Gerald Lappay
RWS 100
Professor Werry
October 25, 2014
The Chronicle of Higher Education
is one of the largest sources of news and information regarding higher
education’s faculty members and administrators. As of the past few years, The Chronicle and other media have been keenly following for-profit
colleges – higher education institutes that double as corporations and
typically have shareholders backing them. In July of 2010, Kevin Carey, a
writer for The Chronicle, produced a
piece titled “Why Do You Think They’re Called For-Profit Colleges,” which
briefly scrutinizes for-profit colleges as well as attempts to shed some light
on them. Some notable topics Carey goes over in “Why Do You Think They’re
Called For-Profit Colleges” include: issues with for-profits and the federal
government, Michael Clifford, one of the leaders of the for-profit college
industry, and traditional institution’s stance against for-profit institutions.
These for-profit institutions are reaping in fairly absurd amounts of money. “[The
University of] Phoenix alone is on pace to reap $1-billion from Pell Grants
this year, along with $4-billion from federal loans. A quarter of all federal
aid goes to for-profits, while they enroll only 10 percent of schools” (Carey).
Along with the large amounts of money being pulled from the federal government,
one must also consider the large amount of defaulting (indebted) students – in particular,
those who attend for-profit institutions. A quick Google search can quickly
uncover horror stories shared by for-profit graduates about how they won’t be
able to repay their growing debts. Getting out of this debt is not easy; sometime around the 1970s began a string of events that ultimately
led to college graduates not being able to declare bankruptcy on their student
loans. This idea of not being able to declare bankruptcy out of student loans
is called nondischargeablility, and
was declared by former president George W. Bush. I can’t say that we can all
blame the Shrub; it’s just a matter of Bush being president at the time the fed
and the banks begged him to declare nondischargeablility on student loans.
In
this essay, I seek to extend and complicate some of the claims Carey forms regarding
for-profit colleges using my own speculation and three outside sources. The
first source includes “Excerpts from the Government Accountability Report on
For-Profit Universities” performed in August of 2010 by the Government
Accountability Office (GAO); which took undercover applicants to a variety of
for-profit colleges in order to identify the industry’s aggressive and
fraudulent recruiting strategies. The second source is a PowerPoint
presentation presented during the 2010 Career College Association conference,
unveiling the for-profit industry’s new marketing tactics, dubbed “Project Rose
2010”. As a side note, the CCA changed their name to the Association of Private
Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU), whose new goal is to “develop a
globally competitive workforce and enable all students to achieve their
educational and career dreams” (APSCU Mission). My final outside source is
another article found in The Chronicle of
Higher Education written by Joshua Woods, who received a doctorate in
Sociology at Michigan State University, titled “Opportunity, Ease,
Encouragement, and Shame: a Short Course in Pitching For-Profit Education.”
This piece briefly summarizes the early struggles of for-profit struggles and
introduces Woods’ own investigations on for-profit institutions. These three
outside sources not only extend, but illustrate Carey’s “horror stories of
aggressive recruiter’s inducting students to take out huge loans for nearly
worthless degrees,” (Carey).
As
noted by Carey, “stories of aggressive recruiters inducing students to take out
huge loans for nearly worthless degrees are filling the news.” Carey claims
that there’s something suspicious about the for-profit industry’s recruiters
that leads to students taking out absurd federal loans. Do they threaten
potential students? Are they master rhetoricians? Or are they simply following
a strict script & policy? This leads to the question: how aggressive are
these for-profit recruiters? The GAO (Government Accountability Office) sent
undercover applicants to 15 for-profit colleges to investigate fraudulent
marketing practices. “Often called the “conventional watchdog,” the GAO investigates
how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars” (About GAO).
Our covert testing at 15 for-profit
colleges found that four colleges encouraged fraudulent
practices, such as encouraging students to submit false information about their financial status. In
addition all 15 colleges made some type of deceptive or otherwise questionable
statement to undercover applicants, such as misrepresenting
the applicant’s likely salary … and not providing clear information
about the college’s graduation rate. A small beauty college told our applicant that barbers can earn
$150,000 to $250,000 a year. While this may be true
in exceptional circumstances, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that 90 percent of barbers make less
than $43,00 a year (GAO).
Not only do the GAO’s findings
regarding these practices illustrate Carey’s argument of aggressive recruiters,
they also extend this idea by including some of the wild claims for-profit
colleges form to attract potential students. Carey generalizes these recruiting
practices as “aggressive” when the report shows there’s much more to it.
Suggesting someone to falsify their received income and liquid assets just to
gain more access to federal funds is way more than aggressive. Recruiters alluding
to students that attending their university can net six-figure wages for
working as something menial like a barber is unbelievable. Carey should have taken
more time looking into the for-profit industry’s recruiting strategies before
labeling them off as something simple like “aggressive”.
