5201 to 4995 and if your EFC was that high, you were only getting $602 a year anyway.
Yutsano
@BDeevDad: Well Harvard is a private institution, but it did inspire creations like UPenn and the University of Virginia as public good educational systems.
Rih has forgotten one of the basic founding principles of this country: the concept of the commons. Even way back in the pre-Constitution era the colonists recognized there needed to be a space where everyone could come to meet and settle differences. And everyone had a right to use it. Such a Communist concept even way back then!
chopper
@CarolDuhart2:
because that would cause private lenders to lend more cautiously, and we can’t have that and our ‘everybody needs to go to college!’ american dream at the same time.
the other thing is, there’s no collateral. it’s not like in bankruptcy they could take away your degree or your education.
gene108
@CarolDuhart2:
Most non-profit private colleges and public institutions have on-line programs. Most business schools offer on-line MBA programs.
It’s not the delivery method that’s in question, it is the curriculum and/or other factors that are in question.
You have students, who graduate but are no more employable than before getting a degree from a private for-profit college and end up deeply in debt.
Either the students are to blame or the institution isn’t putting out a product/curriculum employers value.
nitpicker
@gene108: Or, it should be considered, colleges aren’t putting the same effort into marketing their online programs as for-profit schools.
gene108
@Yutsano:
The University of Pennsylvania is a private college. There are no public, state-funded, Ive League schools.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@CarolDuhart2: The Dallas County Community College District (all the colleges that join it act as a large group) offers a number of online certificates and degrees. Texas has also started a non-profit online university. It can be done, but, once again, they are being controlled by the state and local governments.
Cermet
The issue of lack of choice by major universities is serious but in many cases, a good thing. For example, getting a law degree on-line is fine since no one is hiring anyway – so there is no issue of quality. Getting an aerospace degree on-line is very serious issue since quality is truly everything and getting hired is not just possible but a very real possibility even now. So where the degree is obtained matters a lot (that is, is accredited AND the employer recognizes the school AND respects it.) So for science/engineer’s and for some areas of medical it would appear to be a critical choice.
A few universities do offer most (BS level) degrees on-line. The University of Maryland has both a national and international degree program in most fields on-line. So, it is occuring (ones requiring rather extensive lab time is the rub; again, science course but they do handle this in some cases like Chem 101, etc I’m lost on how they handle that for 300 and above – I know they do but not how.)
geg6
@nitpicker:
You need to read the actual research. For-profits benefit their investors and owners and not students. Every school now has to meet the requirements of the new “Gainful Employment” rule, meaning that at least 35% of student borrowers are repaying their loans and they aren’t paying more than 12% of their income toward those loans.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/blog/department_of_education_issues.php
In addition, for-profits have worse outcomes for students in employment and in salaries for those who actually do get employed:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/blog/jobs_and_forprofit_colleges.php
There is a ton of research out there showing that for-profits are, for the majority of the students attending them, a bad proposition.
gene108
@nitpicker:
I think a lot of it has to do with how to deliver an on-line curriculum and not dilute the educational value of the degree.
For-profits don’t seem to be concerned with that issue.
dead existentialist
@Yutsano: Boston Commons? Commonwealth of [insert “state”]. . . .
geg6
@Yutsano:
Just so you know, the University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League school. The Pennsylvania State University, or Penn State, is a state-related university. It’s not a private but it is also not a part of Pennsylvania’s state university system, a sort of hybrid along with it’s sister institutions the University of Pittsburgh and Temple University.
Zifnab
@nitpicker:
I think you’re hitting on some interesting points. At the same time, you’re going somewhat beyond the pal on what Universities are expected to achieve.
The guy from U.Mich with a 2.0 degree isn’t going to be doing so hot because he got a 2.0, and failed to obtain the skills provided to him by his educators as demonstrated by his low grades. If I spend 4 years learning engineering and can’t talk to you about viscosity or wind sheer or pressure, I’ve wasted my time. But there’s really no doubt that U.Mich is imparting this information to students. Just a question of whether the student is retaining the information.
By contrast, a student that graduates from Phoenix University with a 4.0 seems to demonstrate – by his GPA – that he IS able to hold discussions on all these topics. Yet, when I interview someone with a degree from these for-profit schools at my own business (I help with hiring for my department occasionally) the gulf in education between for-profit students and public school students is obvious. GPA doesn’t mean what it is supposed to mean for these people, because they never received education to begin with. Even the U.Mich guy might have retained a few facts here or there. The Phoenix kid never got taught – what he did learn was largely how to perform bullshit busy work.
As to executives at the failed banks… firstly, a lot of them made out like bandits (in the case of MF Global, literally). So the notion that they weren’t using what they learned to make large gobs of money strikes me as inaccurate. What’s more, I don’t think anyone can really accuse these guys of being uneducated. They can tell you all about economic forecasting and market trends and risk ratios and insurance. But they were doing very high level financial maneuvering with very large amounts of cash. When you are trained on how to drive a speed boat, and you try to use that knowledge to perform stunts with an ocean liner, you are outside the scope of traditional education and kinda blazing new ground.
Jay in Oregon
@Zandar: @sb:
Yeah, it’s easy to show that private schools perform better than publically-funded schools when public education doesn’t exist any more.
marcopolo
@BDeevDad: “For Profit”: I don’t think this word means what you think it does. There are no “Harvard share holders” who own part of the university (and can buy more or sell it) or who get dividend payments each quarter. Although Harvard is a “private” university, it is still a non-profit educational institution. The enormous size of its endowment has no relationship to this status, although it does mean that Harvard is a very well-funded institution. Interestingly, despite the size of Harvard’s endowment there are other colleges/universities in the U.S. that have a higher endowment per student ratio.
Yutsano
@dead existentialist: INORITE??
@geg6: Yeah, I picked the wrong school there. I know there was one that was founded around the same time Jefferson got UVA off the ground. In my brain it stuck as Penn. Work Dawg is gonna give me shit over this if I fess up to him. :)
geg6
@BDeevDad:
Harvard is a non-profit, so it is not profitable in any recognizable sense. What is has is large endowments that allow it to pay for the best faculty and services and to provide huge scholarships to the best students so that, regardless of their financial circumstances, those students will be able to attend.
nitpicker
@geg6: That actually says nothing about the quality of the education. The median starting salary of a Harvard grad is $63,400 (according to payscale.com) while University of Kansas graduate’s median starting salary is $44,206. Do you think the average Harvard grad is only 2/3 the employee of a Harvard grad or is it, just possibly, because of Harvard’s brand? If you have a problem with for-profit schools, then you should prove, first and foremost, that they didn’t earn their accreditation. You can’t jump into a thread (and an overall zeitgeist, for that matter) of for-profit school bashing and suggest that people don’t get hired because the schools are shitty. Stigma detracts from the degree.
geg6
@Yutsano:
Penn was founded by Benjamin Franklin. It’s older than UVa.
aimai
@daveNYC:
Its both a bubble and a scam because people are going into debt thinking that the online school is producing an asset for them (diploma) when if they can’t make the payments, in the end, they don’t even get that.
aimai
rlrr
@nitpicker:
I bet where a typical University of Kansas graduate vs. a Harvard graduate lives has a lot to do with the disparity.
geg6
@nitpicker:
Read the fucking research, dude. I did. There is a huge supply of this research going back a decade. The outcomes for for-profit students suck in every category. I’m glad you had a good experience and haven’t suffered any economic consequences from it, but understand that you are in the minority. Part of my masters thesis (about adult learners) required me to research this and in the 15 years since I got my MEd, there has been an explosion of research into this very question. You are an exception. And there are actual data and facts that show that the stigma on for-profit degrees is earned and not some fiction created by public and non-profits to make the for-profits cry.
