Recently, I signed on as a part-time remote academic editor for a for-profit higher education institution located somewhere in the Midwest. It’s not a big outfit. It resembles the university I attended back in 2005, before they sold out to a management company and started taking federal student loan money. I thought taking this job would help me stay connected to the institutional side of academics.
Over the course of a month, I have edited three chapters for three dissertators. What I’ve learned is that this higher education institution—no doubt in the name of customer service—has inadvertently erected barriers to dissertator success. Arbitrary guidelines have become obstacles—I’ll choose the three obstacles I’ve seen so far: using first person, choosing a document title, and receiving conflicting advice from checklists and templates.
Why can’t I use first-person?
Despite some clear, logical guidance on use of first person in the latest edition of the American Psychological Association’s publication manual, the dissertators at this institution are not allowed to refer to themselves in first-person more than twice in Chapter 3 (their Methodology chapter), and only in the section entitled “Role of the Researcher.” (That section is typically only found in qualitative and mixed-methods dissertations. I don’t know what quantitative dissertators are going to do.) Nowhere else. And preferably only once. Definitely not more than twice. We are counting!
What’s more, dissertators are not allowed to refer to themselves in the third-person at all. Typically, in academic writing, authors who aren’t allowed to use first-person will use third-person, usually “the researcher.” It’s very common to see statements such as “The researcher will employ a qualitative methodology” or “The researcher found that 40% of the moon is made of green cheese.” You’ve no doubt seen this in journal articles and published dissertations. It’s clunky, I agree, but it is well-accepted that we know who the author is referring to when we see “the researcher.”
This school, my new employer, does not allow “the researcher.” That leaves us with passive voice. That results in sentences such as “a qualitative methodology was employed” (apparently by some anonymous entity who will remain in the shadows). Lucky for me, APA style has loosened up since the 6th edition. Now we can write “The study found that 40% of the moon is made of green cheese” and not get busted for anthropomorphism. What a relief.
Still, my point is . . . what is my point? Every institution has its quirky guidelines. Somewhere in the annals of someone’s academic experience, some administrator got reamed for using first-person pronouns. Hence forward, no more “I,” “me,” “my,” or “mine.” Forget about claiming their role as the researcher. And thus, their personal shame has morphed into a prohibition codified into a dissertation template that disregards the lovely energy of current APA style.
Why can’t I write my own title?
This institution designates a specific approach to writing the dissertation title. The title should capture the essence of the study, mention the target population or sample groups, and should include the methodology. I have no problem with mentioning the population or sample, but unless the dissertation is about the methodology itself, it is often a waste of keyword real estate to include the methodology in the title.
A common title among dissertators at this for-profit institution seems to be something like Examining perceptions of colorful cheese on the moon: A qualitative phenomenological study. I’ve only edited three chapters so far, but “qualitative phenomenological study” seems to be trending. My Dissertation Chair would have shredded my submission, saying, get a clue, qualitative and phenomenological are redundant. Duh. My Chair was a methodologist. I don’t get the sense that the authors of this template and checklist are deeply steeped in methodology. I think they are deeply steeped in a desire to streamline the process of writing a dissertation so that even nonacademics can produce an acceptable manuscript, graduate, and get busy paying back their credit card loans.
This is what happens when institutions attempt to control for quality. In a better world, controlling for quality should apply to the customer service students receive from administrative staff. A quality-focused student-centric approach should include responsive faculty, easy-to-navigate learning platforms, technology that works, and a library that has what dissertators need. Controlling for dissertation quality by requiring all dissertators to write dissertations to conform with an arbitrary set of guidelines is not likely to produce robust studies that help practitioners improve their practices.
What should I do if there are conflicting guidelines?
Conflicting guidelines are the bane of an editor’s existence. They aren’t good for dissertators either. So much time and energy is wasted in tracking down the “right” format. In the dissertation checklist, dissertators learn that paragraphs can have more than three sentences, but not fewer. However, in the dissertation template, dissertators find out there is no set number of sentences in a paragraph. They should simply avoid paragraphs that consist of one sentence or more than one page. A Chair who follows the checklist will annoy the dissertator who follows the template. Who is right? The Chair, of course. Gatekeepers are always right, even when they are wrong.
