Post 6: Education

Note: For the purpose of simplicity, I abbreviate “for profit” as FP and “non profit” as NP in this blog.

Subprime Opportunity: The Unfulfilled Promise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities
My first reaction to reading was....”wait, what the %$#& is a FP college?” I made it about halfway through the first page and decided I needed to Google some examples of FP colleges. The results gave me all the information I needed to know... DeVry University, University of Phoenix, ITT Technical Institute, Le Cordon Bleu College of the Cullinary Arts, etc. Sound familiar, well that’s because these are the universities you see commercials for on daytime television. I’ve always wondered how those schools had the money advertise, and I always had a sneaking suspicion that those were just scams that offer prospects of education, careers, and personal prosperity without the actual follow through on providing solid education.

My favorite quotation in this article was, “The developing showdown between for-profit colleges and the government is another example of how the aspirations of the underserved and the unfulfilled promise of the American dream combine with lax regulation to make the rich, richer and the poor, poorer” (1).

We need to think of education as an investment into the future of America. Any money we take away from education, i.e., via ineffective and poorly managed FP schools, leads to a future decrease in prosperity.

Fed Up at Phoenix University
First of all, I’d like to point out the excellent use of words in the second paragraph when speaking of “duplicitous” college recruiters. I’m going to use that in the future.

More importantly, however, this article seems to confirm my suspicion of FP colleges, such as the University of Phoenix. What I didn’t realize was that government continues to provide Pell Grants to students who attend these colleges. It seems to me that this is just as much a problem with our federal governments as it is the FP education sector. As the author puts it, “Perhaps the Democrats should reconsider whether it's really in the public's best interest to continue to provide huge subsidies, in the form of federal grants and loans, to help low- and moderate-income students go to colleges that are much more interested in rewarding investors on Wall Street than educating students.”

It pains me to think that the government has lost the ability to control education, or at least it’s lost the ability to weed out any and all ineffective educational institutions; FP, NP, or public.

Will the For Profit Education Bubble Burst in 2011?
I think this article has echoed the ideas of the previous two articles, so I won’t say much about it. It’s disgusting to think that there needs to be investigations into the legitimacy of educational institutions, and after reading these articles it’s becoming fairly clear to me that generating a profit has NO PLACE in any conversations occurring within the educational sector.
I just looked at the next article on the benefits of for profit schools. This oughta be good.

For-Profit Schools
Well, it seems as if there are merits to the theory of FP schools, but the ideology doesn’t seem to match up with reality. The possible advantages of FP schools include increase efficiency, encouraging innovation, response to clientele, and increased competition all seems reasonable. I agree with the innovation and efficiency idea. As for the ‘response to clientele’ thought, well, I’ve been on the wrong end on of poor customer service calls a few too many times to agree with that. And the only way that competition leads to better universities is if every university is a FP university, and that seems darn close to impossible. On top of all of this, let’s consider the fact that possible disadvantages of FP schools – lack of knowledge, misguided focus, eliminated services, large added costs – are all pretty BIG disadvantages.

I found the point at the end of the article about educational management organizations (EMOs) fairly interesting. The article stated that the most influential EMOs, such as Edison Schools, Mosaica Advantage, and Chancellor-Beacon, have “struggled to show profits.” Let me paraphrase, the most effective FP education organizations are better at being educational organizations than profit generating businesses. Ironic.

Chapter 6: Education and Research
I’ll be honest about something…. I don’t really have anything to say about the textbook. I’m a little confused as to why research was grouped with education, but that’s about it. I’m excited to read my team’s blogs to learn more perspectives on this.

Aim High
I’ve decided to include a post from the educational NP organization that I’ve worked for the last two summers. I thought it’d be interesting considering there was so much info about FP schools in this weeks readings. Plus, it’s a blog, so technically speaking I’m blogging about blogging. Enjoy:

http://aimhighblog.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/essential-lessons-from-aim-high-alums/