By Professor
Doom
Despite the fact that much of higher
education, (barely) especially for-profit, is a fraud, I still eagerly await
mainstream news to finally connect the dots regarding how the scam works.
A recent title from a CNN article raised
my hopes that, at last, people would have a better way of learning about the
scam than my obscure blog:
How for-profit colleges rip off students
That’s a great title for an article, but,
alas, it’s just an opinion piece (heavily disclaimered by CNN). Still, I could
hope that the author will detail how accreditation and institutions of higher
education are both controlled by the same avaricious administrators, eager to
plunder the system in exchange for phenomenal amounts of loot.
Like most every mainstream media article,
it disappoints, deeply. It says nothing of the sort, although there are a few
things worth repeating:
“…The devious practices of one of
the country's largest for-profit colleges finally caught up with it in June
after years of accusations of inflated job placement rates, abysmally low
graduation rates, high loan default rates and more when Corinthian Colleges reached a deal with the Department of
Education to shut down its operations… Corinthian…agreed to sell off or close its more than 100 campuses
across the country, while at the same time denying the allegations.”
The basic protocol for for-profit
colleges (and many public institutions) is alluded to in the above paragraphs.
Suckers are lured in via a sales pitch of “our degree will get you a job, don’t
worry about the tuition, we’ll help you with the loans, we won’t even check your
credit!” The suckers take the classes,
but the sad fact is many of them are only there for the checks, and so
graduation rates are minimal. Naturally, the people that are willing to take
checks and not ask questions about it are poor credit risks, and tend to
default. Because the school caters to suckers, what few graduates there are,
are merely “the best suckers we could find”, and thus the degrees are worthless
in the real world, leading to poor job placement.
Despite taking $1.4 billion from
the federal government in 2012 alone, Corinthian can't keep its doors open.
Isn’t it neat that the for-profit can rake
in that kind of money, and yet can’t be bothered to do some decent work with it?
I promise you, the executive officers and higher administrators were paid very,
very well. The taxpayer, of course, is screwed. What of the students?
The
72,000 students trapped on Corinthian's sinking ship are some of our nation's
neediest. Like many for-profit schools, Corinthian targeted students who are overwhelmingly minority,
female and low income. They are veterans back from Iraq and Afghanistan -- Corinthian received $186 million in post-9/11 GI bill funds in 2012 -- blue-collar workers seeking to improve their skill
sets, and single mothers who hope more education will help them provide for their
children.
Alas, there is no plan to help the
students. Hmm, taxpayers screwed, administration gets a fortune, and the
students are on the hook for massive loans. This problem is hardly restricted
to for profit institutions, any number of public institutions work the same way…student loan debt is over 1.2
trillion dollars now, it’s not just this Corinthian.
Hey, remember last year, when I said
student loan debt was “only” a trillion dollars? Honest, the problem isn’t
getting smaller.
On average, tuition at for-profit
colleges is four to six times higher than at a comparable public school. A
two-year Senate investigation found a medical assistant diploma cost $22,275 at
Corinthian's Heald College in Fresno, California, while the same program at
Fresno City College costs $1,650. An undergraduate certificate in paralegal
studies at the Anaheim campus of Everest Colleges costs more than $43,000. At
the Anaheim area community college, an associate's degree in paralegal studies
costs less than $3,000.
For profits charge more, because they’re
in a better position to charge whatever they feel like, and get first dibs on
the money. Many public institutions can’t raise tuition without first appealing
to the local government…it’s a slower process in public institutions, but
“raise tuition to capture all the loan money” (and yes, “capture” is the word they
use for this sort of plunder) is still the goal.
And students at for-profit colleges
generally cannot transfer credits because the schools lack the accreditation
recognized by traditional community and four-year colleges. Without a job or
the ability to transfer credits, students at for-profit colleges all too often
find themselves unable to repay their loans.
The author is a bit off here. Yes, those
transfer credits will be lost…but it’s the same way at other schools. Outside
of special situations, students can only transfer a year or so (24 hours) of
credits, and many schools only allow 12 hours. Seriously, inability to transfer
credits is a real problem, because so many schools sell so much crap that even
fake schools won’t accept it.
Again, this problem isn’t restricted to
for-profit institutions, lots of schools are ripoffs in this regard.
The whole point of accreditation, when it
started over a century ago, was to create standards to facilitate transfer
students. Accreditation today is simply a fraud, and happily accredits schools
(for a hefty fee) that offer huge amounts of utterly worthless coursework.
This would have been a great time for the
author to point out that, if accreditation weren’t a fraud, it would have stopped
Corinthian long before it started ripping off students.
“… for-profit college students represent just 11% of federal loan borrowers,
yet account for nearly 50% of loan defaulters. “
This is certainly true. It’s quite damning of for-profit schools
that 50% of loan defaulters are from for-profits.
Um, the quoted statement implies 50% of
loan defaulters are from non-profits, the vast majority of which are publicly
supported schools. Yes, for-profits are over-represented, but it’s still
extremely damning that public schools are indebting people for coursework that
is so worthless that people can’t possibly pay for it.
Again, the problems cited here are hardly
restricted to for-profits.
Most unbelievably, the Department
of Education continues to allow some Corinthian college locations to enroll
students—without meaningfully disclosing that the school is in the process of
being sold off.
This is pretty amazing, the school is a
scam, the Federal Government knows it’s a scam, they’re shutting it down
because it’s a scam, Corinthian is going along with a shutdown because they
agree they’re a scam…and they’re not even going to bother telling the students
still trapped in the system, who will pay a fortune for coursework known to be
bogus. I. Can’t. Make. This. Up.
Maybe there’s a chance that the school is
only a little bit of a scam? Doesn’t seem like it:
Corinthian has a long record as one of the
worst players in the for-profit education industry. In 2012, when the
Department of Education released the first metrics to determine the success of
career college programs, 44 of Corinthian's programs failed outright. In fact, Corinthian Colleges performed worse than any other
for-profit chain. But because a lawsuit prevented those metrics from being
enforced, Corinthian's practices and programs continued unabated.
When it comes to for-profit, being “one of the worst” is an
impressive achievement…it’s like being “one of the worst” child molesters, you
have to sink pretty low to be that notable. Even though the school is this
horrifically bad, it STILL managed to rake in 1.4 effin’ BILLION dollars in
federal loan money in 2012.
Yowza. You think the students will be off
the hook for that money? Heck no.
Again, this would have been a great time for
the author to point out that only accredited schools can get that money;
legitimate accreditation would have stopped this years ago.
Corinthian and other similar colleges have
made a profit for decades off the backs of students. As a nation, we must say
"enough."
I certainly agree, enough is enough…but
it’s not just the for-profits, and really if the author of this essay had spent
just a bit more time satisfying the title of her article, How for-profit colleges rip off
students, the
general public could learn what’s really going on in higher education: bogus
accreditation legitimizes bogus schools, which then suck up huge amounts of
money in the student loan scheme. There’s not even a comments section so that
readers of CNN (are there any left?) can add some useful information. Oh well,
maybe someday CNN will ask me about it.
Har.
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