21–30 of 142 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When the discontinuation of federal prison article came up on hacker news I commented, "Now if we could only outlaw for-profit schools!"
What's wrong with someone educating people and making a profit while doing it?
This is incremental progress, it's just one school. But a crazy step in the right direction. For-Profit institutions are a plague on our nation (high-cost low-value educations) allowed to rise up out of the failings of our strained public institutions (not enough capacity to meet demand). What really blows my mind is that this seems to come after the justice department discontinues for profit federal prisons. It's li…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's wrong with someone educating people and making a profit while doing it?
Exactly, there are a lot of good private universities.
There's nothing wrong with for-profit schools in theory. It's a socio-economic problem. There's already so much money flowing through the US university system that the vast majority of for-profit schools are predatory institutions targeting lower-class, under-educated people. Their primary business model is to convince students to take out loans to pay for a white-collar education that won't make them any more employable.
Personally I don't think the government has the right to bar anyone from getting any kind of education. Yes, some of these are a shame, but the student might still learn something. And there's also the issue of time and scheduling. Many older people don't have the time to go to a traditional college and taking a 1 year program at night for a "2 year associates degree" fits them better. Even worse still, most of these…
I think the government has a right to ensure that the aid it pays out for an education is actually going towards an education, and not a front for siphoning federal aid for the enrichment of executives and shareholders.
So many public and private non-profit universities are going to wet themselves if anyone starts enforcing that rule. Ok, they don't have shareholders, but it's well documented that the increasing cost of university and college educations is largely driven by administrative overhead and not paying professors, adjuncts and lecturers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When the discontinuation of federal prison article came up on hacker news I commented, "Now if we could only outlaw for-profit schools!"
What's wrong with someone educating people and making a profit while doing it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When the discontinuation of federal prison article came up on hacker news I commented, "Now if we could only outlaw for-profit schools!"
What's wrong with someone educating people and making a profit while doing it?
I don't see a similar issue with for-profit schools. In order to attract students they need to to provide good education and foster a good reputation.
Personally I don't think the government has the right to bar anyone from getting any kind of education. Yes, some of these are a shame, but the student might still learn something. And there's also the issue of time and scheduling. Many older people don't have the time to go to a traditional college and taking a 1 year program at night for a "2 year associates degree" fits them better. Even worse still, most of these…
The government has no right to bar you from traveling. The government has no constitutional obligation to pay for your plane ticket.
What took so long? No seriously. With all the articles we read about predatory practices, and various TV segments, what takes so long for things to fall into place? I wonder if there is a good way to distribute information about school quality. And that applies to not-for-profit schools as well. Collect metrics, make sure you give them to the purchaser at decision time. Akin to labels on food. If the for-profit or no…
2007:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-10-18-col...
2008:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/graduates-193364-job-stud...
This year:
http://college.usatoday.com/2016/03/25/former-corinthian-col...
Unfortunately the damage done by these institutions is so great that it's ruined the credibility of getting many degrees or specialized training and all while saddling students with lifetime debt to the detriment of the national debt.
People really need to go to jail for this fraud. In some places I'm sure they are dragged out into the street and shot. I'm not advocating that . . . maybe one in the leg.
This is incremental progress, it's just one school. But a crazy step in the right direction. For-Profit institutions are a plague on our nation (high-cost low-value educations) allowed to rise up out of the failings of our strained public institutions (not enough capacity to meet demand). What really blows my mind is that this seems to come after the justice department discontinues for profit federal prisons. It's li…
In principle there's nothing wrong with for-profit schools which train people on specific job skills or certification programs. There are some valuable skills that non-profit community colleges can't practically teach. But still the federal government should only support financial aid for such schools if they demonstrate a high rate of job placement for students who complete the program.