Here’s another one. The checklist requires the dissertator to format the research questions with a half-inch indent. No, wait, according to the template, format the research questions with a first-line indent. Well, whatever we do, make sure you write out the number, like this: Research Question One. No, make that Research Question 1—follow APA style and use the numeral. This conflict is small, like fly crap in the pepper. However, when time is a factor, a dissertator can waste a lot of that precious resource trying to get guidance on something as ridiculous as formatting the research questions. It would be nice if we could simply follow APA style, but no such luck. When the gatekeeper prefers the “official” checklist and not the “official” template, we go with the gatekeeper’s preference.
What can a dissertator do?
These examples show what happens when an institution tries to manage and control quality by making all dissertations fit a specific format and style. If the required style complied with APA style, at least we could all (mostly) agree on a format. However, when institutional requirements depart from APA style, and moreover, if the requirements conflict among internal guidelines, what is a dissertator (or editor) to do?
I studied academic quality at several for-profit career colleges. I was working for one at the time, and I was peeved at what I perceived to be a tendency for administrators and owners to ignore education quality in their rabid pursuit of profit. For-profits want to operate like a business—efficient, lean, and profit-centric. It’s Business Administration 101. The owners and managers have taken the management courses. It ought to work. Except education is not transportation. Dissertators are not cars. Helping students earn their degrees is not like running a just-in-time assembly line. In the context of doctoral-level education, for-profits do a great disservice to their “customers” when they pretend that a one-size-fits-all approach to writing and formatting dissertations is going to produce robust dissertations that the institution can proudly publish.
What can a dissertator do?
Read like a maniac. Read dissertations in your field published by for-profit, private nonprofit, and public institutions. You will start to sense the guardrails that might or might not exist at your institution.
Talk to your Chair. Ask about style preferences. Get it in writing.
Study your institution’s templates and handbooks. Watch for discrepancies. I guarantee you will find some. Pay attention to both content requirements and formatting requirements.
Study the APA style guide (or whatever style guide you are required to use). Again, watch for discrepancies between your institution’s guidelines and APA style. And your Chair’s preferences.
Try not to take it personally. Jump through the hoops as best you can. Remember, this is just the beginning of your academic career. You have lots of time to create your own style.
Need an APA template for your dissertation proposal or manuscript? Mine are free. Free of charge and free of bugs. Download one or all four here.
It’s a sad day for educators who want to hold for-profit colleges
accountable for program quality, student debt repayment, and student employment
outcomes.
This week, Betsy DeVos, U.S. Secretary of Education,
officially repealed the Obama administration’s 2014 gainful employment rule. The
rule has required providers of career and certificate programs (many operated
by for-profit institutions) to prove their graduates could find gainful
employment. If graduates’ employment rates fell below certain standards, the
institutions risked losing access to federal student loan funding, the
lifeblood of the for-profit sector. For the past two years, the Trump
administration has refused to carry out the rule, even though it has the force
of law (Kvaal & Duncan, 2019). Now the rule is repealed, effective immediately.
DeVos and others have offered several arguments for the
repeal of the rule, including freedom of choice, lack of fairness, and higher
education purposes and outcomes. I offer some thoughts based on responses of
educators, economists, and my own experience as a former teacher at a
for-profit career college and a graduate of a for-profit university.
Students should be “free to choose”
DeVos and others have claimed that students should be “free
to choose” their higher education institutions (Kvaal & Duncan, 2019). DeVos
has used this argument when discussing schoolchildren and school choice. “Our
country needs students to be freed to pursue the education that will unlock
their potential and unleash their creativity” (DeVos, Cruz, & Byrne, 2019,
para. 21). However, the gainful employment rule applies to higher education institutions,
specifically those that offer vocational programs.
Students who are contemplating enrolling in a college or
university are presumably adults with autonomy to choose. Maybe they don’t
receive or can’t find accurate guidance on differences between for-profit and
nonprofit institutions, but the information is available. Nobody held a gun to
my head when I enrolled in a for-profit university. I didn’t do my homework.
Thus, this argument is specious.
