Corinthian colleges are done

[defscarlett]

Corinthian Colleges to close all remaining campuses - Apr. 26, 2015

Corinthian's network of for-profit schools once included 100 campuses across the country, where about 74,000 students were enrolled. But since last July, the U.S. Department of Education has forced the company to close or sell off its locations over concerns about its high-interest loans and misleading information.

[ajs1976]

I wonder who will be next.

[Toastmaster]

Good, they should be closed. Having students drowning in debt for a worthless piece of paper should be a crime.

[Leherself]

Good. These people are predators - aggressively selling shoddy overpriced products to people who don't have the experience to know better.

That said, I'm really hoping the american attitude about education will start turning around. It's true that college *can* improve your employment prospects, but it's not a "get a job guaranteed" card. And "college is good" is not enough of a justification to go gazillions of dollars in debt, just so you can drop out 3/4 of the way through a program in underwater glue sniffing and get your name and face on yahoo news when you start whining about how unfair it all is.

I'm all for the intrinsic value of education, but you can't live in it or eat it so lets be realistic here.

[cookderosa]

they were MAJOR players. 120 campuses at one time I think.

[Prloko]

That said, I'm really hoping the american attitude about education will start turning around. It's true that college *can* improve your employment prospects, but it's not a "get a job guaranteed" card. And "college is good" is not enough of a justification to go gazillions of dollars in debt, just so you can drop out 3/4 of the way through a program in underwater glue sniffing and get your name and face on yahoo news when you start whining about how unfair it all is.

I'm all for the intrinsic value of education, but you can't live in it or eat it so lets be realistic here.

If you read between the lines from a lot of our politicians, you'll notice they realize this is not sustainable. They are beginning to push learning a trade or other skill like coding.

I listen to a lot of C-Span ( I love torturing myself), and there was one politician pointing to the fact that a journeyman welder can make $80-100K per year, but parents are pushing their kids into getting $100k degrees for jobs that don't exist. Pres Obama has been pushing coding, and I even heard a third politician speaking of learning to be a mechanic etc.

I've been thinking this for some time, trade schools are dying and colleges are becoming glorified trade schools as employers are unwilling to train.

Working with your hands is honorable, but these schools have been pushing people with no business being in "higher education" in to classes so that the schools can get some of the student loan pie.

[Prloko]

Here is a sample of the quality of education that Corinthian and its colleges provided:

An investigation found that Heald College paid temp agencies to hire its graduates to work on its own campuses for as little time as two days so that it could count those students as employed. Heald failed to disclose that its placement rates counted those students whose employment began prior to graduation, and in some cases prior to even enrolling at the school, according to the Department of Education.

It also says Heald College sometimes inaccurately reported on graduates who found a job related to their field of study. In one example, it counted a 2011 accounting graduate who was working at a Taco Bell.
A Corinthian spokesman called the allegations "highly questionable" and "unsubstantiated."

U.S. fines Corinthian Colleges $30 million - Apr. 14, 2015