For Profit Colleges Are A Scam

[Left Coast2020]

On Friday, April 13, 2012, Courthouse News reported a class-action lawsuit by students filed in federal court against the Art Institute of California and its owner, Educational Management Corporation (EDMC). As reported in Truthout, Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) husband, former governor of Maine John McKernan, is chairman of the board of EDMC and a former CEO of the company. The company also faces an $11 billion false claims lawsuit by the federal government and 11 states.

My Senator Feinstine is also tied to this. I hope someone strong is able to run and win her seat--if she attempts re-election. DiFi has been a disgrace. She needs to go. If I remember correctly, she voted with the cowboy from Crawford when he squatted in my house for 8 years.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8589-bipartisan-political-elite-implicated-in-for-profit-education-fraud

[HiPointDem]

1. yes, they are. and politicians right & left are jumping on board the scam. didn't know snowe's

husband was one of them.

corrupt country we live in.

[Cleita]

2. Some things should not be done for profit even if in the private sector. Institutions of learning

are one and health care and nursing facilities are another. There can be privately run schools, hospitals and nursing homes because maybe people want to be with those who share something in common like their religion or ethnicity, but none should be for profit.

I agree about DiFi but no one else seems to be able to primary her.

[highprincipleswork]

3. No

No, not all for-profit colleges are a scam. Some of them do good work and are worth the money.

I believe it's highly reckless to make a statement like this.

I went to a very well-known Liberal Arts College, but teach at a for-profit vocational college, and we do very good work preparing students for an employable and well-paid career in the outside world. All the time students come up to me and thank me for the training and the fact it brought them a job, a marriage, a house, etc.

Sounds like this particular institution has/had major problems, but that is no reason to paint all for-profit colleges with a broad brush.

[murielm99]

4. I believe community colleges

offer vocational training. People can go to community colleges for less money and find jobs later, too.

[coalition_unwilling]

5. If an institution of higher education makes a 'profit' from its operations, it means one thing and

one thing only: its students are paying TOO MUCH. 'Profit' is what remains after all costs have been subtracted from overall revenues. It is OBSCENE that companies should profit off the backs of students.

[fasttense]

6. Why do our children have to be profit centers for banksters and corporations?

Why can't our children go to college for free like in India, China, and many other countries?

Why do we turn our children's education and their future into profits centers for greedy capitalists?

[coalition_unwilling]

13. We are witnessing the apotheosis of Reagan-Bushism (and the full-blown

ascendancy of the Milton Friedman Chicago U. School of Economics orthodoxy where everything is a commodity. Thus it is that many miltiary functions are now handled by for-profit defense contractors (think Blackwater\XE and CACI) and so it is no surprise that we have commodified youth so that it too can be viewed as little more than a profit (loss) center.

Please see the highly intelligent counter to this downtrhread from exboyfil though.

[exboyfil]

9. It is obscene that farmers make a profit on

the food they provide to hungry people.

It is obscene for automakers to make a profit on providing transportation to those needing to get to work

It is obscene for energy companies to make a profit for providing energy to cold people

It is obscene for contractors to make a profit for providing housing to those without homes

I am not saying that many for profits are not a rip off, but making a profit by providing the capital and management to provide a service is not obscene in of itself. The profit motive and the ability of for profit institutions to move beyond the inertia of established institutions has merit. Lets say a particular trade (for example auto mechanic) requires an expensive piece of machinery to teach a skill. Until the public institutions get themselves together to provide that service, the only way to provide the service is for investors to buy that equipment and offer the training. They have risked their capital on this training, and they should receive some profit for it (otherwise we might as well be the old Soviet Union).

Moving forward beinig a non-profit is no guarantee of quality (Liberty University ring a bell). Also being a public institution is no guarantee of quality (read this article about Chicago State University)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/college_dropout_factories.php?page=1

A simple starting point would be to award student loan aid based on the default rate of the major and institution.

[coalition_unwilling]

10. Notice how you completely side-step my main contention? To wit, the only way

an institution of higher education can earn a 'profit' from education is by charging its consumers more than the true cost of that service. In your moral universe, such opportunism seems acceptable. In my moral universe, I prefer that students, the poor, the cold and the homeless not be grist for the profit motive.

[exboyfil]

11. Yes exactly how Karl Marx

felt. The evil profit motive. While I can think of a lot of things that I would change in this country (one of the first being better accountability of professional managers in corporations) and another being a fairer tax structure (I see no reason why capital should receive favorable tax treatment), I still think that the profit motive and the accumulation of individual wealth are the economic cornerstones of any liberal democracy.

If you can offer a specific education or training that enhances the well being of a student, why should you not earn a profit from it? The problem is the distortion related to our method of public funded post-secondary education. The biggest missing component is accountability.

Maybe education is better served as a public good (like healthcare). That does not make it immoral for an individual to make a profit though if the model allows for both.

A good place to start is to mandate no institution that has higher than a 10% default rate can participate in federal student loans and grants. It is a meat axe approach, but it is a start.

[coalition_unwilling]

12. I'm not sure that I think the profit motive is 'evil,' per se, but when

used to extract profits from the defenseless and powerless, one has a right to question its morality.

I sure wish the twin poles of the political spectrum were your and my positions (with the center falling somewhere in between). Alas, your position currently represents the (far) leftward pole of political discourse in this country, while mine is off in lunatic-fringe land. Such was not the case a mere 50 years ago, proof if any were needed of how far rightward political discourse has shifted in this country.

[Leftist Agitator]

7. "...teach at a for-profit vocational college..."

Which one?

[Egalitarian Thug]

8. K&R. Want to watch this one. n/t