No More Education for the Future

August 30, 2016 12:38 PM

ITT Tech has ceased enrolling new students. On August 26, the US Department of Education prohibited ITT Tech from enrolling new students who receive federal financial aid. Less than 1 week later, the embattled school will no longer enroll new students at all. Current students may continue their studies this year.

The decision by the Department of Education follows an ongoing crackdown of for profit colleges that after stories of fraud, predatory behavior, and fraud, with at least one for-profit college founder headed for jail. ITT is not the first major player in the industry to effectively shut down, but it is the largest.

So very many previouslies 1 2 3

posted by LizBoBiz (60 comments total)

It's a start.
posted by wittgenstein at 12:42 PM on August 30, 2016 [13 favorites]

For profit schools should not be outlawed. But no taxpayer money should ever be used for their tuition.
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:47 PM on August 30, 2016 [21 favorites]

Yes, it's a start. Now what are we going to do about the thousands of students saddled with undischargeable debt from these schools?

I sure hope the answer isn't "throw them to the wolves," but based on past behavior I wouldn't bet against it.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:49 PM on August 30, 2016 [13 favorites]

Should have included that: Obama To Cancel Debts Owed By Defrauded For-Profit College Students
posted by LizBoBiz at 12:53 PM on August 30, 2016 [46 favorites]

Good news for broadcast radio listeners, as well.
posted by yhbc at 12:55 PM on August 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

Can law schools be next?
posted by photoslob at 1:00 PM on August 30, 2016 [6 favorites]

ITT has a great Wikipedia entry index
posted by Damienmce at 1:05 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

As a (admittedly successful) ITT Tech graduate, this news makes me happy.

I am saddled with loans I can barely pay, although the federal ones aren't nearly as stressful to pay back as the private ones. I am out of deferment and forbearance options for those. I feel like the world's biggest fool for agreeing to the private loans. I had no idea there was any difference, I thought all educational loans were the same.
posted by INFJ at 1:05 PM on August 30, 2016 [18 favorites]

> For profit schools should not be outlawed. But no taxpayer money should ever be used for their tuition.

I'm curious to know the argument for why they shouldn't be outlawed. I'm having trouble thinking of one. I mean, okay, I know the practical argument: making them outlaw would be very complicated, and likely there'd be a long game of whack-a-mole as different entrepreneurs adopted different strategies for running for-profit schools despite the ban. sort of like how the DeVos family continually fiddles with the structure of their pyramid scam to make it just barely fall outside of bans against pyramid scams.

But at the very least, for-profit colleges shouldn't be allowed to issue degrees. Moreover, under a reasonable regulatory scheme, they'd be required to put in prominent disclaimers warning potential marks students that they will not be issued a degree or anything equivalent to a degree, and there would be robust, easily-accessed procedures for students to recover their money from for-profit colleges if any aspect of their marketing proved deceptive. A culture that values education must strongly encourage scammers to set their man-traps elsewhere.

also since we're in the pony-wishes zone, the same regulations and constraints should apply to lower-tier law schools.

man. if I could pick any job, any job at all, I'd be a public speaker who specializes in lectures warning high school students and recently discharged veterans away from for-profit colleges and toward community colleges. I would rather be that than be an astronaut. Hell, I'd rather be that than be a parasitical layabout, and I love being a parasitical layabout.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:11 PM on August 30, 2016 [33 favorites]

The former parent corporation has a....colorful history. They started out by collaborating with the Nazis, and later helped to stage coups in Brazil and Chile.

Maybe we should be glad that these people got distracted by the scammy for-profit education business instead of continuing down the road that they were on...
posted by schmod at 1:15 PM on August 30, 2016 [9 favorites]

Apprised of the news, Cousin Itt did not respond to inquiries.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:17 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

The argument is this: if they're accredited, then they're real schools. If they're not, then what makes them different from any other "course" that teaches you skills?

When you learn woodworking at the local community center, isn't that a course? Should they not be able to give you a certificate of completion? Can they do that, but not call it a degree?