For-profits face an “unfair playing field”
DeVos and others have claimed the gainful employment rule “discriminates
against the for-profit colleges that offer many career programs because it does
not apply to all colleges” (Kvaal & Duncan, 2019, para. 3). Some have said
the rule unfairly targets the for-profits, thereby creating an “uneven playing
field” (Vedder, 2019, para. 4).
Critics have pointed out the absurdity of this argument. “It’s a bizarre complaint, like saying that it is unfair that there are different traffic laws for trucks than for cars. For-profit schools are structured differently, in ways that make them more hazardous” (Cao & Shireman, 2019, para. 2). Having taught at a for-profit college and earned an advanced degree at a for-profit university, I have firsthand knowledge that for-profit education is different from nonprofit education in some fundamental and disappointing ways. (See my previous contribution on the topic here.)
In place of the gainful employment rule, the Department of
Education has created the “College Scorecard” to give students information on each
program’s debt and earning prospects (Green, 2019). However, wading through
reams of data on program outcomes is not easy. The gainful employment rule
required all providers of career education (for-profit and nonprofit) to
disclose program outcomes on their websites. Had that data been available to me
in 2005, I might have made a different choice about applying to a for-profit
university. Students need guidance. Unfortunately, nontraditional students often
rely on the advice of someone they perceive as an expert, “frequently the
school recruiter” (Cao & Shireman, 2019, para 40).
Some proponents of eliminating the gainful employment rule
have claimed that nonprofits have their share of bad apples too (Vedder, 2019, para.
5). Further, the gainful employment rule did not account for other programs with
poor employment rates and high debt, such as “some liberal arts degrees” (Green,
2019, para. 15).
However, comparing for-profits to nonprofits without
drilling down to compare institutions at the program level is not helpful. In other
words, comparing bad employment outcomes at “public universities” to bad employment
outcomes at career colleges perpetuates misinformation.
It’s laughable to imagine comparing the my for-profit career
college employer to the for-profit university I attended for my doctorate. It’s
equally ridiculous to compare either one to the public universities I attended
for my undergraduate degrees. We may have complaints about any institution, but
when comparing institutions, we should try to compare apples to apples. It’s
not about “fairness”; it’s about accuracy.
This argument is based on a faulty comparison.
There’s more to higher education than just employment
Some supporters of rescinding the gainful employment rule
have claimed higher education is about more than getting job skills; good
schools teach “virtue, civic responsibility, and other things” (Vedder, 2019,
para. 3). The argument is that the gainful employment rule failed to account
for “factors other than the quality of an education that could affect students’
earning potential” (Green, 2019, para. 15). Therefore, trying to regulate
employment outcomes with the gainful employment rule misses the ostensible point
and purpose of higher education, which is more than just students getting jobs
and paying back their loans. Moreover, critics claim, the higher earnings of
college graduates are not entirely attributable to college education; some
students would have earned more without the college degree (Vedder, 2019, para.
2).
I agree, higher education is about more than just employment
and loan payback outcomes. I also agree that some students will succeed and
thrive no matter what type of institution they attend. However, again,
comparing career and technical colleges that provide job skills (whether they are
for-profits and nonprofits) with, say, research universities (whether they are for-profits
and nonprofits) is a faulty basis for deciding for-profit institutions don’t
require scrutiny.
The evidence seems clear. Of all the colleges that have
closed since 2013, 95.5% of them were for-profit institutions (Newton, 2018,
para. 9). Further, the majority of students who defaulted on their student
loans three to five years after graduation went to for-profit colleges (Newton,
2018, para. 9).
In fact, students entering associates degree programs
derived large, statistically significant benefits from obtaining certificates
or degrees from public and nonprofit institutions but did not gain such
benefits from for-profit institutions (Lang & Weinstein, 2012).
The federal government should have no role
DeVos and others have claimed the federal government should not
be regulating universities at all (Vedder, 2019). The job of regulating higher
education should be left to the states. However, the federal government funds
the for-profit sector in the form of student loans, and these loans come from taxpayers. The purpose of the
gainful employment rule was to hold accountable the institutions that receive
90 percent of their funding from taxpayer dollars. It’s good governance to
ensure taxpayer funds are spent wisely and that bad actors are invited to
improve their programs.
