For Profit Colleges Lobbying Expenses - What they could have been spending on their standard of education.

For-Profit Colleges Lobbying Expenses - What they could have been spending on their standard of education.

The New York Times just printed an article on how much money for-profit colleges have spend on lobbying against the new proposal to cut of Pell Grants and student loans to "unfit" educational programs.  This legislation was spurred by the numbers of loans and grants given to students that were hardly college ready or even less likely after graduation to obtain employment with the little and inadequate training they received in their fast track to employment program.  The programs were marketed as a target course to a well paying career, when in fact the only target was to lure students that qualified for federal aid. 

The for-profit colleges bought their win in Washington.  (See the chart below compliments of the New York Times.) The law was watered down and they are now able to continue on their path of taking money and training the permanently unemployable.  This was despite the federally funded report showing poor teaching and learning in for-profit colleges including the five below. (Although University of Phoenix said they prevented the undercover students from enrolling so they are not included in the report.)

Non-profit colleges, your state and local schools paid for in part by taxpayer money, is in the throws of proving that their students are employable after they graduate.  There is a great deal of curriculum changes to make sure students are computer literate, have the writing skills required for the job and are properly educated.  The scrutiny has been heavy handed and coming from all directions. 

Non-profit colleges are responsible to their state and federal legislators, their accreditation agencies and their students who are college ready and prepared for a rigorous curriculum obtained in four (ok, five!) years. Students who are college ready have a choice and they make that choice on the academic standing of the college.  Accountability.  

For those that shrug it off non profits are exploiting the college unprepared, look at a previous post and learn how much money is due from for profit colleges that are going to greatly contribute to the student credit crash coming to our bleak financial picture soon.  Taxpayers will pay.

For-profit colleges have found marketing plans that appear to be more efficient than non-profit colleges.  However they fail to mention that they do not have libraries and rely on students to access public libraries without paying any fees like non-profit college students do.  Students are not involved in research, clubs and organizations, interaction with peers and professors, full time professors (most faculty are part time) or a curriculum tailored to their level and means. 

For-profits have essentially taken the McDonalds route of training college students; one size fits all.   As non-profit colleges struggle with making education more affordable and better at the same time, many of the for-profit business models will be adopted. Let’s hope they adapt the best and not the worse.

Ok, enough of a rant about for-profit colleges.  So, what is the solution to make education better and more affordable?  As non-profit colleges examine seriously their financial well being, they will have to adopt business practices that they have been skirting.  And some of these business practices include what for profit colleges have found to be efficient and student friendly.  Non-profit colleges have been raising costs often just because they could as more and more federal aid has become available.  With the warm body count being how colleges were funded by state and federal legislators, their graduation rates have decreased drastically as they, embarrassingly, have been accepting students who were not college ready and professors not educated in how to deal with these students. See the  Student Debt and Default in the 12th District. 

What are non-profits looking at that is successful in for profit colleges:

1.  More connection with industry and industry projects on what skills, knowledge, and technology college graduates should have.

2.  A change from the traditional one semester/quarter fits all courses and  offer courses that are more student friendly in length, time and days.

3.  A strong look at administrative salaries, positions, and accountability. 

4.  More flexible curriculum to allow students more opportunity to tailor their educational path towards a job and not a career in academics. 

What can they learn to make themselves better:
1.  Do not accept students that are not college ready if faculty are not prepared to teach this demographic group.
2.  A high default rate will threaten your well being, accreditation, and reputation.

Millions of dollars spent on federal lobbying from January 2010 to October 2011

Bridgepoint Education (owner of Ashford University

and University of the Rockies)                                           1.41

Education Management Corporation                                 1.42

Corinthian College                                                            1.43

Apollo Group (owner of University of Phoenix)                 1.45

Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities     1.60

Career Education Corporation                                          1.65

Coalition for Educational Success                                  

Washington Post Company (owner of Kaplan University) 1.71

As a point of interest, I could not find an article in the Washington Post about the proposed crackdown of for profit colleges.  Jay Matthews wrote a blurb in his column both saying he was not in favor of for profit colleges, however he gave 5 reasons why they will not disappear.