Maus
@CarolDuhart2:
Yes, but it doesn’t end well for most anyone, which is why they’re being targeted for their disinterest in education versus subsidized loan $$$.
cmorenc
@CarolDuhart2:
There actually is a legitimate historical basis (beyond simply corporate greed) for the original change to bankruptcy law in 1998 to limit dischargeability of student debts. A huge number of recent graduates with big student debts but few accumulated assets beyond the allowed exemptions were taking tactical bankruptcies to wipe them out. In relatively flush economic times, this maneuver didn’t necessarily handicap their ability to get credit cards, because lenders knew these folks couldn’t declare another bankruptcy for at least another seven years, and were gainfully employed with incomes.
Of course, this change has led to the opposite kind of oppressive abuses, where it’s nearly impossible for former students with a huge undischargable debt struggling against a difficult economy.
nitpicker
@Zifnab: My point is, I guess, that education isn’t magical. I’ve known geniuses who went to some very great schools and some very shitty schools (or no school). I, with my nasty, dirty UofP degree, recently completed for an executive training program with my organization against probably three dozen people–many of whom, no doubt, went to much better schools–and got one of the two slots. Education is only what you make of it.
marcopolo
@geg6: This! For-profit schools are set up to, wait for it, make a profit. That is #1 on their list of goals. Non-profit schools have educating their students as their #1 priority (no matter what detractors say). That goes for both public and private universities.
While it may have been possible (and accurate to some degree) in the past to make the argument that publicly funded universities wasted (or did not spend as efficiently) some of their public funding because that funding was not granted with rigorous controls, that is no longer the case. That is mostly because the amount of public funding these schools get has plummeted over the past 20-30 years. Instead these schools have had to increase their tuition, increase their development efforts, and become more internally efficient and competitive both with other public and private schools. The era of easy money funding for higher education is over. Also too, there is a lot more oversight from governmental bodies (typically state legislatures) who are funding these public institutions.
By the way, does anyone know off-hand what the general public thinks the level of public funding is for public colleges & universities? I suspect there is a lot of misinformation out there (similar to the confusion on how much the average person thinks we spend in foreign aid). Currently tuition is the largest average slice of school funding, then public support.
nitpicker
@geg6: Repetition of your original point + cursing + a failure to address the issue of college “brand” in hiring = you sure have proven your education was better than mine.
Again: The research you are citing gauges educational outcomes by salary and not by knowledge. That’s an economic issue, not an educational one. Sad to see a MEd arguing that money’s a more telling factor than knowledge gained.
geg6
@marcopolo:
Yes, my university, considered the flagship “public” university in the state, gets about 8% of our budget from the state. With another proposed 30% cut this upcoming year, we are quickly but involuntarily becoming a private university.
Brachiator
@kay:
You also have to be careful what you ask for. One of the reasons that for-profit colleges are popping up like weeds is that people can use the enhanced education credits (American Opportunity Credit and Lifetime Learning Credit) to offset some of the ridiculous costs of some of these institutions. In short, a good thing, education credits, helps these bad schools stay in business.
In Southern California, maybe elsewhere, there are a lot of people going to culinary schools, again using the federal credits to help pay for them. But especially with a crappy economy, I just don’t see all these people getting jobs.
Also, too, some community colleges are little more than high school plus, and are not flexible enough to offer useful courses. Their problems are exacerbated by cuts in state and local budgets.
@nitpicker:
One of the underused resources is iTunes university, which features courses from some of the top schools in the nation. With the new iBooks and iAuthor text creation functions, and competition from Android and Amazon, the better schools could put together some innovative education programs.
CarolDuhart2
Sounds like things have improved since I last went to college in 2007 as far as choices online. I can no longer finish because I’m over my student loan limit-I went to college in the 80’s but never got enough wages to repay those old loans, and with 8% interest….
A question I’ve always have wondered: why don’t we have free university education like other nations do? Those other nations realized that higher education pays for itself several times over and have decided not to sink students with a lifetime of debt.
Linnaeus
@CarolDuhart2:
Because that would be soshulism. And that’s bad.
geg6
@nitpicker:
Dude, the research is out there. Employers make my point for me. For-profit graduates get hired less often and are promoted less often than graduates of public or non-profit grads. If those for-profit grads were so well educated, then they’d be able to compete with everyone else. The fact is that they can’t. I don’t blame the students here. It’s the less than optimal educations for which they paid premium, Ivy League-level prices for that are the problem.
DFH no.6
Republican politicians don’t care about “the people”. They care about the people making bank on “the people”, even if that means (as it so often does, like in this case) that “the people” are harmed.
This is just one more item in an endless stream of evidence for that going back, oh, forever.
Socialize the risk (and the payment), privatize (in the hands of a very few) the profit.
No, not all “for-profit” schools are scams. But far too many are. Or the cost to the “consumers” (students) is far more than a comparable education at state and community colleges.
I’ve been a hiring manager for high-tech, skilled positions (engineering, programming, IT, mechanical and electrical construction) for a couple decades now. Over the years I’ve found most degreed candidates from the typical for-profit diploma mills to be laughably undereducated compared to their state school counterparts (and this includes those from the many “scammy” technical schools compared to community colleges). Not all, but most.
So where are any of our fascist trolls (say, the ironically-named Veritas) to defend the stupid and evil Santorum on this?
CarolDuhart2
I don’t know about the culinary degrees being useless. Maybe not everybody is going to find themselves working at a prestige establishment, but hospital cafeterias, school cafeterias, and individuals need cooks too, and appreciate good ones. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised that with the aging of the populace, some home health places wouldn’t start hiring cook temps for people to make sure they eat properly. A home chef could come in once a week, prepare healthy dishes, put them in the freezer, and the aide or elderly person could put them in the microwave.
rlrr
@CarolDuhart2:
Because Soc1al1sm!
Cassidy
I don’t understand why state schools and community colleges don’t change their business model? How many semesters of worthless classes are a requirement? For profit schools popped up for a reason: traditional schools are not evolving, but they love that money.
Gin & Tonic
@CarolDuhart2:
They also “track” students from before high school into university or vocational tracks (see, e.g. the difference in Germany between Hochschule and Universitat) or else spend pretty much all of their time in middle school and high school cramming for tests to get on the university track (e.g. Singapore, Taiwan, etc.) University spaces are “free” but much more limited in quantity than in the US, leading to more class stratification; also leading to aggressive marketing of full-price slots to foreign students. Why is the “study abroad” year so popular here in the US? In part because the university in London or Dublin or Heidelberg gets a customer paying full list price.
JoyfulA
@Yutsano: UPenn is private; Penn State is public.
nitpicker
@geg6: Why can’t you accept that those employers could just as likely be working not from knowledge of the students or the quality of their education, but from the cultural “brand” of the colleges? Salary does not equal knowledge.
Linnaeus
@Cassidy:
That opens up the question of what education is for and what constitutes “worthless” classes.
JoyfulA
@geg6: Penn State, Temple, Pitt, and also Lincoln University.
RalfW
Personal accountability for poor people. No accountability for for profit schools. That’s the GOP prescription.
How vile, venal and cynical.
Enlightened Liberal
See, I worked at a for-profit for years. They often provide a good education but they are controlled by the marketing department. Case in point- two programs taught were Pharmacy Technician (average pay $10-12/hr) and Massage Therapist (Good work if you can get it, few can). We also had a big program teaching medical assistants, a $15-20/hr job in my major metro area if you’re lucky and little chance for more.