Just because the current administration has decided to
rescind the gainful employment rule does not absolve schools of their legal
obligation to provide students a worthwhile education that leads to gainful
employment (Scott, 2019). However, without this rule, for-profit colleges with
questionable program quality are free to charge high tuition for “worthless
credentials that leave students with insurmountable debt” (Scott, 2019, para. 3).
By repealing the rule, the U.S. Department of Education can
no longer use its most potent accountability measure—the loss of federal aid (Green,
2019). The collapses of ITT Tech and Corinthian Colleges left thousands of
students unable to pay back their loans, leaving taxpayers on the hook (NPR,
2018).
One part of the gainful employment rule already been implemented
has identified hundreds of failing programs, many of which closed after they failed
to meet the new standards (Green, 2019). In the Education Department’s first
assessment of debt-to-earnings ratios for college graduates, “about 98 percent
of programs that failed to meet standards for earning power were for-profits”
(Green, 2019, para. 15).
To say the federal government should have no role seems
lacking in basic stewardship.
The gainful employment rule was intended to put for-profits out of business
Finally, some have claimed the aim of the gainful employment
rule was to put the for-profits out of business because of a misguided belief
that “people should not profit off of learning” (Vedder, 2019, para. 4).
Whether you believe education management companies are capable of providing
academic quality—or not—this claim is quickly debunked with a quick review of
the gainful employment rule itself. The purpose of the rule was not to put
for-profit institutions out of business; it was to protect students from
predatory recruiting practices, poor employment outcomes, and loss of taxpayer
dollars.
Critics of the rule have suggested that all higher education
institutions be held accountable for their academic and employment outcomes. In
fact, the gainful employment rule was aimed at institutions with the worst
outcomes: colleges that offered vocational programs. The rule applied to both
for-profit and nonprofit providers.
I would call this argument once of those red herrings that we
resort to occasionally in discussions about things we find uncomfortable.
Closing thought
If we could be sure that academic and employment outcomes
were similar across all vocational programs, then we would have the luxury of comparing
institutions by results instead of profit-making status. However, as long as
the worst outcomes can be attributed to the for-profits, rules are needed to protect
students and taxpayers. Unfortunately, that rule was just repealed, and with it
all the protections it offered. R.I.P., gainful employment rule.
=======================
Sources
Cao, Y., & Shireman, R. (2019, July 1). Betsy DeVos’s shameful repeal of the gainful
employment rule. The Century Foundation. Retrieved from https://tcf.org/content/commentary/betsy-devoss-shameful-repeal-gainful-employment-rule/?agreed=1
DeVos, B., Cruz, T., & Byrne, B. (2019, February 28). America’s
students deserve freedom to choose their education options: DeVos, Cruz, Byrne
(Opinion piece). USA Today. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/02/28/trump-school-choice-students-education-options-scholarships-tax-credits-column/3002868002/
Green, E. (2019, June 28). DeVos repeals Obama-era rule
cracking down on for-profit colleges. New
York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/us/politics/betsy-devos-for-profit-colleges.html
Lang, K., & Weinstein, R. (2012, June). Evaluating student outcomes at for-profit
colleges (NBER Working Paper No. 18201). Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/papers/w18201
Newton, D. (2018, December 9). 20,000 more reasons to never
go to a for-profit school. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2018/12/09/20000-more-reasons-to-never-go-to-a-for-profit-school/#390daff230e5
NPR. (2018, December 14). Defeated in court, Education Dept. to cancel $150 million of student
loan debt. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2018/12/14/676755770/the-education-department-is-canceling-150-million-of-student-loan-debt
Scott, B. (2019, July 2). Scott statement on final gainful employment rule (Press release).
Retrieved from https://bobbyscott.house.gov/media-center/press-releases
Vedder, R. (2019, July 1). Betsy DeVos is right about
gainful employment. Forbes. Retrieved
from https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardvedder/2019/07/01/betsy-devos-is-right-about-gainful-employment/#2420a6d27315
Multiple times since the 1970s, legislators have tried to block the illegal and unethical behavior of some for-profit higher education institutions, especially those that provide vocational education. Each time, consumers get out the pitchforks, lawmakers pass laws, the culprits promise to shape up, and then people forget about it. However, loopholes and lax oversight seem to motivate owners of for-profit colleges to revert to their bad behavior. What is driving the machine that keeps burdening vocational students with loans half can’t repay? I think it is greed.
