Are students attending for-profit institutions getting their money’s worth, especially compared to attending community college? I’ve tackled this question before. Now, another study commissioned by a for-profit college has appeared, claiming to fill gaps in our knowledge.
Since I only have a PowerPoint presentation of the findings to review, and my opinion is pretty well-expressed in other media coverage, I’ll just hit a few notes I’ve not yet seen mentioned elsewhere.
1. The authors want to claim that the for-profit sector is outpacing the capacity of community colleges to expand their enrollment. To back this up, the study compares recent enrollment growth in the two sectors. But they fail to mention the very different levels of overall enrollment: Community colleges enrolled approximately 1.2 million more students in 2009 than were enrolled in 2007. In comparison, there were 1.4 million students total in for-profit institutions in 2007. Growth is affected by the starting point, and obviously capacity is too. It’s harder to expand capacity when one’s already nearing capacity. Moreover, this kind of assertion ignores the fact that the expansion of community college enrollment depends on the availability of public resources — in comparison, the for-profit sector does not, and is correspondingly more nimble. Whether that’s a “good” thing is far from clear.
2. The study also argues that for-profit students realize greater wage gains from their investment. But they neglect the fact that community college students begin with higher earnings — and experience nearly the same dollar gains (over $7000). It is arguably more difficult to stimulate an increase in earnings for those who are better-off to begin with compared to someone who starts at minimum wage (e.g. to bring someone from $21K to $28K, compared to $15K to $22K).
3. The study also indicates that for-profit students do not appear to know less about debt than other students. Given that they take on more loans, from a wider range of sources, “not knowing less” is insufficient — if anything, the burden is on the for-profits to do a better than average job because their graduates incur more than average debt.
All that said, I applaud the for-profits for their willingness to consider hard facts and data. I’d like to see them provide longitudinal student-unit record data to independent researchers so we can begin to sort out some of the bigger, lingering questions about student learning and the like. Maybe that’s in the future.
6 Responses to For-Profits vs. Community Colleges—the Debate Continues
raywarren - April 2, 2010 at 7:24 am
The question of how for-profits expand relative to community colleges is also important.Majors that require physical laboratory or performance theaters require more capital investment than majors that are only computer/internet intensive. Students that require physical facilities such as machine shops and chemistry laboratories, or musical performance practice rooms and theaters with an instructor will probably find these facilities more easily at community colleges. During the next decade expansion of these facilities will be restricted at all schools by the economy.
director19 - April 2, 2010 at 10:08 am
Once again, the misperceptions of the community college folks vs. proprietary education are apparent.Expansion of proprietary colleges is a function of capital outlay, same as community colleges. We go to banks and investment groups vs. hanging on the State legislatures for funding. And yes, we spend a lot of investment dollars to provide the proper learning and training facilities. In fact, I just finished three major Cap-x projects into which I spent $500K to $750K. All labs are the envy of every educator who has visited including a number of community college folks.Bottom line is that we invest in technology that will help our graduates be successful in starting a career. And we help and encourage them into many positions. Our Career Services folks work very hard with the students and with businesses to ensure success. Most colleges, including and particularly community colleges, could care less about students completing or being placed.
intered - April 2, 2010 at 11:16 am
Thanks Sara.One potential shortcoming, unclear as to whether in the foundations of the study or in the early reporting, is the failure to distinguish between regionally and nationally accredited for-profit schools. There are material differences in inputs, environment, regulations, etc. between the two institutional types, even when they are delivering the same degree (e.g., AA).One reasonably clear shortcoming is the failure to define and analyze financial constructs that are most meaningful to the student. Such a calculation would include aggregate out-of-pocket costs while in school, cumulative loan values, and job opportunity costs associated with time-to-degree statistics. Other things being equal, a $24K AA degree that can be completed in 18 months will leave the student in a better financial situation at month 36 (or 48, etc.) than a $12K AA degree that takes 30 months to complete. We sometimes see shorter time-to-degree statistics in the career colleges than in community colleges. There are several factors but, in general, it has more to do with scheduling than with compression. For some students, the shorter time to degree is available at the community college. Either way, the factors are important to the student.Since there is an indirect focus on the taxpayer, we recommend that such studies estimate net taxpayer support under the two models. We have built such models for university level education but not for the AA level in which community and career colleges are compared. The models end up being more complex that one might imagine; the more deeply we examined the issue, the more hidden or obscure forms of taxpayer support we found. I doubt that it is much different in this case. Separately, we are seeing more examples of fruitful cooperation between the for-profits and community colleges. ————————–Robert W TuckerPresidentInterEd, Inc.www.InterEd.com
iduhpres - April 2, 2010 at 1:18 pm
The entire issue is falacious. Having been president of both community colleges and career(for-profit) colleges I can say that these comparisons do not help anyone, especially students. The bottom line is that a good college is a good college whether it uses fund accounting or cash accrual accounting.There are quite excellent comunity and career colleges. A bad college is a bad college and there are enough of them in both sectors though I have to say that the admission practices in some for-profit schools are arther unscrupulous and make all the career colleges look bad.
ophe07 - April 6, 2010 at 9:39 am
I agree with iduhpres. The comparison is silly and not helpful. They are two different sectors with different roles and missions. director19′s comment (“Most colleges, including and particularly community colleges, could care less about students completing or being placed.”) is beyond stupid and is nevertheless harmful and misleading. Please reframe from such ignorant generalizations.
11274135 - April 6, 2010 at 1:46 pm
If you are interested in education, the comparison is silly indeed. But if you are determined to prove that free markets do everything better than public agencies, the you will find such studies supportive of your campaign.