Doesn’t pay to invest $15k of the governments money to put someone in a job paying $30k.
nitpicker
@Brachiator: I love iTunesU, but that paper’s still important for employers. In fact, my wife’s working on her nurse practitioner degree and one of her teachers did a crappy job of explaining a concept and I said, did you check YouTube? She scoffed, but within seconds I found exactly what she needed to get how the complement system works.
gene108
@Gin & Tonic:
Europe doesn’t or didn’t have a huge issue with racial minorities, i.e. almost everyone in Finland is a white person of Finnish ancestry.
In the U.S. attempts at doing this led to minorities being shunted to vocational tracks, while whites were pushed into university tracks.
I think that’s one reason vocational tracks, in high school, fell out of favor and vocational education has been cut back in high schools.
GVG
For profit schools ought to be banned IMO. Private schools are not the same as for profits by the way. The Dept of Ed has made repeated attempts to improve their ethics and quality, and has up till now, always been shot down by congressmen who are in that schools district with help from their buddies and lobbyist cash I presume. this goes back decades, not just Obama’s term nor Bush. I have been a financial aid counselor for 16 years at a public university so I do have bias’s however I really wouldn’t care what they did if the statistics on results weren’t so bad. The University of Phoenix reputation is so bad that yes I would think the UM student with a 2.0 was better than the Phoenix student with a 4.0. UM is probably cheaper too.
Most public schools and many of the non profit private schools are increasing their on-line offerings. They have been slower than the public would like, however there are reasons, good ones not to do on-line too much. Frankly for many subjects it just doesn’t teach as well, much the way big auditorium courses don’t teach most people as well as lower teacher student ratio’s. I personally have spent the last several years evaluating and approving or denying academic progress petitions and many students just aren’t that good at “showing up” for on line classes. since you can view them at your convenience it’s very easy to put them off at get WAYYY behind-then flunk. In addition their is the Federal aid issue of fraud. On-line classes are easy fraud problems. Big problems that aren’t easy to solve. I’m not really certain that can be solved and I will not be telling my child to take on-line classes except once in a while-subject specific and taking the child’s personal discipline and learning style into consideration. Some subjects are just better fits for online than others.
As for the question of if the harvard grad is worth that much more than the Kansas grad-well probably they are. Brand has a lot to do with business results in prior hires. You’ll find that certain schools have better reputation’s in certain fields than others which will go with no school is best at everything. Local “good” schools degrees are worth more in the area where they have been heard of. there is a time lag too, if a school is getting better or worse, those hiring won’t know instantly etc. That is a market and it’s pretty good but not perfect.
You are probably better off checking out the local community college but it depends on where you are and what you want to study. The community colleges are doing more on-line than before. Look around, there are better choices than even a few years ago and it’s going to get better. Do not pay fancy prices. If you work, that does limit what you can do but many people are not going to find on-line to be any good for them. If you do try they, evaluate how you are handling them after you have done a few and STOP and do something else if it isn’t going well-don’t keep borrowing and telling yourself you’ll get better results next time. If you can, avoid any loans at least 1 semester so you can see if a program is doable for you. Even if you don’t find a good choice right now, check again even in a few months. More traditional schools are gradually expanding flexible options.
Gin & Tonic
@nitpicker: Employers tend to work from experience. Hiring people is neither some noble altruistic calling, nor is it some brand-driven decision like buying a pair of jeans. It’s a difficult business decision, and you try to minimize the costs (of recruiting) and the risk (of hiring the wrong person.) If the employer’s experience is that they are more likely to find a suitable candidate by fishing in one pool as opposed to another, that’s what they will do. If you have to go through 100 Phoenix people to find a quality candidate as opposed to going through 10 Penn people, based on what you saw la year or the year before, the latter is simply easier and more cost-effective. Neither brand nor emotion have anything to do with it.
marcopolo
@nitpicker: I’m wondering about your reading comprehension here. This research isn’t just about salary. It is about getting hired in the first place and then once hired about getting promoted. Employers have various ways of sorting out who they hire. One of those methods is assessing the amount of knowledge and/or experience the candidate brings to the job. If you have an inadequate education (and thus knowledge base) for the job, you aren’t going to be hired. Knowledge base, ability to learn on the job, and ability to perform your work all factor into getting promoted. Certainly the first two of those three is related to the education you have.
Salary has nothing to do with either of these.
gene108
@CarolDuhart2:
Part of the issue is we don’t have a national education system. University education has been left to the states. Some states have constitutions that require education to be free or as close to free as possible and you have had good, relatively low cost, public universities.
For whatever reason, over the last 20+ years, we’ve ended up with an arms race, where colleges are bidding for getting top
researchersprofessors and so have to keep getting more money to build shinier new buildings.The problem with four year colleges is their mission is to both educate and do cutting edge research and those two things often are at loggerheads.
Enlightened Liberal
@CarolDuhart2:
And if the for-profit lobbyists have their way, the public college’s online offerings will stay limited. Don’t think they don’t lobby for that, they do. Wouldn’t want to compete in teh free market.
GVG
nitpicker – February 24, 2012 | 12:15 pm · Link
@geg6: Why can’t you accept that those employers could just as likely be working not from knowledge of the students or the quality of their education, but from the cultural “brand” of the colleges? Salary does not equal knowledge.
“brand” is another way of saying that the people who hire remember that they didn’t get good results from hiring from one school but did from another. You ignore the employer gets to learn from experience. They also are not impressed when they interview. You may have mananged to do fine-if so that is to your credit not UP’s judging from the schools cumulative student results especially the high high student loan default rates.
The only thing UP can do to change the perception is to make their courses harder, and cover more. If they do that, then a few years later their graduates will start having better results. Sure there will be a small lag between perceptions and reality, that is unavoidable. The school has been around since the 70’s. If they had cared, they could have earned a great reputation many years ago. they don’t care though-stockholders are getting paid even though the students aren’t.
Logically the hollowing out of the middle class has to have helped them by making too many people feel trapped and wanting a way out. Education is a good idea, getting it from UP is not. Reputations are earned.
nitpicker
@marcopolo: Let’s set aside your ad hominem attack and look at what you’re saying. You’re suggesting employers have the ability to gauge an applicant’s knowledge base through the hiring process. These studies don’t make the claims you’re making. The studies geg pointed to show that for-profit students don’t get hired at the same rate and they don’t make as much. Here’s what those numbers don’t show: Why they don’t get hired. Is it because of cultural bias against the schools or because the schools are shitty? The numbers don’t say.
Also, do those graduates do poorer because the schools have a lower acceptance threshold?
None of the studies geg showed actually proved those students’ “knowledge base” or educations were lacking. They merely proved that students aren’t getting hired, which could be due to many factors.
I’m not saying they prove for-profit colleges work, but I’m saying that they don’t show they don’t work–at least regarding the quality of their education.
Cermet
A fact that may be immoral or just stupid is that a top-level school graduate is going to get better chances at being hired by most business even if their total real knowledge level is lower than someone at a lower level school. Still, top-level schools do have top-level Proff’s and rigorous levels of academic requirements (which are always compromised for elite level moneyed legacies being accepted/passed – so much for attacking quota’s and strangely, these practices NEVER lower the overall rating of the school (yes Yale, I’m taking about you – so much for graduating the dumbest and worst president in the history of the US and god only hopes, for the next hundred years); this production of elite idiots often enhances a schools reputation – not really too strange considering who sets those rules/rankings.)
Lex
My senior senator chairs the Committee on Veterans Affairs and, nearly as I can tell, has done little or nothing about the disability compensation-and-pension backlog or the “delay, deny and hope that I die” culture that contributes to it, let alone go in any meaningful way after operations like this that prey on veterans.
