For Profit Colleges

I'm reading Lower Ed, a book about for-profit colleges. The book really hits home because I taught at a for-profit college for four years. In general, as an employee, I actually, for the most part, enjoyed my experience. I was only in the classroom about 6 hours a week although I did also have to teach online. And we taught year round. So the work load wasn't incredibly intense, but it was constant. I enjoyed the course I taught. And, of course, my experience happened in Orlando. Cocoa Beach was an hour a way. There was a great nature trail that I hiked daily. My school gave corporate-subsidized memberships to the YMCA. I participated in a church group, and I took advantage of the Buddhist meditation center in Orlando. I volunteered with Amnesty International, and I was able to work on several political campaigns, including that of one of the people trying to take Grayson's seat after he left to run for the Senate. I also interviewed 48 students for my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania.

My four years as an instructor in Florida were wonderful.

Yet there were things that made me wonder. Our institution admitted everybody. Now, so does the community college I teach at now. But there's a huge difference. Community colleges were designed, during the Great Society, to be a point of entry to higher education for people who were not traditional college students. This point of entry was designed to be low-cost. For-profit colleges are not low-cost. And I think one of the things that bothered me was that my students were getting themselves into huge amounts of debt. And student loan debt, unlike any other kind of debt, cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. I hated to see some of my students (not all) leave after their program with few job prospects and debt loads that could prove to be lethal.

The author of the book I'm reading kind of hits the nail on the head. Personally, I taught at a for-profit targeting the entertainment industry. For the right kind of student--who had skills and came from a family with money--the program I taught in could be useful. My concern was always the very unconnected, lower-middle-class student who chased his bliss. While I'm about following one's dreams--God knows I have--the reality is that if you don't have certain skill levels, parental financial backing for the first couple years after college, and some decent connections, you're going to have trouble in the entertainment industry.

I never really had a problem with the quality of instruction. I offered a pretty rigorous course. And my colleagues did, too. For a writing program, we were pretty strong. The real problem was the recruiting. The author of Lower Ed correctly makes the point that for-profits recruit differently than  traditional schools do.  For my school, many students responded to banner-ads and then got called by a recruiter. I knew some of the recruiters. They were aggressive. They have to be. Their job depends on closing. They encouraged students to chase their dreams. But some of these students--not all; some were very talented--didn't in my opinion have the skills to succeed. But they could sign the loan paper work.  This is precisely the problem: the way they recruit. This kind of recruitment is creating the loan bubble and some real distress. If your parents made 200k a year and could pay your bills and you did well and you had some connections, what we offered wouldn't be a waste. Indeed, it could be pretty valuable. But most students I knew (and there were exceptions) didn't meet those criteria. It's not even the cost of the school I taught at. My undergraduate education was expensive. But my family was prepared for those costs. And, no, I didn't come from an  incredibly wealthy family. I'm not sure that  most of my students came from families that could help them.    

As I said, as an employee of a for-profit, I was treated fairly well. The benefits were not bad, and the salary was pretty good. But I always had the sinking feeling that I was earning my keep on the backs of some very vulnerable people.