Feeling gaslighted by for-profit higher education
I come by my opinions of for-profit higher education honestly. I earned my doctorate at an online for-profit university, where I studied academic quality in vocational colleges for my dissertation topic. While I was working on my degree, I taught at a for-profit vocational college (hence, my inspiration for studying academic quality in vocational colleges—in other words, I had a bone to pick).
Before I started teaching at one, I didn’t know much about
for-profit colleges—we used to call these technical
colleges. I assumed technical colleges targeted students who wanted career
advancement, new skills, maybe a certificate in phone system repair, automotive
arts, or cosmetology. Technical college was a different type of education from
the public universities I knew. Not bad, just different.
Then I was hired as an adjunct to teach marketing to four
students in an associates of science (AAS) marketing program for a small
private for-profit career college. The four students were the only students in
the entire marketing program! A few terms later, the administrator needed me to
teach MS Word. Next thing I know, I’m teaching marketing, management, communications,
all the MS Office programs (even Access, which was completely foreign to me),
keyboarding, 10-key math, and a bizarre medical software program I had never
heard of, let alone used. I did my best to stay one chapter ahead of the class,
trying to teach them what they were there to learn. It seems remarkable to me
the gig lasted almost ten years, considering what I observed and did while I
was employed there.
To add to my difficulties, classrooms at the career college were
shabby and rundown. Materials, computers, and software programs were
out-of-date and poorly maintained. Teachers were a dime a dozen, bodies to be
plugged into class schedules with no regard for accreditation guidelines, let
alone teacher expertise. Students were vulnerable marks to be enrolled and
forgotten.
By the time the vocational school closed the campus and laid
us all off in 2013, I was heartily sick of for-profit higher education. I
quickly finished my dissertation and moved on . . . or so I thought.
They’re back
Like mice in the attic, the for-profit higher colleges are once again rustling around in the news. On Tuesday, Robert Shireman (2019) from the Century Foundation testified to a Congressional oversight committee about the ongoing dangers of for-profit higher education institutions that focus on profits at the expense of academic quality.
Why should we care? For-profits enroll mostly nontraditional
students, and these student populations tend to be vulnerable. At the career
college, most of our vocational students would not have succeeded at a public
community college, let alone at a four-year university. Some had tried and
failed. Some had learning disabilities. Some were former or current drug addicts.
Most were low-income single mothers in their 30s and 40s who supported their
kids on the student loan money left over after the college skimmed tuition off
the top.
Students who enroll at for-profit institutions borrow a disproportionate amount of student loan money, compared to students who attend public and private nonprofit institutions. By law, up to 90% of a for-profit higher education institution’s revenue can come from student loans (The 90-10 rule, n.d.). For-profit borrowers default at twice the rate of public two-year borrowers. In fact, 52% of students who attend for-profit colleges default on their student loans after 12 years, compared to 26% of students who attend other types of institutions (Scott-Clayton, 2018). Why does that matter? Student loans are tax-payer funded. That means our taxes are helping line the pockets of for-profit college owners and shareholders.
The incentive to do the wrong thing
Lining owners’ pockets wouldn’t be so bad as long as they
also gave students good academic quality that translated into careers, better
jobs, promotions, higher paychecks, or preparation for higher education. We all
want students to succeed, no matter what kind of school they attend. It’s good
for society. But providing academic quality costs money—think up-to-date books
and computer systems, think reasonable class schedules, think toilets that
don’t overflow, AC that works, rugs that aren’t frayed, and teachers who are
qualified to teach and allowed to teach their expertise.
For-profit colleges have enticed students into enrolling with fraudulent promises and deceptive advertising (US GAO, 2010). If students graduate, they often cannot be placed in the jobs the admissions reps promised them, and thus they cannot earn the healthy incomes they would need to pay back their student loans. Even if they don’t graduate, their student loans will likely follow them for at least twenty-five years—it is difficult to discharge student loans by declaring bankruptcy (US DOE Federal Student Aid, n.d.). Thus, victims of corporate greed and their own naiveté, students might be worse off than if they had never enrolled.