Here in N.C., a state full of vets, an enterprising challenger could whip him like a rented mule with that record.
nitpicker
@GVG: And, for a lot of people, you’re probably correct that getting their degree from UofP isn’t the best choice. I concede that and that a lot of for-profit schools have terrible recruiting practices. But, if, as you’re suggesting, the courses are inadequate, then how are they accredited? If the accreditation system is broken, then isn’t that where we should focus our efforts?
Brachiator
@nitpicker:
Good points. But for now, iTunesU is free. The enhancements to iBooks could result in better course material and text books, and the ability of better shools to offer credit and certification. Meanwhile, people may be able to supplement work at tradtional institutions with information they get from iTunesU and YouTube.
Interrobang
@nitpicker: So, are you trying to deny that scammy for-profit colleges exist? Not all of them are scams, but the scams are out there. Close to where I live, the Toronto Star did a huge series on scammy for-profit “career colleges.” (linky) Right now, they’re doing an expose of “cash for grades” private for-profit high schools.
Just because you didn’t get screwed, doesn’t mean that other people didn’t. (Stop thinking like a Republican, already.) I actually personally know two people who got sucked into an institution called TriOS College and got taken for tens of thousands of dollars, and got a substandard education with zero employment potential at the end of it. Not to mince words about it, but the scam type places will, in fact, lie about their placement numbers. (Shocking, isn’t it?)
Cassidy
@Linnaeus: Well, the pragmatic approach is I need the classes necessary to get certified in a field. I don’t need all the other stuff. And I don’t have tome to devote an extra year taking unrelated classes because of it.
Maus
@nitpicker:
Are you serious? They buy out bankrupt accredited Unis, they’re not accredited, or they’re “accredited” by diploma mill accreditors.
Maus
Or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_education#Accreditation_and_transfer-of-credits
Like the proper Ron/Rand Paulians they created their own industry group for self-accreditation.
ruemara
@jharp: educational loan debt cannot be discharged. When I went bankrupt due to medical bills (thank you pill, for the blood clot!), the student loan bills got to stay.
geg6
@GVG:
The two articles I linked to are just the tip of the iceberg in the research available on this subject. I linked them because Daniel Luzer of the Washington Monthly has been reporting on this scandal for years and years and is the best mainstream resource on the subject. You can go into his archives and read article after article citing study after study that shows that for-profits are a bad investment for students.
Also at the same website is a link to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Diverse, Education Sector, Inside Higher Ed, the Institute for Higher Education Policy, and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. They, also, have archives filled with research and articles about this subject. There is as much argument among higher education researchers about the lack of efficacy of non-profit colleges as there is among climate scientists about anthropogenic climate change. In other words, there is none.
geg6
@Cassidy:
Just because you think the classes are unrelated to the field does not mean that an employer or professional association sees it that way. If you aren’t interested in getting a degree, perhaps you should look at a trade instead.
Linnaeus
@Cassidy:
But are you talking about state schools and community colleges changing their business model to offer, in addition to what they already do, more specifically tailored or targeted programs? Or do you mean changing their business model in terms of their general approach to education? That’s an important distinction.
Cassidy
@geg6: I am interested in a degree. I’m not interested in a bunch of worthless fluff to increase my profitability by a couple of semesters. That’s what it boils down to. Colleges figured out they can make you take a bunch of useless shit and get that extra tuition/financial aid money out of you. Two semesters of a foreign language is retarded. A semester of gym class id retarded.
@Linnaeus: I don’t think it’s a distinction at all. The customer should be able to bypass all the crap and get an education in the field they’ve chosen.
nitpicker
@Interrobang: I never said that, actually. I merely said there’s been no proof that for-profit colleges are necessarily bad or scammy.
Their recruiting tactics are often scammy, but that doesn’t mean the education they provide is flawed or lacking.
marcopolo
@nitpicker: Well, my general experience in applying for jobs has been submitting a resume and having several interviews. Over the course of the process I always wind up talking to people at the company who will be my co-workers and/or supervisors. They ask me questions to plumb my knowledge base and to gauge my level of experience. They take my answers into account when they hire me. They check my personal and prior work references. When I applied for jobs in Alaska no one at any place in I applied to had heard of the school in NY where I earned my undergrad degree. I just don’t buy this cultural bias argument you throw out–aside from the most prestigious schools I don’t think it holds water. The largest bias I have experienced in a workplace in terms of getting hired was whether I knew someone there who could put in a good word for me. If going to a standard school of higher education means that you have contacts at a prospective employer (either through alumni or internships that you did, or the school’s placement office or whatever), I would think that the for-profit colleges would do well to adapt those strategies for their graduates.
And here are a couple of links providing additional information in regards to this topic. First a very current look at the for-profit student versus public:
The For-Profit Postsecondary School Sector:
Nimble Critters or Agile Predators?
Second, an article discussing how some for-profits game the hiring stats for their grads.
Tricks of the Trade School: A Guide to Manipulating Job Placement Rates
Linnaeus
@Cassidy:
The reason I think it’s a distinction is because traditional higher education operates – at least in principle – on the notion that its mission is to produce broadly educated citizens.
Maus
@Cassidy:
The Phoenix Onlines and Kaplan Us are just as good at this fluff as state schools.
“A semester of gym class”
I did not have to take any physical education classes to get my BA from a state school.
nitpicker
@Maus: Evidence? University of Phoenix’s education program is accredited by the Teacher Education Accreditation Council, which has also extended accreditation to silly diploma mills like Boston College, Rutgers, Temple, Michigan State and NYU, to name a few.
Cassidy
@Linnaeus: I think that’s a line of BS. They’re a business just like anything else. They have a veneer of respectability because of tradition. I have no faith that any major university is acting out of some sort of altruistic belief of generating broadly educated citizens. At least for profit schools don’t hide their greediness.
@Maus: I didn’t say they weren’t. Oh well, you didn’t have to take it. That just negates everything. /eyeroll
Is there anything else about existence that the rest of us should know?
nitpicker
@marcopolo: Thanks for the links, but, again, they fail to address the most important thing: Is the quality of the education itself somehow lacking?
Also, I thought we labor-friendly folks didn’t lean so far backwards giving management the benefit of the doubt, but if you think hiring managers are some sort of mindmelding wizards who can see past your degree into your soul, I guess that’s your prerogative.
Maus
@Cassidy:
Why not just go directly to a technical school? Why bother with these low end for-profits that cost as much as a state school but have zero concern in you graduating as long as the checks are signed?
Ohio Mom
@CarolDuhart2: Well, once upon a time we *did* have at least a few free colleges. The ones I know about were the (New York) City University system and the University of Cincinnati; wouldn’t be surprised to find out there were others, too.
Both run by their municipalities and were both were free to qualifying residents of those cities until the 1970s, when the economy took a tumble and as a result of budget cutbacks they were forced to join their respective state systems.
But even then, back in the olden days state colleges and universities charged much lower tuitions and fees than they do now. What happened was that state governments keep cutting back on their subsidies in order to help balance their budgets. In other words, cost shifting to the students.
