I’ve said this before and, sadly, will probably have to say it again, but it’s just astonishing how various people in higher education will respond to reports of poor student outcomes by arguing that it’s not their fault because they have no effect whatsoever on student outcomes. For example, in reacting to newly-released data showing that 3-year default rates at many for-profit colleges are extremely high, the chief DC lobbyist for for-profit colleges, Harris N. Miller, president of the Career College Association, had this to say:
“The only thing that explains default rate is the socioeconomic background” of the student. … “By using that as the metric of quality, you will always be discriminating against low-income students.”
You’d think the notion that an organization that charges a lot of money for a given service has no impact on what happens to the consumers who receive that service would be taken as an accusation, but for-profit colleges apparently see it as an excuse. Unless, of course, they don’t; here’s the president of a for-profit college quoted later in the same article:
Arthur E. Benjamin, chief executive of the for-profit institution [ATI Career Training Center], said that jump [in the size of the three-year default rate compared to the two-year default rate] largely reflects the fact that the center in Dallas stopped providing its former students with loan-counseling assistance after the two-year period. “As a result,” Mr. Benjamin said, “the three-year rate released is not reflective of what the rate would be had the institution continued to provide counseling and assistance to its students for the full three-year period.” In the future, he said, ATI will extend that counseling by another year and thereby “substantially” reduce its default rate for the new three-year measuring period.
So I guess the only thing that explains default rates is the socioeconomic background of the students and loan counseling and assistance? Fellas! Get your stories straight next time!
One Response to Career Colleges: ‘We Don’t Matter’
drtoddw - December 15, 2009 at 11:58 am
Having worked for the “dark side” in career colleges and now having returned to regionally acredited higher ed, I can say without equivocation that Career Colleges are the biggest rip-offs imaginable.The career colleges provide financial assistence through government secured loans to folks who cannot speak English, do not have a high school diploma, and are unable to complete a degree program without substantial “fudging” of academic standards – and will be placed in jobs in a “career related field” making barely above minimum wage – and wonder why they might not be able to re-pay loans totaling $30,000 or more for a nine month program.At the career college in Florida where I workded as the chief academic officer, the massage therapy program directors routinely complained of having to read the text in the classroom to their students because the students were unable to read. And, as you can imagine, the pass rate for licensure after graduation from that program was abysmal – the students could not read the test!Obviously, I have horror story after horror story – and I don’t want to condemn a whole industry based on my experiences with a few career colleges (but from what I can see, it deserves it) – and from everything I’ve seen and heard, it is really a mess! The admissions processes are solely profit driven. The retention efforts are totally about keeping people in school in order to collect their money. And career placement is a joke.I have no respect for that side of education and do not trust a single person I have met who claims that they are concerned about the students and their graduates. As long as the government-backed cash keeps flowing, they will say and do anything to put money in their pockets.