Posted on 10/04/2010 6:53:50 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
Last week, U. S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing on for-profit institutions. The perceived problem? A government-sponsored report on post-secondary education found that “only 16 percent of community college students borrow money; 95 percent of [students at] the for-profits borrow money and they borrow money at a higher amount than they do at the community colleges.” To Sen. Harkin, this is a problem. He stated at the end of the hearing: “Students are taking on too much debt, defaults are too high and students are having too much difficulty finding jobs or even completing their program of study.”
What Sen. Harkin fails to note is that, although students in for-profits are heavily dependent on federal aid, the schools themselves are not, in stark comparison to their non-profit peers. The Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CAP) found that direct government grants make up less than 10 percent of revenue for for-profits.
These schools also operate at a much lower overhead, the CAP study shows. Moreover, although for-profits make up 40 percent of schools, they account for more like 2 percent of students but the number enrolled in them has doubled over the past decade.
On Wednesday of that week, according to the New York Times, hundreds of students from for-profit colleges showed up at the Capitol to let the Senate know how they feel about the issue. They wore matching T-shirts reading “My education. My job. My choice.” It is not known if Sen. Harkin saw them or, if he did, understood where they were literally coming from.
Also left unclear is whether Sen. Harkin plans to focus any of his trademark ire on the proportionally greater waste in the world of nonprofit education.
Also left unclear......spare me.
A few years ago, Wayne LaPierre of The NRA stirred up a hornet's nest of righteous idignation from The Professional Left when he deigned to say that Leftists are comfortable with a "certain level of gun violence so-as to keep gun control alive as a campaign issue".
I would take that one step further and point out that The Left is also comfortable with a certain level of ignorance among attendees and graduates of our government schools so-as to keep that alive as a campaign issue as well.
People, take your kids out of Harkin-approved schools.
That being said, I don't really know what government can do about this, fools and their money are always parted.
Academia is no different than VISA and Mastercard; they find students who have little or no wisdom; and give them the opportuntiy to incur debt that they will carry a good chunk of their lives.
Consider, there are students who assume $250,000 in student debt and wind up with degrees (Wildlife Management, Theater, Child Development, Home Economics, etc) that lead to a career in which there is no practical way the student can hope to ever pay off their school loan.
Bankrupcy laws do not remove the debt the student incurs from his education. So, while the Gov’t is concerned about predatory credit card companies; they are turning a blind eye to the abuse of the academic system.
Academia is no different than VISA and Mastercard; they find students who have little or no wisdom; and give them the opportuntiy to incur debt that they will carry a good chunk of their lives.
Consider, there are students who assume $250,000 in student debt and wind up with degrees (Wildlife Management, Theater, Child Development, Home Economics, etc) that lead to a career in which there is no practical way the student can hope to ever pay off their school loan.
Bankrupcy laws do not remove the debt the student incurs from his education. So, while the Gov’t is concerned about predatory credit card companies; they are turning a blind eye to the abuse of the academic system.
This is aimed at not just for profit Universities and Colleges, but at “trade schools”
Massage School
Truck Driving School
Motorcycle Mechanics School
Computer Tech School
Medical Billing School
Barber/Hair Stylist School
School of Modeling
If you think you want to attend one of these, perform this simple test. Walk into your dream-job employer, school brochure in hand, and ask them “do you hire people with no experiance who have graduated from this school?”
for profit schools like the ivy league schools that charge huge tuition fees and have hundreds of millions of dollars in their trust funds.
or state schools that have bs programs like ethnic studies so they can suck dollars from naive students who will unlikely get a descent job with that degree.
and how about schools that deny instate tuition for americvan citizens but give it to illegal criminal aliens.
big education is a corrupt incestuous racket.
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