And why that happened is the same story as everything else, the rise of Reganomics/neo-liberalism/etc. As a 50+ year old, I’m begininng to feel like I’m a kind of anthropological artifact in that I remember the lost folkways of my people: no, we weren’t always the way we are now.
geg6
@Cassidy:
Based on your profligate use of the word “retarded,” it would seem to me that you are in need of some of those worthless fluff classes. You seem to lack critical thinking skills and the ability to see how classes you characterize as fluff actually build skills that employers want you to have, such as writing, communication, and speaking skills or analytic and research skills that are built through history or comparative religion or literature classes or the knowledge of how people interact or how people think that sociology and psychology classes give you. What you call fluff is often the difference between one person, with a well-rounded education, getting hired and another, with the same career technical skills but none of the other skills, not being hired. And FWIW, I know of no degree among our over 160 majors other than kinesthesiology that requires physical education classes, even as part of the general education requirements.
geg6
@Maus:
marcopolo
@nitpicker: Once again, did you read what I wrote? In my experience the folks having input into and making the hiring decision and doing the interviews (asking me questions that were designed to test my knowledge and experience) were the people I would be working with and/or under directly (not some HR person with no expertise in that area). I also participated in these interviews, though I never had the final hiring authority. In an hour long interview you can learn an awful lot about a job candidate. Sorry if that doesn’t jibe with your experience.
nitpicker
@marcopolo: Um, yeah, I’ve been through interviews before. They test how good people are at getting interviewed.
geg6
@marcopolo:
This guy just is convinced that it’s some sort of nefarious conspiracy among public/non-profit colleges and all the employers of America to keep for-profits and their grads down. If it wasn’t so sad and didn’t hurt so many people in ways that last for decades, it would be funny.
Linnaeus
@Cassidy:
I agree that public/non-profit colleges & universities are driven by multiple priorities and that they are businesses in a sense. Sometimes this means they develop dysfunctional aspects and it’s perfectly fine to identify these aspects and correct them as much as possible.
My larger point is that establishing public institutions of higher education was motivated by the idea that an educated citzenry is a general societal good. One of the manifestations of this idea can be found in degree curricula, i.e., one takes courses outside of one’s major field because it’s good for the development of the whole person. When we act in society, we don’t do so only in terms of what we do for a living.
Now maybe this notion doesn’t really work out well or maybe our institutions of higher education are failing to uphold that. What I’m saying is that moving away from that will entail more than changing a business model – it will mean rethinking the whole point of education, IMHO.
Maus
@nitpicker:
Only in entry-level and McJobs.
marcopolo
@Ohio Mom: If I recall, when Jerry Brown’s dad Pat was governor of CA one of his signature achievements was to make it possible for residents of CA to pretty much get a free education. From the wiki:
“On April 14, 1960, Governor Brown signed the Donahoe Higher Education Act, more informally known as the “Master Plan.” This was actually composed of three parts. There was the statutory bill, which set the functions of the various public institutions. Next there was a constitutional amendment creating a Board of Trustees for the state college system. And finally, there were dozens of general agreements never officially sanctioned by law, including admissions guidelines, maintaining a nontuition policy for California residents other than “incidental costs,” and beginning a policy of charging tuition for out-of-state students.[6] During Brown’s two terms, enrollment in higher education in California, including junior colleges, approximately doubled. Spending for the University of California system more than doubled, and for the state colleges more than tripled. Four new state colleges were opened, and three new campuses for the UC system were built.[7]”
After he lost the 1966 election to some guy named Ronald Reagan, costs for public education in the state started to go up.
Mnemosyne
@Ohio Mom:
College used to be free in California, but Reagan put an end to that when he was governor, because all of the hippies at Berkeley were taking advantage of the taxpayers’ generosity.
Maus
@Cassidy:
This is a good analogy for why people will still continue to vote Republican in large numbers. They like getting fucked more efficiently, rather than getting bullshit and inefficiency from the Dems.
Cassidy
@geg6: Oh my little “educated” scold…look up the definition of retarded. It seems your well rounded education isn’t doing you much good if you can’t keep up with basic vocabulary.
And you’re full of shit. Employers don’t ask how you did in your freshman psych or sociology classes. They care about your GPA. They don’t give a shit that you took a semester of french, unless you managed to get fluent in one semester and can be a useful skill.
You seem heavily invested in defending the traditional mold. If it’s validation you’re looking for, I’m the wrong person.
Cassidy
@Linnaeus: I disagree. The world has already moved on past that. Colleges and Universities do not as they are desperate for cash.
nitpicker
@Maus: I guess that’s why no companies ever have 30 day, 90 day or even year-long grace periods for new hires. Oh, wait…
Some Loser
@Cassidy:
Retarded describes someone who is mentally disabled (this use is offensive, as you should know) or describes something that was retarded, or slowed down.
Retard (verb) = Slow (verb). When used to describe an individual, you’re saying the person is slow in the head.
You’re saying sociology class is slow in the head, or it impedes you?
Maus
@Cassidy:
They don’t, really. They care how much you know. Which, considering the staggering numbers of dropouts, isn’t a lot.
I’m not interested in defending the traditional mold so much as not buying the bullshit offered by the UPs.
I have an BA in the soft sciences from a state university.
In my industry (software, tech), you don’t need a degree. You need knowledge. They often hire people with degrees, but they hire some people straight out of high school into ~100k/yr gigs with the right ideas and projects.
I want additional training. I’ve looked into UP and other technical schools. Aside from coworkers at past companies who’ve been dicked around by them, UP and the rest of the for-profit non-technical schools offer the same fluff classes as any other. I can’t just take “the one class I need” above the most basic.
@nitpicker: Because it’s impossible to know if someone’s going to be a good fit for any company.
Qualifications are discussed during any interview where the qualifications matter. Not as in “do you have them”, but “can you demonstrate them”. As in not entry level where your theoretical qualifications as stated are enough.
Cassidy
@Some Loser: To impede or slow down. Making fun of mentally disabled persons has absolutely zero context here. I’m saying that fluff classes with no bearing on your chosen field retard your ability to be trained and working.
Some Loser
@Cassidy:
Businesses also tend to employ people who know are bilingual over those who knows only one language, even if the bilingual person isn’t perfectly fluent.
Seriously, if you hate having a rounded education, just go to a technical school or trade school.
Maus
My point is not that you need a degree from a state school.
My point is that community colleges are the absolute best (price and qualitywise) solution for someone over the sea of for-profit mills. For-profit isn’t the problem, the way certain (if not most) nationwide for-profits operate is.
marcopolo
@Cassidy: As someone who does buy into the traditional idea that one of higher education’s missions should be to develop well-rounded and well-education citizens, I would add the caveat that our society has gone way too far in the direction of requiring the earning of degrees (or some other form of certification) in order to get a job.
I am an organic farmer now (with English & Political Science BAs and an MFA in Creative Writing–hah hah hah) and going to most universities for an Ag degree is a waste of time compared to spending a few years working on a farm with an experienced organic farmer at increasing levels of authority and paying attention to what they are doing, why they are doing it, and what they are saying.
So I don’t think everyone should have to go to college to get a decent job (your mileage may vary depending on the field the work is in–I don’t want someone without an engineering background designing my bridges for example). For alot of work I am all in favor of other methods such as apprenticeships for people to gain vocational expertise. I would love to see more energy expended towards that end, but with the kind of impersonal, geographically mobile society we have, all the various degree/certification requirements substitute for actual knowledge of a person’s ability in the community.
Linnaeus
@Cassidy:
You’re right that a lot of colleges and universities – especially public ones – are hurting for money now. In the case of my university, a big reason for that has been declining support from the state, and that’s just one example of many.
Maybe the world has moved on. Again, to use my university as an example, there’s been a seriously increased effort to 1) sell the university to students as a place where they can get valuable job skills and 2) sell the university to employers as a source of good employees. And that’s understandable to a point – people do need to make a living when they get out of school. But I do worry about shifting education too much to align with the priorities of employers (especially locally powerful ones) and what we lose as a society, potentially, if we do that.
Maus
@Some Loser:
Really! That’s what they were designed for. She wants to have a “degree” that matters, going for these ones that don’t have all that “breadth of character” crap and at the same time complaining that the ones that just try to shove you forward as quickly as possible without concern for progress or graduation rates where you do all the work including the brunt of instruction… gosh, I wonder why grads and their creds are taken less seriously?
