Why do people attend "for profit" universities?

[soliloquy]

Yes, people are discovering better options, but the decrease in enrollments escalated after federal scrutiny and media coverage. A lot of these alternative options have been around for a decade or more. For-profits might have filled a niche, but they aren't the pioneers of distance education as you said. There have been non-profits offering distance education options for decades including the Big 3. The for-profits just had bigger budgets for marketing. That's how they popularized distance education. They also admitted students who would normally be rejected by traditional schools or made to take remedial courses at CCs. My biggest issue with for-profits is that they take advantage of people who can barely read or write and people with learning disabilities.

I have a real life story I heard from one of my students. I teach at a for-profit. We got into a discussion of how to go about getting a peace officer's license if the police department you want to work for doesn't have an in-house academy. I told him about self-sponsoring through AACOG or San Antonio College (a community college) for about $2500. I also told him about the Texas grant that covers half of the tuition at SAC; and that if he had leftover financial aid from attending one of SAC's degree programs, he could use that to cover the rest of his academy tuition.

He gave me that dumbfounded look I'm used to seeing now. He took out $3,000 in loans and his parents took out $16,000 in loans for a certificate in CJ that doesn't directly lead to a job. He told me, "I could have put myself through the police academy for $2500 and be ready to apply for jobs instead of wasting $19,000 on a diploma." Then, we got into a discussion on how much it costs to attend the Alamo Community Colleges. I did explain how the CCs are subsidized by taxes, but he didn't care because I'm sure his parents pay taxes to subsidize these schools. He said, "Wow! $4,000 for an associates degrees which is a higher degree than this $19,000 CJ diploma? I feel duped." He said some other expletives I won't repeat here.

So how did he get into this situation? His mother felt like he needed to do something, so she saw our college on t.v. and made him enroll. No one in his family bothered to check into any of the community colleges, public universities, or even private non-profits in the area. They just thought it was normal to spend $19,000 on a certificate program. This student is also open to attending college online, which he is not doing now. While our college does offer the CJ program online, so do the Alamo Community Colleges.

That is very sad. I forget that there are people that just settle for the first option. I have always researched all of my options before making a decision so I'm always surprised when someone makes an expensive decision without thinking about there other options. I really wish there was more I could do to get the word out.

As a side bar one thing I love about this board is that everyone is willing to share how they obtained success in a given area. I find that in real life when people have reached success they are hesitant to share how they got there. It's one of the things I've never been able to understand. When I finish at charter Oak I will be very vocal about how it helped me. I never thought that I would be able to earn a bachelors degree and 1.5 years, although some of the time savings is because of pre-existing credit from my younger years.

[sanantone]

Actually, if you re-read my post (pasted in next sentence), I inferred that they are NOT the pioneers. "The "for-profits" didn't invent the model, but they successfully filled a niche market and in a way legitimized online learning". Perhaps I should have more clearly qualified my statement by saying the "helped legitimize online learning".

Maybe I could have been clearer. When I said "as you said," I meant that I was agreeing with your statement as you said it.

[TMW2010]

There is an old joke which says “education is the only product where most consumers are out to get as little as possible for their money” (Reynolds, 2014). Often they'll pay even more to get less, which many For-Profits will fill that requirement.

(The article is fairly interesting, too)

References

Reynolds, G. (2014, January 13). Higher education, lower standards. USA Today. Retrieved from Higher education, lower standards: Column