The
horror stories don’t stop at just aggressive recruiters and fraudulent
practices. The language used by the corporations and shareholders of these
for-profit institutions can imply that they treat their students simply as a
source of capital. Every year, the CCA (Career College Association, now known
as the APSCU (Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities), holds
meetings to discuss for-profit colleges. In 2010, they introduced “Project
Rose”; a project whose objective was to change the media’s way of thinking of
the for-profit industry. “Instead of ‘call centers’ say ‘enrollment assistance
center’ … ‘prospective students’ instead of ‘target audience’ … ‘home office’
instead of ‘corporate’ … ‘salary component’ instead of ‘commissions’” (Project
Rose). Not only does the APSCU’s language extend Carey’s claims of assertive
recruiters, it also challenges Carey’s claim of “traditional institutions
having very little evidence against for-profit colleges” (Carey). Project Rose
is evidence that can be used to “question the quality of for-profit degrees”
(Carey). Carey claims that traditional institutions’ only form of rebuttal
against for-profits is the issue of accreditation. Since for-profits earn
accreditation the same way traditional institutions do, obtaining accreditation
shouldn’t be a point of questioning for-profits. Carey briefly admits this,
describing accreditation as “a taxicab medallion, available for bidding on the
open market” (Carey). What should be questioned is how associations like the
APSCU treat their clients. Taking a look at the Project Rose presentation,
there’s a range of evidence from vocabulary to potential policy changes. There’s
plenty of evidence that points against for-profits that Carey doesn’t take the
time to investigate, which is a potential flaw in his article.
Joshua Woods is another writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education with a
doctorate in sociology. Woods claims that “all a college must do to boost
enrollments is tap into a student’s personal aspirations and cultivate
overconfidence with a little courage and persuasion” (Woods). Woods took on the
persona of a persona of a high-school graduate in his early 30s who wanted a
new job and had dreams of becoming a corporate executive. “The premise of the experiment
was simple: How would colleges respond to a student like me? In almost all cases, I filled
out an online form, which asked for my name, contact information, and level of
education and work experience. Whenever
possible, I included the following message: "i want to get MBa but i only
graduated highshol in many years ago in 1992 i work contruction now can you
help me?"” (Woods) Woods submitted the applications and waited for
a month. He received at least three responses from different for-profit colleges,
including big names such as: ITT Technical Institute, Corinthian College (which
has closed many of its doors), and the University of Phoenix. Among these responses,
Woods identified strategies for-profit colleges used to persuade him.
The "guidance
counselors" employed four basic sales themes: opportunity, ease, encouragement, and shame … In a few
cases, the advisers asked rhetorical questions
about whether I was happy or proud of what I do. Olympia's letter asked, "When someone asks where
you work, are you embarrassed to answer? Do you dream of more? Take the next
step: Enroll." (Woods).
Woods
closes with this, “Anyone interested in pursuing a professional career needs a
realistic picture of the financial risks involved, as well as the time, patience,
and hard work required for success. Many for-profit colleges are offering just
the opposite … they inflate the high hopes of many students who may be unlikely
to achieve the promised successes.” Author, Joshua Woods, complicates
Carey’s argument of “traditional institutions having very little evidence,” by
performing his own research on for-profit colleges, which leads to the
conclusion that for-profit universities are misleading their potential students
by using rhetorical marketing tactics such as guilt-tripping. Again, there’s
more evidence against for-profits besides the issue of accreditation. Woods
personally investigated for-profit institutions and came up with a whole
article’s worth of evidence – mind you, on the same website Carey published his
own article.
All
these outside sources support the first half of Carey’s claims. For-profit institutions
are a growing problem, especially when it comes to the sheer amount of taxpayer
dollars going into. As for the other half of Carey’s claims, they are
complicated by the large amount of evidence given in these sources against
for-profits. Suggestions to send fraudulent income, aggressive language, and
rhetorical encouragement and shame are all tactics used by for-profit colleges
to recruit students.
Carey
seems to skimp out on details when it comes to a few of his claims, which is a
weakness in his article. While there’s a lot of information on one of the
for-profit industry’s leaders Michael Clifford, there’s not a lot about what’s
making for-profits such a big deal aside from how much money they’re taking.
Nowhere in Carey’s article does it talk about those being affected the most by
for-profits – particularly the students and taxpayers. While “Why Do You Think
They’re Called For-Profit Colleges?” is a great introduction to the for-profit
industry, I believe it doesn’t give the reader a complete understanding of what
for-profits do that’s making such a great big media fuss.
Works
Cited
·
Excerpts from the Government Accountability
Report on For-Profit Universities, August 4, 2010. “For Profit Colleges:
Undercover Testing Finds Colleges Encouraged Fraud and Engaged in Deceptive and
Questionable Marketing Practices.”
·
Project Rose 2010 Revealed, 2010, David
Pauldine, DeVry University, Bob Cohen, and CCA.
·
“Opportunity, Ease, Encouragement, and Shame: a Short Course
in Pitching For-Profit Education.” Joshua Woods. January 13, 2006. Chronicle of
Higher Education,
·
"About GAO." U.S. GAO -.
N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2014. <http://www.gao.gov/about/index.html>.
·
Carey, Kevin. "Why Do You Think They're Called For-Profit
Colleges?" The Chronicle of Higher
Education. N.p., 25 July
2010. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.
<http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Do-You-Think-Theyre/123660/>.