Some students can get relief in the form of loan forgiveness, depending on the type of loan and field of study, although if the Trump administration has its way, that program will be eliminated for 2020 (Friedman, 2019).
Even after my experiences teaching and learning in
for-profit higher education, I have wanted to believe that for-profit colleges
and universities can be good. For a while, I believed for-profit higher
education was like fire—good or bad depending on how we use it: Fire can keep
the house warm or burn it down. In the wrong hands, yes, some students can get
hurt, but those are the exceptions, right?
Since 2016, one hundred for-profit colleges and universities have closed or merged with some other entity, compared to about twenty public institutions in the same period (Busta, 2019). That’s just since 2016! Two of the biggest closures—ITT Technical Institute and Corinthian Colleges—abandoned thousands of students who now seek redress from the Department of Education (NPR, 2018).
Converting to nonprofit status
These headlines aren’t new: Like the namesake in a game of Whack-a-Mole, the issue of for-profit higher education seems to reappear every few years. The corporate greed of for-profit colleges doesn’t seem to evaporate, even when consumers catch on to the scam. “The public has gotten smarter as a result of the big scandals at for-profit schools: enrollment at for-profits has dropped substantially from its peak in 2010” (Shireman, 2018).
Human greed is
relentless. When lawmakers and the Obama administration put up roadblocks, the
strategists at the for-profit colleges and universities addressed their
for-profit status head on. Now many are apparently converting their
institutions to nonprofit status.
“Unfortunately, the conversion to nonprofit status is susceptible to abuse by covert for-profits—schools that obtain the nonprofit label yet continue operating like for-profit institutions—leaving consumers and taxpayers more vulnerable than ever” (Shireman, 2018, for-profit colleges hiding in a regulatory blind spot).
I am not surprised.
Apparently, it isn’t that easy for a for-profit institution to change its
spots. Converting to a nonprofit requires owners to shift away from their
single-minded quest for profits toward providing actual education, something
they seem unable or unwilling to do.
Their strategy has
nothing to do with delivering academic quality; they seem driven purely by
greed. What other motive could compel them to undertake what must be a massive
amount of paperwork to avoid laws that would limit their profitability?
Good people working in a bad system
Just because for-profit college owners might be corrupt
doesn’t preclude students receiving quality education. I met a lot of teachers
at the career college. With few exceptions, the teachers cared deeply about helping
students succeed.
As vocational education instructors, we did the best we
could with what we had. Whether we had one student in a class or thirty,
whether we used textbooks ten years out of date, whether we still taught Office
2003 in an Office 2010 world, whether the AC was working, we showed up and did
our best. We didn’t make more or less money according to enrollment; however,
our jobs did depend on student evaluations and student enrollment. Receiving
too many negative student comments could get us terminated. Unhappy students
were vocal:
“Her tests were impossible!” (I did
comprehensive reviews before every test).
“She gave us too much work” (The syllabus set
the lessons; the school designed the syllabus).
“She graded too hard” (I admit, I did, at first.
Later, bludgeoned by student complaints, my standards declined to an
embarrassing low).
I knew I wasn’t the only instructor dissatisfied with
conditions at the career college. I chose to study academic quality as my dissertation
topic. I asked ten faculty members to define academic quality as they
understood it, based on their experiences teaching in for-profit on-ground
vocational programs.
To my surprise, few of the faculty members had anything truly
harsh to say about the owners or shareholders of the for-profit institutions
for which they worked. Despite my reassurances that their responses would be
kept completely anonymous and confidential, when they did mention profit as a
potential issue, they were polite, circumspect, and even apologetic for
bringing it up. Here are some excerpts, lightly edited for readability, of
their opinions on problems with for-profit vocational education.
“The customers in the profit world are
definitely the students . . . another set of customers are
the businesses. They are looking to hire from that student pool. Because again,
we are delivering them a product. Students are a commodity that will hold up
and stand the test of time.”
“I feel like the mission of the owners, the shareholders,
they’re more in line with profit, versus um, seeing students succeed to get jobs
in their field.”