Is "degree" a legally-protected term? Is "graduate"?

I agree that they're scammy as hell, but there are too many worthy educational programs out there for us to really fully close the loophole on for-profit colleges.
posted by explosion at 1:18 PM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sure, but you can make sure they're not entitled to federal student loan money. The people in it for education's sake, like the local woodworking class will keep it up, and the people in it to get a bunch of student loan money their students will never be able to repay will fold up shop, like ITT Tech did.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 1:21 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Former ITT students can apply for defense to repayment discharges. Ed is still engaged in rulemaking for the general borrower defense discharge process, though. It's not clear whether these students will be able to obtain discharges based simply on enrollment during the relevant period or whether they will need to offer individual evidence they were defrauded.

Once again, I'd like to point out that state attorney generals were in the forefront of consumer protection in this area, pursuing for-profit schools and seeking discharges for students. Ed was happy to let this nonsense go on for years. Support your local activist AG!
posted by praemunire at 1:25 PM on August 30, 2016 [11 favorites]

When we talk about for-profit colleges, we are usually talking about vocational training, right? I don't see why that can't be done at the local non-profit community college instead.
posted by LizBoBiz at 1:26 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

> The argument is this: if they're accredited, then they're real schools. If they're not, then what makes them different from any other "course" that teaches you skills?

This is an easy one. The difference between non-profit schools and for-profit schools is that the latter are run for profit.

Accreditation, as stands, isn't a valid way to sort hypothetical "good" for-profits from bad ones, since accreditation standards are notoriously weak and dependent in large part on self-reporting. This is even if you bracket off the scam "accreditors" that for-profit schools often go to.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:28 PM on August 30, 2016 [9 favorites]

I'm glad this is finally happening. When I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity I processed applications and credit reports. Nearly all of the applicants had defaulted student loans from for-profit institutions. This was back in the 90s and it really pissed me off to see how many people had been taken advantage of by these entities.
posted by haunted by Leonard Cohen at 1:30 PM on August 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

If a for-profit school is accredited and can achieve the same results as a non-profit school, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be able to. That depends a lot on the accreditation process and I'm prepared to believe that it desperately needs reform.

However, I once saw a comment here on Metafilter that said, "You don't go to college to learn so you can get a job, you go to college to learn so you can be a good citizen." And I don't know how we could get the incentives to line up that would drive those results at a for-profit school.

I'd also caution people against the thinking that non-profit means that they have more altruistic motives. The only difference between a non-profit business and a for-profit one is that a non-profit doesn't pay out equity to it's owners (stock buy-backs and dividends). But if the owners are also employees, they may simply be getting enormous salaries instead of stock options and dividends. There is certainly less economic pressure to be a scammy school if it's a non-profit, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
posted by VTX at 1:32 PM on August 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

Accreditation, as stands, isn't a valid way to sort hypothetical "good" for-profits from bad ones, since accreditation standards are notoriously weak and dependent in large part on self-reporting.

You also have the issue of pay-for-play accreditation, where the accreditor hands out accreditation on a rather lenient basis because they are dependent on the accreditation fees & don't want to lose membership fees to a more lenient accreditor.
posted by jonp72 at 1:32 PM on August 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

It took me a couple years to realize that ITT and IIT were both schools and yet very, very different.
posted by GuyZero at 1:34 PM on August 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

It's sounding to me like the root issue is the accreditation.
posted by VTX at 1:37 PM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

> I'd also caution people against the thinking that non-profit means that they have more altruistic motives. The only difference between a non-profit business and a for-profit one is that a non-profit doesn't pay out equity to it's owners (stock buy-backs and dividends). But if the owners are also employees, they may simply be getting enormous salaries instead of stock options and dividends. There is certainly less economic pressure to be a scammy school if it's a non-profit, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

