The majority of our colleges have become more about money than education. As far as admitting anyone with a wallet, thats a joke. not hard to get into many colleges and they will help you get a student loan that you can never pay off with the liberal arts degrees they provide. Tons of kids with degrees "managing" fast food joints.
The for profit colleges are only the tip of the iceberg. Some good some bad. Just like "public colleges". Besides, what makes anyone think a private college isn't for profit?
Well, since teaching at the college level is what I do for a living, I could stay up all night presenting various angles on this topic. But I've got to get up in the morning and go "teach", so let me make a few points.
Steelslaver makes several excellent points here. One is that there are tons of kids with degrees who are "managing" fast food joints. And not just kids from shaky schools either, as part of the problem is that there are more graduates in some fields than jobs for them to find. Of course, a big problem is that there are schools out there that are not acredited by legitimate accrediting bodies. Those schools who are legitimately acredited grant credits that are accepted by other acredited schools. Many students do not know whether they are attending an acredited school or not.
Profit. Most State Colleges and Universities are both legitimate degree granting entities and "non-profit". That doesn't mean they are free. Here in my state, an enormous amount of funding for public schools came from our "coal severance tax". Yep, every ton of WV coal helped pay for education, paving roads, and so forth. Perhaps you have heard that "coal" is not popular in some circles today, although we have spent billions of dollars developing scrubbing technology to allow for clean burning coal fired power plants, for example.
Guess what.... Big decrease in tax revenues translates to increased tuition for students, = higher student loan debt with which they are then saddled for most of the rest of their lives. Oh, yeah, in case you think faculty are getting rich, I (and my colleagues) haven't had a raise in something like 4 years.
Well, I could comment all night, but gotta go to bed sometime. We could also look at the textbook industry as one of the culprits in this mess. My Introduction to Criminal Justice paperback textbook, about 1/2" thick costs about $200! Hardbacks are naturally more expensive. And the textbook publishers issue new editions almost every year, so that the student can't find used ones at a reduced rate. This adds to the big student loan that builds up.
One of my best students, a young lady who is now a lawyer, and thankfully has a job, managed to complete her undergraduate degree debt free, by working, and family help. She then went on to get a Masters, and a Law Degree, and now has over $200,000.00 student loans to repay. Imagine if she had financed her UG degree with loans, she would be about a half million in debt. And that's here in poverty stricken West Virginia.
Let me know if you want me to go on... We who care in higher Ed are aware of many of these problems, and do what we can to help, but mostly feel helpless.
Best Regards, Les