“The for-profit schools were poised to capture
huge market share when the economy failed but I’m not sure they did it right. Some
schools were lying about what [students] could make . . . that
really ended up getting media attention, so the good schools that were doing
things on the up and up, it made them all look bad.”
“For-profit schools should not cost twice what a
public school does for the same education. And I will say, that is one place I
struggled in teaching [here]. I knew those medical assisting students could
have gone to [local public community college], but they didn’t have faith in
themselves, that they could do community college. They felt they had to go
vocational. They could have gotten the same education for half the price.”
“A few years ago, [the owners] said they had to
be making at least a 15% profit. Well, I understand business, and I understand
profit. But if we focus on the wrong thing, we’re not focusing on our
customers. If we have a great product [students/degrees], [profits will]
happen. I’m not an administrator, but to me they look at it backwards.”
“Well, in some respects, I guess we’ve set
ourselves up, because in the past we have concentrated on getting the numbers
in the door and not caring about anything else.”
“I think one of the downfalls of being a
for-profit is that we don’t always regulate the types of students we bring in.
So we have students who want to go to school, but we . . . drive
them into the wrong area. I teach criminal justice and a lot of times we get
students with criminal records . . . we can’t place them.
Period. Which affects our placement for the program, which impacts the
teachers, because if we don’t place students, the teachers get let go and the
program gets shut down.”
“Owners are more concerned about, you know, the
business of being [in business], especially in a for-profit. They have a lot of
business things to consider, which I understand, because I was in business
myself and I know that you have to run the business like a business. But on the
other hand, what is their philosophy of education, I mean they have to have
that deep down inside, that’s what they need to be, they have to realize why
did they start this educational institution anyway?”
I am positive the owners at the college where I worked and
at the university I attended did not start out intending to defraud students.
I’m sure they launched with a desire to help people who sought career skills
and advanced degrees. Success prompted them to add more courses, more branches,
more teachers, more students, until enrolling students who qualified for Title
IV student loan funds became the holy grail.
Removing the profit motive from higher education
The more I learn about for-profit education, from vocational to graduate school, the more I suspect the profit motive cannot coexist successfully with the education motive.
School leaders should focus on earning a profit or they should focus on providing quality education. I used to think schools could do both but now I don’t think
so.
There’s nothing wrong with seeking to make profits; lots of
great companies are profit-seeking entities. But education isn’t a product, and
students aren’t customers—at least, not in the way GE makes and sells toasters.
For-profit higher education companies are in business to
make money. They do that by providing education—education just happens to be
their “product.” When all decisions are about the bottom line, selling more
units is the path to higher revenue, and the incentive to cut costs is strong.
From a profit-making perspective, I understand the drive to
enroll more students (sell more seats) even if the new students have no
intention of learning anything, let alone graduating and finding jobs. Putting
butts in seats uncorks a tidal wave of student loan money. The quality of butts
is not a concern.
After WWII, some creative entrepreneurs recognized the sweet
spot, the unmet demand for quick, flexible education options for nontraditional
students who needed a shift, an upgrade, a new career, a new life. For-profit
colleges’ best target audiences are military personnel, single moms, people of
color, students with learning disabilities . . . anyone who
for whatever reason could not or would not make it at a traditional public
community college or state university. These vulnerable populations are easily
swayed by promises of great jobs, great incomes, great lives—in short, the
American dream.
Now that there are so many more options for working adults
to earn reputable degrees from public and private nonprofit institutions, I’m
guessing the trend of declining enrollments will continue at the for-profits.
When their educational “product” costs twice as much as the public nonprofits
offering, they won’t be able to compete.
Knowing what I know now
Greed is a sticky emotion that defies classification. Is
greed good or is greed bad? Greed has probably motivated many of humanity’s
great achievements, not to mention our survival instincts. However, I fear
greed will be our downfall. I’d like to say it’s not for me to judge—I’d like
to step away from the entire uncomfortable situation. But saying nothing
doesn’t seem like an acceptable choice. Our common welfare has to come first.
If we don’t protect each other and do our best for those who need help, then
what are we doing?