Some Loser
I bet a lot of these problems could be solved if people weren’t also cutting budget for education. It seems like this is the first thing everyone thinks to cut, and it almost always bite us in the ass in the long run.
nitpicker
@Maus: A month ago, I sat on a panel of SMEs creating a series of questions for our large organization to use in hiring for a specific skillest. Even the vastly overeducated organizational psychologists we brought in for the occasion admit that hiring can be gamed by a smart person who sees the goal behind the questions, speaks well and can point, legitimately, to some sort of experience they can twist to fit the question.
Also, if you’ve never been hired for a job and sat down at your desk on the first day and thought I am totally in over my fucking head you’re just not reaching high enough.
Another Halocene Human
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/39966_Rick_Santorum-_Obamas_College_Plan_Is_a_Conspiracy_to_Persecute_Christians/comments/#ctop
LGF ran this story but focused on the Satan angle. What only a few commenters grasped is that Santorum’s assertions about colleges are just common wisdom, which is, once again, wrong.
The one group that consistently votes Republican in our society are BACHELOR’S ONLY (completed one four-year degree). Ie, petty bourgeois, but NOT intellectuals. Add to that the fact that more facts make biased people more entrenched in their bias (you can see this in any lulzy opinion piece written by a libertarian engineering major), and the factoid thrown out by an LGF commentor that the “no college” group was far more likely than the “college” group to stop going to church, and you can see that Li’l Ricky, if he truly believes what he says, is the master of dead-end strategies.
Maus
@nitpicker:
That’ll get you through the phone screen battery. That should not get a significant number of applicants through the in-person and when compared to others who actually know the material being covered.
Who takes “I have experience in this field” at face value? You ask them what projects they did, what duties it involved, how they solved a particular problem, etc.
Another Halocene Human
@aimai:
Two examples: I know one guy who takes online class after online class to get computer certifications, but even though he applies and applies, “the job” never comes in. He has an enormous attitude and is disgruntled most of the time (I guess when he got his current job it was one of his good days), so I suspect he is sabotaging his own chances when he gets to interview. (And he does get interviews… just no job offers.)
I know this other guy who was working full time and taking online classes. He got a degree in a certain field and landed a much better job at a different outfit. He is hard-working and determined and forthright. He also got the job almost immediately after the degree. Staleness is a big deal even in fields which haven’t changed a lot recently.
Dude #2 had also done a paid summer internship, which didn’t hurt. First employer, which declined to promote him, basically paid to make him more employable. Lulz all around.
Maus
But that’s stuff I can handle, proven through targeted phone screens that address all technologies covered and a series of in-person interviews. I wouldn’t be hired if I couldn’t do the simple duties required of the req.
Another Halocene Human
@jharp:
Asked and answered. The gubmint made the loans undischargeable in bankruptcy under most circumstances, thus, the quack schools emerge to snarf up all that free cash. Simple, really.
There’s always been weak state enforcement against degree mills (at least in those cases it’s a witting fraud by the recipient) and now there’s way more lucre to chase.
nitpicker
@Maus: Look, you’re going to continue to be convinced there’s some sort of magic hiring process known only to genius “job creators” that allows them to always finds the right person for the job and I’m going to continue to believe business owners and hiring managers are human beings who can be swayed by a culture that suggests some types and places of education are inherently better than others. (I’m not even saying there’s proof they are, I’m merely suggesting that they could be and pointing to hiring as proof of the quality of an education is a flawed metric.) Let’s just agree to disagree, shall we?
geg6
@Cassidy:
Believe it or not, I know the definition of “retarded” in all its variations. I still don’t see how it fits with what you wrote, even if using the least provocative usage.
And as for this:
Funny, but that’s not what employers tell us. First, never once did a prospective employer ask about my GPA. Never. But they were always interested in my people skills, my understanding of the culture in which I’d be working, and if I had language skills and could demonstrate them.
As for what employers are looking for, it’s how well prepared graduates are. Here’s the listing for which schools corporate recruiters find the best prepared grads:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704554104575435563989873060.html
My employer happens to be first on the list. And you’ll notice that the majors they are most interested in here are all technical majors. But those students also have to take those “fluff” classes you so disdain. But, for some reason, employers want their employees to have those skills that the “fluff” classes build. So you can keep arguing that you know better than academics and the business world what skills are required for a particular profession, but it really won’t matter how brilliant your judgment of curriculum might be if they don’t agree with you.
Maus
@Another Halocene Human: Computer certifications are another sort of racket, naturally.
Ops jobs require the experience, few will hire you with only the certification.
And the classes they teach are generally pretty padded. The lab time is pretty valuable, but otherwise they can usually teach the material well enough in half the time.
@nitpicker:
I do agree there. But, I feel it’s certainly possible to weed out the ability to hack it in most jobs with specific skillsets based on better interviewing techniques and methods.
I’ll agree to disagree, but check out
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/01/getting-the-interview-phone-screen-right.html
for some perspective on my opinon :D
Steve Lewis
@21,23: That’s exactly the gap that Western Governors University was created to fill. It’s nonprofit (seeded originally by the Gates Foundation), online, competency based (so most students progress faster than in structured courses) and available in about 8 states (Washington most recently added). The curriculum is limited, but concentrated in career-oriented disciplines with external licensure/certification (e.g. nursing), which makes the graduate more employable.
Another Halocene Human
@maurinsky:
Welcome to FYIGM World.
The public universities in Europe are FREE. Now, they boot you out if you fail all your exams. But, FREE. Germany will even subsidize your room and board if your family has trouble paying for that.
I don’t know where all that extra tuition we Americans pay goes, but have you ever seen the typical admin building, the tastefully appointed conference rooms, the four-figure chairs, the presidents’ mansions, the crazy salaries at the top, the mountains of waste in direct mail marketing…?
Don’t let that “research and innovation” crap fool you, as the bill for THAT is paid by government and industry, NOT tuition dollars.
And Germany is certainly not behind the US on that front.
FREE.
Another Halocene Human
@nitpicker:
You want schools to teach good morals as well as good mathematical habits?
A lot of b-schools will be in trouble, then. :D
Southern Beale
Yeah I wonder how the push for for-profit colleges sets with folks like this couple from Paducah, KY.
nitpicker
@Maus: Well, I will give you that coding would seem to be a very specific case in which you can test a persons skills. Even there, though, you see how the guy who could write you a nice short code that did x may turn out to not be the genius you who can make the intuitive leap to y. When you get to hiring lawyers and public relations people and other folks who will never be able to type RUN and prove they did the right thing, hiring takes on a new complexity.
Having said that, I don’t think Phoenix offers a degree in programming.
Another Halocene Human
@cmorenc:
Congressman Stephen Lynch did this. He got elected because a) he was in a gerrymandered district containing a lot of Southie (infamous for ballot stuffing or at least lock-step voting–old machine stronghold) and b) his opponent was also a crook (her brother was living in subsidized housing meant for the disabled, and she gave her lover a cushy job). I was paying off student loans at the time and Lynch pissed me off more.
It was worse than what you describe because he knew he had a 6-figure job coming, so he basically defrauded the court. Ironically, there was a story in the papers about the same time about a woman who had gotten caught doing the same thing (had job offer she lied about to the judge). She got pilloried and Lynch got elected.
