OT: U. of Phoenix has lost half of its students in the last five years

[9fold]

See the link. For-profit universities are struggling. People are waking up to fact that they are likely to end up with loads of debt and no job.

"Enrollment at America's largest for-profit university was about 460,000 students five years ago. Now it's 213,000."

U. of Phoenix

 

[daveM.]

Good, that place is a student loan rip off scheme IMO

NFM

 

[john4psu]

But they have their own stadium without having a football team unlike


some school that thinks it has won 27 national championships in football.

 

[Cletus11]

Employers do not value an on line degree very much anymore if not from a major university. University of Phoenix was a general scam that just took over on cyberspace what most people used to do at the local community college.

 

[PSUMINN]

I taught at one of these colleges...they all are...NM

*

 

[pandaczar12]

Everyone knows the old saying, if you can't get in to college, go to Pitt. Well U. of Phoenix's most famous alum is Larry Fitzgerald, someone who had trouble qualifying at Pitt, and never finished. So maybe people are making the connection....

If you can't get in to college, go to Pitt. If you can't handle Pitt, go to U. of Phoenix.

 

[ptomaselli]

regular colleges will fail as well: Sweet Briar

Sweet Briar College (Lynchburg, VA) is a college in the traditional sense in that it has a campus.

Sweet Briar College failure

 

[Evan Ceg]

The litmus test for a private, proprietary school must simply be, Do the graduates get jobs in their field of study or a closely-related field within six months of graduation? If the answer is yes, then the tuition charged is worth it. If the answer is no, then it's a bad consumer choice and the schools will suffer (like Univ of Phoenix) or close.

My problem with this argument is that we don't ask the not-for-profit higher education industry (and I use the word "industry" very deliberately) to report the same data. Yes, I can defend the liberal arts philosophy passionately and offer that higher education is about "life education," not about "job training," but that's not the assumption most parents take when sitting at their desk writing tuition checks.

If the proprietary education industry is required to report graduation results, and they should be, then the Penn States and Syracuses and Dickinson Colleges should be required to publicly report the same.

An organization is not inherently evil because it makes a profit and a not-for-profit organization is not inherently virtuous because it parades its mission focus.

 

[CoastFan]

Well stated.

Also, the cost of an education and the "quality" of an education may not have as tight a link as some might believe. One can look at the costs of the Ivy League schools and the success, statistically, that so many of those graduates enjoy, and conclude that the costs were worth it. The financial costs may very well be worth it, but what really is the cause and effect of Ivy educations and success in life?

A pundit once observed that the most important thing about going to Harvard was to prove that you could be admitted to Harvard. His point was that, by and large, the kids who get admitted to Harvard have either extraordinary academic abilities coupled with one or more noteworthy extracurricular achievements, or are extraordinarily well connected, or both. They very well would be successful in later life no matter what school they attended.

The typical suburban kid with high academic achievements (top 1 or 2%) without exemplary extracurriculars including athletic talent or connections, faces an extremely difficult time getting into Harvard, Yale, Princeton or (not an Ivy, but the point is the same) Stanford.

An interesting factoid I read several years ago was that less than 10% of the high school valedictorians who applied to Harvard, were accepted.

 

[Cletus11]

Not sure why the shot at trade schools. If anything, skilled tradesman (welders, electricians, mechanics, etc..) are in higher demand now then ever have been before. If my son had a real interest in becoming a skilled tradesman and was good at it, I would highly encourage him to take it up. If you take the money that you 'save' on a trade education plus the money that is made not going to 4 years of school, the math actually works out pretty good for the skilled tradesman. I know some high end electricians that easily make $100,000+ a year and have a ton of time off as they go from job to job and work 55-70 hour weeks for a 6-8 weeks and then make so much money they take a month off.

 

[scpsu76]

Fact: Highest starting salary average for a certificate or undergrad program at Penn State is for a welding certificate 2 year program at Penn Institute of Technology in Williamsport.

 

[Aoshiro]

Originally posted by Evan Ceg:
The litmus test for a private, proprietary school must simply be, Do the graduates get jobs in their field of study or a closely-related field within six months of graduation? If the answer is yes, then the tuition charged is worth it. If the answer is no, then it's a bad consumer choice and the schools will suffer (like Univ of Phoenix) or close.

My problem with this argument is that we don't ask the not-for-profit higher education industry (and I use the word "industry" very deliberately) to report the same data. Yes, I can defend the liberal arts philosophy passionately and offer that higher education is about "life education," not about "job training," but that's not the assumption most parents take when sitting at their desk writing tuition checks.

If the proprietary education industry is required to report graduation results, and they should be, then the Penn States and Syracuses and Dickinson Colleges should be required to publicly report the same.

An organization is not inherently evil because it makes a profit and a not-for-profit organization is not inherently virtuous because it parades its mission focus.

There is one difference, though, the owners of for-profit colleges are personally profiting (big time) from taxpayer subsidized loans and grants. This is why there must be a higher level of accountability. Personally, I think that it was a big mistake to allow government student loans to be used for tuition at for-profit schools.

 

[TPSU_Lion]

Education or not; the way of the world these days is that

companies are looking to hire people who are willing to work more for less money. More companies are hiring people that do not have a degree because the general notion is that an individual with a degree commands a higher salary/wage.

Whether you have someone with a degree or not, that person is still subject to your training for your individual companies policies and procedures. No way around that. But as a company, you'd rather pay someone $30k a year to start and maybe spend a little extra time training rather than starting someone with a degree out at $45k and still have to train them.

Chances are you wont spend the extra $15k you have saved on the person who doesn't hold a degree for extra training.

I've sat in on interviews where the majority of educated candidates were excluded because they would cost too much.

But the bigger issue is the cost of education and the cost of living is steadily increasing while wages are contining to fall or remain stagnant.