Knowing what I know now, I would definitely not choose to
attend a for-profit university. I cannot go back in time to take a different
path, but I can suggest to you that if you are considering applying to a
college or university, take time to learn about its history and business model.
Then make your choice and do your best.
Sources
Busta, H. (2019,
March 5). How many colleges and universities
have closed since 2016? Retrieved from https://www.educationdive.com/news/how-many-colleges-and-universities-have-closed-since-2016/539379/
Cohen, P. (2017,
February 20). For-profit schools, an Obama target, see new day under Trump. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/20/business/for-profit-education-trump-devos.html
Friedman, Z. (2019,
March 12). Trump proposes to end student
loan forgiveness program. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/03/12/trump-proposes-to-end-student-loan-forgiveness-program/#23d6688e415e
Harris, A. (2018, August 29). The lifelong cost of getting a for-profit education. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/08/for-profit-college-students-are-saddled-with-debt-they-cant-pay-back/568834/
NPR. (2018, December 14). Defeated in court, Education Dept. to cancel $150 million of student
loan debt. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2018/12/14/676755770/the-education-department-is-canceling-150-million-of-student-loan-debt
Scott-Clayton, J.
(2018, January 11). The looming student
loan default crisis is worse than we thought. Retrieved from
https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-looming-student-loan-default-crisis-is-worse-than-we-thought/
Shireman, R. (2018,
August 23). The covert for-profit: How
college owners escape oversight through a regulatory blind spot. Available
from https://tcf.org/content/report/covert-for-profit/
Shireman, R. (2019,
March 12). Restoring Congressional
oversight of for-profit colleges (Testimony to the Committee on
Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and
Related Agencies at the U.S. House of Representatives). Available from https://tcf.org/content
/commentary/restoring-congressional-oversight-profit-colleges/
The 90-10 rule
(n.d.). Wikipedia. Available from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90-10_rule
US GAO. (United States Government Accountability Office).
(2010, August 3). For-profit colleges: Undercover
testing finds colleges encouraged fraud and engaged in deceptive and
questionable marketing practices [Testimony of GAO before the U.S. Senate
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions]. Retrieved from http://www.gao.gov/htext/d10948t.html
US DOE Federal
Student Aid. (Department of Education, Federal Student Aid). (n.d.). In some cases, you can have your federal
student loan discharged after declaring bankruptcy. Retrieved from https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/bankruptcy
=====================================
Books and resources
Applying Theory
Dissertators often struggle to choose and apply a
theoretical framework to their research projects. In this helpful guide, I
offer suggestions from my own experience. In addition, I reveal how other
dissertators have applied theory successfully and earned their doctorates. Written
in a friendly, nonscholarly manner, I demystify the challenges of applying
academic theory to a research project. You will learn that theory is nothing to
fear—in fact, we all use theory all the time! With the help of this powerful
little book, you will learn to master theory and achieve your dream of earning
your Ph.D.
In the second book of the Desperate Dissertator Series, I
dig into a common problem dissertators face when preparing their proposals:
aligning the elements of the dissertation. The elements of the dissertation
usually include the problem statement, the purpose statement, the research
questions, the theoretical framework, and the methodology and methods. Aligning
these elements means ensuring they logically flow from one to the next. Lack of
alignment is possibly the main reason proposals are not approved. In this book,
I offer some tips to help you align the elements and show what other
dissertators have done to succeed (it could be easier than you think).
Resubmit! 28 ½
Reasons Why You Can’t Get Your Dissertation Proposal Approved
This comprehensive book is the missing link for dissertators
who have struggled to get their proposals approved. This indispensable book
bulges with insights, suggestions, examples, diagrams, and practical tips,
written especially for the online dissertator who may receive little support
during the proposal process. I present solutions to address twenty-eight
potential reasons why you might be struggling to get your proposal approved.
For example, you will learn how to write a clear problem statement, devise research
questions and hypotheses, and align the elements of the proposal to facilitate
speedy approval. I unlock the mysteries of Word and Excel to show you
specifically how to use these tools for your proposals. Over 200 tables and
figures show you exactly what to do. As a bonus, you will learn how to design a
web-based survey and make a plan for fielding and analyzing the data. In this
book, I cover it all to help you overcome obstacles and finish your
dissertation.