Go figure.I mean, it helps to have the right friends.nitpicker
@Another Halocene Human: I’m not even getting into the morality of it. I think, as culpable as many of these schmucks are, many proved to be incompetent. This reminds me of my favorite McMegan moment of cognitive dissonance was her pivot from “these bankers are geniuses who we need to pay billions in bonuses to keep them” to “these bankers were too stupid to be expected to see these things coming and shouldn’t be prosecuted.”
nitpicker
It’s been fun everybody. Have a good weekend and don’t forget to tip the wait staff. Drop me a line if there’s ever a BJ meetup in DC.
Another Halocene Human
rr
@geg6:Exactly. For-profit schools are selling the opportunity to get a job (selling it as the near certainty, in fact), NOT an education. Selling an education is for Johnny and Janey Comfortable, whose parents will be footing some or all of the bill. Since for them the four-year degree is just extended sleep-away camp/babysitting, the relevance of that degree is unimportant, but coming away cultured is, of course, of paramount importance. However, the well-heeled are rubbing shoulders with students who are there for a degree to get a job. And in that case, it seems, on the surface, that the non-profits are doing better at that.
I’m sure there are good non-traditional for-profit colleges out there, but let’s not kid ourselves that “quality of education” is the metric here. That’s an obsession that has to do with class status (even for academics/intellectuals, who can wear that around their necks in lieu of money). For profits’ entire pitch is economic. To the extent they fail at that (and, in fact, leave students further in debt), they are a SCAM.
kay
@Cassidy:
Cassidy, community colleges know the reality of the job market in the areas where they’re located. That’s not true of national on-line for-profit schools.
For example. The community college closest to me has trade school type courses in injection molding (plastics) because that’s some of the manufacturing around here.
The community college a little further out has trade school type courses in glass and ceramics production, because that’s some of the manufacturing in their community.
I’m fine with that. I think that’s great. Go to school, get a better job. I DON’T think everyone has to get a bachelors degree.
On-line schools are churning out criminal justice grads (for one example; there are others) and there are NO JOBS here for those people. They don’t NEED a criminal justice degree to work at the jail, and we’re CUTTING law enforcement, not hiring.
But the University of Phoenix doesn’t give a shit about that, because they have NO brick and mortar investment here, no local business or industry ties, and no “public mission”.
Older students are getting on-line degrees that make NO SENSE here, and they’re older. They don’t want to pick up and move. They’re not 22. They did this because they wanted a better job. But this isn’t training for a better job. It’s training for (maybe) a different part of the country?
If I’m 35, I can’t USE a “art/design” degree here, which is another favorite on-line, locally. There’s no work. That’s why the the local community college isn’t churning out art/design graduates. They KNOW there’s no work.
Another Halocene Human
@gene108: I think voc tracks went out because of the parents. Working class parents–a lot of them, though not all–wanted their kids to go to college. No more voc tech.
In my county … somehow … magically … all the poor black kids end up in various voc tech and non-tradition high school programs, the asian kids (mostly the children of professors) are in IB, and the middle class kids (some of whom are Black, to be fair), unless they get really lucky and get into the best school, get half-assed college prep education.
So, no, racial tracking is not a thing of the past.
I’m sure not much has improved in Boston, either, since I left. The racial tracking there was infamous, and it was proved in court that the Catholic school kids had an advantage getting into the public exam school (and of course most of such kids are white), but the City did nothing about it. Yup, Catholic HS rejects wanted, public school students unwanted. No wonder the desks were carved 3/4 inch deep with racial/ethnic slogans, not unlike a US prison.
nitpicker
@Another Halocene Human:
Now that is a solid point.
However, we still haven’t proven the hiring discrepancy isn’t based on the belief that for-profit education is substandard. If you’re suggesting that we assume “quality of education” isn’t a factor, then we’re back to thinking this is a matter of either recruiting–recruiting students who have no business being in college so the school can suck up their student loans for a few years leading to poor outcomes–or marketing, in that for-profit colleges have to repair their images in order to get their students hired.
Maus
@nitpicker:
The horrifying dropout rates of for-profit unis makes a good argument for this
The best way to repair their images is to focus on quality, not quantity.
Do you believe that their image is tarnished solely by elitism?
Community colleges charge *far* less and offer similar flexibilities with class scheduling, but do not receive the same scorn.
Another Halocene Human
@Cassidy:
I am almost–but not really–sympathetic to this.
Two semesters of foreign language is “retarded” (wow, can we still say that?) because it isn’t enough. It’s a vestigial requirement from the days when most fields had most of their research printed in a language other than English. (Some fields still do.) Many degree programs (I would exempt the ones that do stop at four years most of the time such as engineering, nursing, etc) are geared to prepare you to go to graduate school. The academy is there to train more academics. “Doctor” means “teacher.”
There are plenty of graduate degree programs where a certain foreign language is required. Prior foreign language study aids in learning or relearning a foreign language. (Even English doctoral students often learn French so as to be able to read post-modern criticism out of translation, and Japanese is a requirement for some Chinese degrees because of all the literature in that language.)
EVEN IN INDUSTRY there is a demand for bilingual engineers and scientists who can keep up with the volumes of research published in, for example, German. (I know people who make good money translating this kind of stuff all day long for harried researchers.)
Just because YOU don’t see a need for it now doesn’t mean it’s unimportant.
The other reason I’m skeptical of your claims is that as a former graduate student, I was really struck by the shocking difference in quality between the work of undergraduates and graduate students. Many of the “distro” classes we took as undergraduates were mandated by the Uni to improve our ACADEMIC skills, which would enhance what we took out of all of the classes. (Heck, this is most of what many Community Colleges do–round out the skills that you missed in high school, so you can go on and do college level work.)
There can be an airy-fairy strain to academe but often within the degree programs there is a stronger emphasis on the practical side of things. Obviously, schools vary. I have a friend whose field of interest led him to take a job at an online school where his fellow professors are not PhD’s but industry veterans, the hope being that the students will be prepared for industry, rather than taking an academic job where his field was marginalized and the students are being prepared for graduate school. His PhD was in a field that is popular among the upper middle class set who can afford to spend years in school or who can bounce from college to whatever because being who they are (plus the 4-year degree with good grades to prove they aren’t a dissolute loser) gets them cushy jobs. His family owns real estate so his self-perception is upper middle class even though economic reality was quite a bit lower than that. (times are tough ;-)
kay
@Cassidy:
Paralegals is another example. We don’t have real high demand for paralegals here. There are no large firms w/in 60 miles of here, and Ohio doesn’t mandate licensing of paralegals. One of the two women who works for us has a high school diploma. She’ll make the same locally as someone with an on-line paralegal degree. We trained her, here. She was first in her high school class of 22 graduates, and she’s good with people, and a calm person, which is just invaluable to us.
That’s all someone needs here, for that job. They don’t need and can’t use that degree, and the loans will just kill them.
Another Halocene Human
@nitpicker:
Hahaha, is this what you’re reduced to? I have a friend who graduated Physics, Boston University. At interview, she was required to solve physics problems. I guess this by you is mind-reading sorcery?
I read your mind… using my five senses and yours… and a pencil.
Another Halocene Human
@Ohio Mom:
Hear, hear. There has also been an explosion in wages at the top while real wages among the populace at large have been depressed.
I will never forget reading RUBYFRUIT JUNGLE and goggling at the idea of a waitress putting herself through school with no family support. I mean, wow. And that was the late 60’s or early 70’s.
This is all the result of regressive taxation. Too many rewards for ramping up salaries at the top, and that has to come out of somebody’s pocket, why not yours?
geg6
@Maus:
This.
And this.
And you are correct about the dropout rates. If we had dropout rates like that, the whole administration and faculty would be committing hari kari.