Absolutely. The statement that for-profits are inherently scams is by no means meant to imply that non-profits are therefore not scams.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:37 PM on August 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'd also caution people against the thinking that non-profit means that they have more altruistic motives. The only difference between a non-profit business and a for-profit one is that a non-profit doesn't pay out equity to it's owners (stock buy-backs and dividends). But if the owners are also employees, they may simply be getting enormous salaries instead of stock options and dividends. There is certainly less economic pressure to be a scammy school if it's a non-profit, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

This is what Keiser University did. The company had been a for-profit school until 2011, but then the family that owned the school created a nonprofit entity to buy back their own school, which allowed the same family to keep financial control of the school & the business practices haven't changed in any substantive way. In addition, for-profit schools are subject to a federal regulation called the 90/10 rule, which states that a for-profit company cannot make more than 90% of its revenue from Title IV federal education funds. If the school is non-profit, it's not subject to the 90/10 rule, which has lead some scammers to favor converting from for-profit to non-profit.
posted by jonp72 at 1:38 PM on August 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

wittgenstein: "It's a start."

Hopefully EDMC is next.
posted by octothorpe at 1:44 PM on August 30, 2016 [6 favorites]

In the first half of the GW Bush administration I was standing hip-deep in an abysmal job market holding a completely worthless B.A. in philosophy that I had tried to use as a wedge to get into any kind of professional humanities or writing or editing job I could find. Nothing. Closed doors everywhere. So I found work as a bank teller and did what any good undergrad humanities degree holder would do, and looked into getting trained for a career in IT.

I checked out ITT on the off chance that I could maybe get something rolling quicker without having to get a second bachelor's degree (I didn't know better, and worried the local university's program wasn't good enough). I checked out their facilities, which were nice enough, and their class schedule, which was VERY friendly to full-time day-job people. Then I saw the tuition.

They wanted upwards of thirty grand for an associates' degree in programming. My wife got her MSJ from Midwestern for that kind of money. That's what they were charging, with a straight face, for something with marginally more value than a high school diploma. I didn't know squat about the IT job market or what it would really take to get a career going in development, but I knew a scam when I smelled one. They got the hard nope.

Good riddance.
posted by middleclasstool at 1:46 PM on August 30, 2016 [8 favorites]

It took me a couple years to realize that ITT and IIT were both schools and yet very, very different.
posted by GuyZero at 4:34 PM on August 30


I know they are very, very different - but I still had a little gasp upon seeing this post and thinking that it was IIT that had stopped enrolling (not that that would have anything to do with US policy).
posted by jb at 1:46 PM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

One thing about community colleges is that they also make money by students dropping out. I taught for a number of years at community colleges, and they had very stringent drop requirements: by the end of the first week of classes for a 100% tuition refund, the second week for 50%, and none at all by the end of the third week. Given that the attrition rate in freshman composition, the course I taught, was close to 50%, and that most students weren't aware of this until it was too late, I began to feel it was preying on the students via the student loan system as well.

This was driven home to me when I briefly taught at a private college, and then at a public Big 10 school. Students there could still get tuition refunds when half the semester was over.

I'm a big booster of community college for all kinds of reasons, but their students could use some warning/education about still being liable for their tuition, or rather the loans that paid for it, even if they aren't able or choose not to attend class.
posted by not that girl at 1:49 PM on August 30, 2016 [7 favorites]

When we talk about for-profit colleges, we are usually talking about vocational training, right? I don't see why that can't be done at the local non-profit community college instead.
It's not that simple.
Vocational training is expensive - more expensive than the regular classroom courses at community colleges.
There has been a decades-long decline in vocational offerings at public institutions, starting with them moving programs out of high schools.
The troubled history of vocational education.
Tough Calculus as Technical Schools Face Deep Cuts.

