Archive

for-profit institutions

Student Veterans of America Rebukes 40 For-Profit Chapters

By
April 9, 2012
for-profit institutions, students
Leave a Comment

Student Veterans of America (SVA) is a national organization dedicated to helping veterans “succeed in higher education and following graduation.” The SVA has a strong emphasis on student leadership and building connections between veterans in higher ed to help them adjust to life out of the military and in school. That’s why SVA leaders were so alarmed that forty for-profit institutions’ chapters are seemingly run by administrators, not students. Those schools—which were not named by the SVA—have had their chapter memberships revoked.

Read More

For-Profits on Stage

By
March 28, 2012
corporate influence, ethics, for-profit institutions, students
Leave a Comment

The debate over for-profit colleges could be coming to a theater near you.

Aaron Calafato, an actor who also spent time working for a for-profit college in Ohio, wrote and stars in a new one-man play, For-Profit, about the industry. The play takes a harsh look at the industry, from the perspective of a recruiter talking to prospective students on the phone. Calafato started work on the play when he himself worked as an “admissions officer” at a for-profit in Cleveland, taking notes on his experience and writing them into the show. Read More

ForProfitU: A New Campaign Against For-Profits [UPDATED]

By
February 6, 2012
for-profit institutions, students
Leave a Comment

Sometime in the last few weeks, a new website has gone up that monitors for-profit education. It’s called ForProfitU, and it’s a project of the Service Employees International Union. According to the website’s About page, “For-Profit U aims to educate students, parents, press and the general public on the dangers of for-profit colleges.” On February 2, they held a “webinar” event featuring people from across the education spectrum, on the dangers of for-profit schools (video of that event is, unfortunately, not currently available, but the webpage for it promises it will be soon).

If you look around the website, you might be struck, as I was, with a few questions.

Read More

Senator Durbin Proposes a Fix to the 90/10 Rule

By
January 27, 2012
for-profit institutions, legislation, students, tuition
2 Comments

This week, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) introduced a bill to cut back on for-profit exploitation of veterans. I wrote about this problem a few months ago, and it’s great to see a high-ranking member of congress taking action on it (Durbin is the #2 Democrat in the Senate). I’m happy to say that Durbin’s proposal closely matches what I had recommended. Read More

Mitt Romney and Full Sail University

By
January 20, 2012
for-profit institutions, students, tuition
2 Comments

The issue of for-profit colleges is a hot political debate, but until now, for-profits haven’t been mentioned in the presidential election (though they were a major issue in last year’s race for attorney general in Kentucky). But now, a leading candidate for the Republican nomination has injected himself into the debate on for-profit costs and outcomes.

Read More

Revisiting the Gainful Employment Rules

By
December 13, 2011
corporate influence, for-profit institutions
1 Comment

In June, the Department of Education released its new rules about for-profit colleges. The regulations are known as the “gainful employment” rules, because they seek to ensure that graduates are adequately prepared for the workforce (and prepared to pay off their student loans) once they leave school. The final rules were weaker than those originally proposed by the Department of Education, and now we know why–the for-profit industry lobbied heavily to dilute the rules, according to a new investigation in the New York Times.

Here’s the story in short: The Department of Education proposed tough new rules on for-profits. These rules could take away federal student loan eligibility for schools that aren’t adequately preparing their students for jobs. Since most for-profits get the vast majority of their funding from federal loans (up to 90% in some cases), this would be a serious challenge to the for-profit business model. So, rather than reform their practices to ensure higher quality of education, the for-profits amassed an army of advocates to lobby the Obama administration:

Officials at the White House and the Education Department described the industry’s aggressive efforts as unusual even by Washington standards. Mr. Sunstein, the White House official, characterized the intensity as “extreme.”

And it worked. The final rules were substantially weaker, and misbehaving schools won’t be punished until 2015 at the very earlier. This was the subject of my very first @forprofitwatch tweet.

Of course, many of us suspected as much at the time – what other explanation could there be for the sudden shift? Still, it’s interesting to see how the industry was fighting against the regulation–and how threatened they felt by the proposed rules. I only wish student advocates had the power and influence that the for-profits do.

If you are interested in exactly how the rules were watered down, Inside Higher Ed wrote a great summary at the time of the proposed rules compared to the final ones.

Follow me on twitter for more news from the for-profit college industry: @forprofitwatch

New GAO Report Shows Mixed Picture on For-Profits, Part II

By
December 8, 2011
ethics, for-profit institutions
Leave a Comment

Last week, I wrote about a new report out from the General Accountability Office that investigated educational practices at for-profit schools. The report is mixed, with some schools looking good, and others that appear willing to violate academic standards in order to pass and graduate students. The context for this investigation is that about a year ago, the GAO released a similar report which it later had to make small corrections to, giving the for-profit industry a PR victory.

This week I’ll look at how representatives from the for-profit sector are reacting to the new report. No surprise here: they are going on the offensive. And the main weapon they are using is the previous GAO report. It’s a misleading attack, since none of the people who worked on the previous reported worked on this one. Penny Lee is the managing director of the Coalition for Educational Success, one of the larger organizations that promote for-profits. In a press release, she responded to the report using a classic ad hominem attack:

Read More

New GAO Report Shows Mixed Picture on For-Profits, Part I

By
December 1, 2011
ethics, for-profit institutions, students
1 Comment

On November 23, the United States Government Accountability Office released a report titled “Experiences of Undercover Students Enrolled in Online Classes at Selected Colleges.” It’s a behind-the-scenes look at a few for-profit schools, and the lengths to which they will go to keep students enrolled. This week, I’m going to explain the context for the report and its findings; next week, I’ll look at how the for-profit industry is reacting to the report.

First, some background: In August 2010, the GAO released the results of its first investigation into for-profit colleges. The report focused on recruiting practices at fifteen colleges, and found that all of them made “deceptive or otherwise questionable statements” to undercover investigators posing as applicants. The GAO was careful to note that “results of the undercover tests and tuition comparisons cannot be projected to all for-profit colleges,” and none of the schools involved were identified.

Read More

Jack Conway Re-elected in Kentucky

By
November 18, 2011
ethics, for-profit institutions
1 Comment

Last week’s state elections attracted attention for a variety of causes and elections, most notably the defeat of Ohio’s tough new collective bargaining law and the defeat of the pro-life “personhood amendment” in Mississippi. But for for-profit colleges, the most important election of the night mostly flew under the radar: Democrat Jack Conway was re-elected as attorney general in Kentucky, defeating Republican Todd P’Pool by ten points.

Read More

High-Pressure Recruitment Tactics at For-Profits

By
October 25, 2011
ethics, for-profit institutions
1 Comment

A few weeks ago, I looked at some of the methods which for-profit universities use to get “leads” on potential students. Getting contact information on a possible new student is, however, just the first step. The next steps are to get in touch with the potential student and convince them to enroll. In today’s blog post, I’ll look at some of the tactics recruiters use to pressure students into signing up at for-profits. Much like with the lead generating companies, the methods are highly upsetting and unethical, and cast a shadow over the ethics of some of these companies more generally.

Read More

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 171 other followers