We know that the education is substandard because we get a lot of students who want to transfer here from for-profits. The classes from various institutions are rigorously reviewed for transferability based on course descriptions, interviews with instructors and faculty at the institutions in question, and syllabi. Most, but not all community college credits are transferable. I have yet to see a single credit accepted from a for-profit transfer. My sister, a lecturer and coordinator of placement testing at a private non-profit university, tells a similar story at her university. Despite what some people seem to believe, none of us has any desire to make life more difficult for these students who want to transfer here. But they aren’t prepared to do the work that will be required here and accepting their credits and then putting them in classes where they are destined to fail would not be doing them any favors either. And employers who hire unprepared grads will not promote or even keep employing them. And then the Ivy League level of debt they have will ruin their lives for decades to come. It’s a sad situation, but one that could simply be avoided by either disallowing for-profit higher ed or by the for-profits taking education more seriously, which they tell us would cut into their profits.
Another Halocene Human
@geg6:
Swimming class–or a Red Cross certificate of swimming skills to exempt you from same–is required by law for all students of four-year universities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The reason? Too many out-of-state Hahvuhd boys attempting to ice skate for the first time and plunging into the icy Charles to their deaths.
Another Halocene Human
@nitpicker:
Yeah, it’s almost like in a functional workplace b*llsh*t eventually walks (even if it’s fired for cause) whereas in a dysfunctional workplace the bs-artist rules supreme, while any good employees flee to more clement waters, morale and profits take a dump, ethics go out the window, and TPTB start trying to hire someone, anyone to fill their vacancies no matter how… vacant.
Like social darwinism for companies or public agencies.
Hmmm.
Nitpicker, sounds like you would fit in great at a little old place I know.
Another Halocene Human
@Another Halocene Human: PS: this is kind of what happened in the financials during The Great Bubble. All of those who sounded the alarm about unsound investment practices were pushed out.
While Gold Man Sacks profited on both sides of the trade (you see, they had friends in government), a bunch of firms hit the shoals of bankrupcy.
Another Halocene Human
@Cassidy:
Wow, didn’t take long for the true nasty to come out. I’m sure you’re a real peach to be around in person.
And how long have YOU been a hiring manager?
Never seen a resume which stated “coursework in $RELEVANT $RELEVANT $EXTRA_CREDIT”?
I got jobs on the strength of my “extras”, right here in the US of A. What reality do you inhabit, Cassidy?
Another Halocene Human
@Cassidy:
It seems in your case that forgoing those classes has done nothing for your rhetorical skills.
Perhaps you ought to take a break from the computer, lest your brain overheat.
Maus
@Another Halocene Human: I think he might have a small grain of truth there, so I suppose I could amend what I was saying to interview techniques sucking for low-end/entry level jobs, and higher level positions in law firms where charisma *does* count for bullshitting where experience is lacked, and the interviewer may be more chummy and not call out on specifics.
I do much better in those sorts of interviews, which my career track is not currently targeted to, so I’m only mildly bitter about this ;)
Either way, methodologies and approaches can be adopted, but aren’t for fear of appearing too “hostile” and scaring off the entitled.
Heh :D
Another Halocene Human
@nitpicker:
It’s generally assumed that someone that clever will have a steep learning curve.
If that assumption is incorrect, such persons are usually out on their ass.
kay
@Another Halocene Human:
Goldman Sachs are in for=profit education.
Maus
@geg6: And again, state schools are plenty shitty. Nobody’s saying that they’re great and lack bureaucratic, profit-driven bullshit. The problem is that the for-profits are generally so much horrifyingly worse that it makes them appealing, in comparison.
Another Halocene Human
@nitpicker:
Seriously? SERIOUSLY?
So, you would hire a freshly-minted lawyer WITHOUT CHECKING IF THEY PASSED THE BAR EXAM?
And PR firms are hired based on their network… which means you have to network to get in. Either be established in a related capacity or intern with an established PR firm to worm your way in. PR, like sales, is a fake it till you make it proposition and if you can’t produce you will go broke fast.
Another Halocene Human
@nitpicker: But the truth is that lax regulation (laws rolled back, useless SEC, bubble blowing Fed) created an environment where greed, risk-taking, and brinksmanship were rewarded, while the risk-adverse and ethical actors were pushed out.
Towards the end of the bubble even the more sober institutions started piling in because they were losing in the marketplace by being too cautious. BoA is a case in point. They WEREN’T a shit-loan originator. They BOUGHT a shit-loan originator, right before it blew up.
It had nothing to do with the intelligence of the actors. Rubes like you and me were the “dumb money”, not the big investment houses.
You want to avoid morality, but we’re talking about very smart people who have chosen to act in amoral, greedy, and risk-seeking ways, knowing that the financial system would come down but either counting on government bailout (“too big to fail”) or at least in their own personal redemption (“I won’t be holding the bag”). The reliable corporate toadies (*cough* BenStein *hrkk*) went around telling the rubes that the system will never fail and the lies rolled on until it all broke down.
“Nobody could have foreseen” what thousands of shorts and whole divisions at Goldman Sachs profited off of? LOL.
Another Halocene Human
@nitpicker:
Even if what you say is true–there’s a bias against online schools that is expressed in hiring–the extent to which it explains the gap is the question here.
So far, I am seeing a lot of contrary evidence. I’m leaning towards the “their sucky reputation is earned”.
Also, too, other posters in this thread have pointed to the example of teachers automatically getting their pay bump with the for-profit masters the same as the online or in-person public one. So you actually have a LARGER gap to explain here when you take that segment out of the figures.
Another Halocene Human
@Maus:
I’m going to say it’s more an argument they’re overpriced.
Money is one of the #1 reasons for dropping out.
ETA: Just realized that last sentence sounds really dumb. Me r so clever nao.
Another Halocene Human
@Maus:
These sound like the kind of jobs you get placed for through “the network”. :-)
The marks who pay for online degrees don’t have access to this network, hence the degree-seeking.
Maybe they should just hire some sort of agent to get them a job. It would be cheaper.
Maus
@Another Halocene Human: The benefit to them is supposed to be their convenient schedule, so that you can work and not have to take so many loans. You don’t even have to start paying them back immediately. I don’t believe this argument follows.
Another Halocene Human
@kay: Wow. Did not know that. Sick.
Another Halocene Human
@Maus: So, let’s say you are maxed out to the hilt. Then your car breaks down. You need the car to work, so you do whatever it takes to fix the car. Plus, you found an opportunity for overtime. Good thing, too, because gas and food are going up.
Do you reapply next semester? Or do you “take a semester off” to try to catch up?
Plus, you have to count the mental stress of money stress here, plus the fact there is no-one at the school supporting you and trying to help you succeed. The local community college goes out of its way to help students here.
If a person is already under enormous stress, how much more can they take before they break?
I’m reminded of the lady I met who was in school and on welfare. She had a tiny baby. Welfare was going to run out soon (you only get 18 mos.) and she would not have finished her degree. To get daycare (no family to lean on), she would have to quit school and get a job.
Ah, but a bitter state worker once lectured me about the bad old days when the state paid to give welfare recipients college degrees for free. They were sooooo ungrateful, it really burned her up.
Another real-world example, I know an employer that will pay for you to take classes while you work there full time, but will only reimburse up to state college credit hour rates… so the for-profit tuition is on you, bub.
People drop out of school for a lot of reasons, “reality” being one of them. The for-profit schools just fucking charge more, and don’t provide student support services.
Maus
@Another Halocene Human: All things I understand, but the main reason why people endorse them is their convenient scheduling. Not their clout.
This is not a small number of people. This is the majority of the people who enroll, and most certainly counts the people going “fulltime” and not working.
And again, this is still extremely large compared to community colleges who offer night classes.
Maus
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/education/24colleges.html
That’s extremely distressing, even considering “reality”.