"I will never forget an interview I did a few years ago with a wonderful man who had been teaching vocational education for decades in his middle class community. With tears in his eyes, he described how, when he began, he had, with great pride prepared young men (that's how it was) for well-paying careers in the skilled trades. Now, he told me, "That's all over. Now I get the kids who the teachers of academic courses don't want to deal with. I am expected to use my shop to motivate those kids to learn what they can of basic skills." He was, in high school, trying to interest these young people, who were full of the despair and anger that comes of knowing that everyone else had given up on them, to learn enough arithmetic to measure the length of a board. He knew that was an important thing to do, but he also knew that it was a far cry from serious vocational education of the sort he had done very well years earlier.

It was as if the United States felt that it had to choose between making improvements in students' academic skills and maintaining a system to provide robust vocational skills. We chose the former, and, with the inauguration of career academies in our high schools, substituted programs intended to motivate students to stay in school for serious vocational educational programs. We solved the problem of the low prestige of vocational programs the way we always deal with such problems, by renaming it, calling it career and technical education instead." - from The Death of Vocational Education and the Demise of the American Middle Class.

posted by ApathyGirl at 1:49 PM on August 30, 2016 [21 favorites]

As an IIT alum this makes me very happy. You have no idea how often this confusion comes up in conversations.
posted by naju at 1:49 PM on August 30, 2016 [9 favorites]

that most students weren't aware of this until it was too late, I began to feel it was preying on the students via the student loan system as well.

This was driven home to me when I briefly taught at a private college, and then at a public Big 10 school. Students there could still get tuition refunds when half the semester was over.

I guess I don't really see the problem with that? The course has a fixed cost to put on and the people who drop it are taking up spots of people who would have otherwise stuck it out.

I mean at the private college I went to, one 2 hour class cost as much as entire semester long course at a community college. Not sure what the refund policy was but I damn sure never skipped a class.

I had some friends who went to ITT though and their reaction to this was "good fucking riddance".
posted by bradbane at 2:03 PM on August 30, 2016

One thing about community colleges is that they also make money by students dropping out. I taught for a number of years at community colleges, and they had very stringent drop requirements: by the end of the first week of classes for a 100% tuition refund, the second week for 50%, and none at all by the end of the third week. Given that the attrition rate in freshman composition, the course I taught, was close to 50%, and that most students weren't aware of this until it was too late, I began to feel it was preying on the students via the student loan system as well.

This is sometimes what's referred to as an "asses in classes" model. Once they've got the money to get the ass sitting in the class, they don't care what happens afterward.
posted by jonp72 at 2:05 PM on August 30, 2016

Good news for broadcast radio listeners, as well.

Yep, they were a staple of daytime TV commercials in the 1970s, I remember watching them with my grandmother. But some time after that they became a total clusterfuck, like all the other for-profits. Shameful that it took the government this long to do something.
posted by Melismata at 2:23 PM on August 30, 2016

But if the owners are also employees, they may simply be getting enormous salaries instead of stock options and dividends.

There are in fact IRS rules for nonprofits which--well, frequently they are indeed allowed to pay fairly large salaries, if they're running fairly large organizations, but there are limits on that sort of thing. Every organization doesn't have to run optimally or anything, but salaries exceeding reasonable levels are one of the things that constitutes prohibited inurement.

Some nonprofits are just run incredibly poorly, but running them to actually take advantage of people is grounds to get them shut down and worse. Whereas, in this case, the corporations themselves are unfortunately not in trouble for taking advantage of poor people, they're in trouble for taking advantage of the government. I don't think anybody's going to jail over this. I'm sure a lot of the people involved will just turn around and look for new ways to take advantage instead.
posted by Sequence at 2:51 PM on August 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yep, they were a staple of daytime TV commercials in the 1970s

Along with DeVry and ICS (the one with the Sally Struthers commercials).
posted by Chrysostom at 3:43 PM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

holy crap. from the wikipedia page on ITT:

In 1970, ITT owned 70% of Chitelco (the Chilean Telephone Company) and funded El Mercurio, a Chilean right-wing newspaper. Declassified documents released by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in 2000 suggest that the company financially helped opponents of Salvador Allende's government prepare a military coup.

posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:44 PM on August 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

I... I think ITT might actually be the literal worst. I did not expect to come out of this thread with a lower opinion of them than I already had, but...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:49 PM on August 30, 2016 [7 favorites]

Along with DeVry and ICS (the one with the Sally Struthers commercials).

You haven't lived until you've defended a phd thesis on capstan replacement for four-head VCRs successfully before Professor Struthers.
posted by dr_dank at 3:50 PM on August 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

Well, sort of. ITT Corporation

ITT Tech/ESI was acquired by ITT Corp in 1966 but divested in 1994. So ITT Corp did not found and does not own ITT Tech, although they did for a while.
posted by thefoxgod at 3:51 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've commented here on my time working for ITT Tech (as tech support!) before (1, 2). It's the only job I've ever quit for ethical reasons.

It couldn't happen to a more deserving company, and its victims should be permitted to discharge their loans without penalty. Though I read this FPP too fast and really got my hopes up that someone from ITT was going to jail. No such luck.
posted by asperity at 4:17 PM on August 30, 2016 [7 favorites]

Even more from the Wikipedia page:

By 1999, ITT Corp. (which had merged with Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide the year before) divested itself completely of ITT Tech's shares but the schools still use the "ITT" name under license.

A resort conglomerate? Er, ok. Sounds like it's just a long history of money people trying to cash in on the name.
posted by Melismata at 4:38 PM on August 30, 2016

IIT is working toward marketing itself as Illinois Tech. Maybe this will help accelerate that transition.
posted by debgpi at 6:30 PM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

One is associated with Mies. One isn't.
posted by persona au gratin at 6:37 PM on August 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

I can attest that it goes a lot easier when I tell people I went to 'Illinois Tech', rather than some formulation like 'IIT in Chicago'.
posted by Standard Orange at 12:23 AM on August 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I worked for one of these places years ago. What I can honestly say is that the faculty were some of the hardest working people I ever met and were really, genuinely trying to educate.

The problem is with the business model and the enrollment/financial practices. So much shady shit going down. I was witness to literally admissions counselors driving through the city streets and getting homeless people to come in and apply for government loans. It was shocking. We had to prove that asses were in seats, so people would get attendance for calling the school and asking what the homework for the night was. We had a whistle blower who brought a shit storm down on the school (and it's parent company) and things really did get better after that, but fundamentally it remained the same. They prey on people who don't even have community college as the option by offering vocational programs in the disguise of degrees and the hope of a better life. The overwhelming majority drop out with only HUGE debt left to pay.

And yet when we finally closed down, I was sad.
posted by archimago at 7:14 AM on August 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm curious to know the argument for why they shouldn't be outlawed.

Right now, the business model of for-profit schools is to take government subsidies (in the form of government financial aid/loan programs) and (for the most part) provide sub-par services. There are many industries in which it is not illegal to provide sub-par service, and I fall into the camp that thinks that education should remain one of them (with caveats for requiring disclosure, taking care with less sophisticated customer bases, etc).

When the government subsidy is gone*, the business model of for-profit schools will need to adjust to: figure out how to provide the same sub-par services at a much lower cost (so, no harm no foul), or continue to generate the same revenue from students but provide a much better service (again, no harm no foul).

But at the very least, for-profit colleges shouldn't be allowed to issue degrees.

There's no reason why a for-profit school couldn't issue degrees that are at least as valuable as those from non-profit institutions, the problem is that the for-profit schools don't have the incentive to do so as long as they can entice students with the same "free" money** that the students would get from non-profit institutions.

*in conjunction with other changes like required disclosures of graduation/employment statistics, fairness-in-lending rules that disclose the true cost of the education, etc. (some of which are in place others of which are still needed).
**student loans are obviously not free money, but try telling that to all 18-22 year olds, especially those who don't have a super support/guidance/counselling system in place to help them navigate educational decisions.
posted by sparklemotion at 9:07 AM on August 31, 2016

When the government subsidy is gone*, the business model of for-profit schools will need to adjust to: figure out how to provide the same sub-par services at a much lower cost (so, no harm no foul), or continue to generate the same revenue from students but provide a much better service (again, no harm no foul).

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but this seems like you're saying it's ok to provide expensive sub-par service if the government (actually students though) is paying for it?
posted by LizBoBiz at 9:18 AM on August 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

As an IIT alum this makes me very happy. You have no idea how often this confusion comes up in conversations.


More or less confusion than between IIT in Chicago versus the famous IIT schools in India?
posted by gyc at 9:26 AM on August 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but this seems like you're saying it's ok to provide expensive sub-par service if the government (actually students though) is paying for it?

I'm not sparklemotion, but I think what they are saying is that expensive sub-par service CAN exist if the government funds it, and that privatizing would eliminate that possibility.

Whether that's a reasonable assumption is left as an exercise for the reader.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:00 AM on August 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but this seems like you're saying it's ok to provide expensive sub-par service if the government (actually students though) is paying for it?

Chrysostom has it. For-profit colleges of ITT's ilk have made their profits by providing sub-par services at exorbitant cost that the government "subsidizes" both in the form of actual loan subsidies and legally enforced non-dischargable debt.

As is clearly the case with ITT, if you take away the government support, suddenly the expensive, shitty schools can't make it anymore.

I'm ok with cheap, shitty for-profit schools continuing to exist. I'm also ok with expensive, good, for-profit schools*. I think that denying federal loans for for-profit schools (along with other regulations that I mentioned briefly above) will help drive the for-profit school market to the two extremes, both of which can be of value to students, so I don't think that for-profit schools should be outlawed.

*I also think that every young person should have access to a pretty-good, minimal cost, 2-4 year post-secondary school experience that can help prepare them for the working world. K-12 schooling used to be able to do this, but a skilled workforce needs more skills and it seems to me that it's logical that 1.) some post-secondary education should be publicly funded, 2.) the public funds should go to the actual education, not the profit.
posted by sparklemotion at 11:38 AM on August 31, 2016

srs question: what are the good, expensive for-profit schools?
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:30 PM on August 31, 2016

srs question: what are the good, expensive for-profit schools?

So there are a lot of MBA and "Executive MBA" programs that are embedded within traditional non-profit schools that are big money-makers for their universities.

Northwestern Kellog's two-year program is $194,316* (for example). While Northwestern is a normal non-profit school, I think they turn a reasonable profit on running this particular program. Though since the parent school is technically non-profit maybe it doesn't count.

* though that does include "Three meals a day, unlimited snacks, coffee breaks and more"
posted by GuyZero at 1:34 PM on August 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

srs question: what are the good, expensive for-profit schools?

It was my understanding the Le Cordon Bleu was good at teaching people how to cook (while perhaps less good at teaching people how to run a restaurant, and even worse at placing graduates in jobs that would allow them to pay off their debt).

I'm not in the music industry, but it is my understand that McNally Smith provides a quality education at $1040/credit.

An ex of mine was taking classes through Capella University, and the couple of IT courses that he was taking seemed well-taught and comprehensive (of course, he didn't graduate, but I'm gonna put the blame for that on the student in this case). TBF, they actually don't seem that expensive at less than $400/credit.

There are a couple of other, well respected, expensive, technical schools around here that I was going to list but on actually researching it turns out that they (MCAD, Dunwoody) are non-profits.

I think that there is a reasonable argument to be made that technical schools, especially in niche areas, can provide an education that it is a benefit (opportunity costs included) to the student. And, assuming that students are truly informed about the costs/benefits/risks* of paying a given school for that education it's reasonable to allow schools to profit off of providing it.

I think that if the schools really are good enough to charge some high dollar amount in tuition, they shouldn't have a problem surviving without the government supports. All they need to do is offer private loans with terms structured so that the school takes on the risk. One idea I was thinking of was related to those (admittedly kind of creepy) "buy equity in a person" schemes. Maybe they loan you the $75K for tuition for your program, but after you finish they get 25% of your income for the first 5 years, but only the first 5 years (maybe toss on some restrictions that the school only collects in years where the student makes more than, say, 300% of the federal poverty level). If the school is good enough to place students in a 6-figure job, it's a net win for them. If the school isn't good enough, they won't be able to find banks to underwrite those kinds of loans.**

*I'm not saying that that assumption is true now, and it's certainly even less likely to be true for shitty schools.
**there's enforcement and other technical details that I'm handwaving here honestly -- but the idea is that the risk should be on the for-profit school, not the student or the government***.
***there's room for concern about for-profit schools only admitting students who can prove that they are likely to succeed, but that's not necessarily a bad thing if you have a robust public post-secondary system making a "pretty good" education available for all****.
****the US does not have this yet.
posted by sparklemotion at 2:28 PM on August 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

So I'm in the military and one time my unit got this briefing from some guy who represented one of these types of institutions. They are one of many parasites on the military, like payday loan stores and shady car dealerships. Anyway it was the usual load of bullshit about them being "military friendly" and how they want us to get the most out of our educational benefits. All well and good I guess, except that the real appeal is that they are getting guaranteed money from the wealthiest Uncle (Sam) the world has ever known, and who gives a shit if the soldier fails out or ends up with some worthless diploma mill degree. They still get paid.

So I didn't want to say anything while the guy was speaking to us, I mean who knows he was probably someone important's brother-in-law or something, but I made sure to talk to all of the guys I knew to be vulnerable to this kind of crap and point them in the direction of the nearest community college. Which is cheaper, has plenty of flexibility to accommodate the life of the soldier, and will provide them with a great introduction to higher education so they can see if it's for them or if their benefits and energy would be better applied to a trade school or apprenticeship program or something.

Now I just need to work on getting them to convince their wives to stop falling for multi-level marketing scams on Facebook. The struggle is real folks.
posted by Man Bites Dog at 5:13 PM on August 31, 2016 [11 favorites]

srs question: what are the good, expensive for-profit schools?

Kendall College in Chicago has a good reputation, especially its Culinary Arts program. Some well-known chefs are graduates of that program.
posted by SisterHavana at 12:13 AM on September 1, 2016

There are a bunch of culinary schools that are like this. There's quite a bit of debate in the industry over whether they're worth it. Traditionalists in favor of them point out that you'll learn a ton of stuff at the Culinary Institute of America and get to network with major names in the industry. Those opposed agree but emphasize that the odds are pretty good you'll be graduating with tens of thousands of dollars of debt and a job with abysmally low wages.
posted by middleclasstool at 9:02 AM on September 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Right now, the business model of for-profit schools is to take government subsidies (in the form of government financial aid/loan programs) and (for the most part) provide sub-par services.

It helps to think of the students as the product, rather than the customer. In that light, the government is basically paying the school to train good, productive citizens. Good citizens cost less because they need fewer social services and generate more tax revenue through better jobs and more spending. Also because good, thoughtful, productive citizens is better for the general welfare of the state.

An adjunct from the school I graduated from told my class explicitly that the school thought of the students as the product. Too much of that focus was on the employment end of that, in my opinion, but it's not a terrible way to view things as long as your goal is to produce a high quality "product".
posted by VTX at 6:09 AM on September 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

That's all folks!
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:43 PM on September 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Good summary in this NYT article, posted today.
posted by Melismata at 8:18 AM on September 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

If anyone thinks the non-profit schools aren't making money, you are very, very mistaken.
posted by LilithSilver at 1:05 PM on September 14, 2016

If anyone thinks the non-profit schools aren't making money, you are very, very mistaken.

...no one thinks that? We talk about it all the time, in threads about those institutions?

But, despite their flaws, those nonprofit educational institutions are about a million times better at providing a degree that is worth slightly more than the paper it is printed on. They also aren't as shamelessly predatory with targeting vulnerable populations and intentionally destroying their credit and their lives.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 5:50 AM on September 15, 2016 [3 favorites]