Zach Galin

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  Zach commented on the article | over 1 year ago

  Talk About A Gamble: Dropout Rate At For-Profit Colleges is 57%

  For-profit schools are no where near perfect and sometimes individual schools and employees use deceptive practices.  Additionally, graduation and repayment rates are seemingly low.  However, scrutiny in one part of the higher education sector is an ignorant way out of addressing broader issues that affect post-secondary education. 

  
  

  It is improper to assume a causal relationship between the status of a school (profit vs. non-profit vs. public) and student outcomes (whether graduation or repayment rate).  First, the student demographics are completely different.  For-profit schools typically are open enrollment and provide access to people who otherwise would not be able to pursue post-secondary education.  Community colleges, which used to serve this population well, are now so overcrowded that many have developed years-long waitlists.  Second, don't forget that public schools may not be as costly to individual students (and therefore may help their loan repayment numbers) because they are funded by tax dollars.  The education costs the same, but the burden is shifted from the student to the public at large (in Wisconsin, we spend almost $1.2 billion a year subsidizing the University and Technical Colleges; 8.5% of our general pupose revenue expenditures).

  
  

  While there are some horrifying stories and practices in the for-profit sector, higher education faces problems throughout the industry.  The shift in focus to outcomes is a great step towards reform.  But we need to apply these high standards to all of post-secondary education, not just the for-profits.  And at the very least, let's start controlling our data to account for the differences in populations served so that we can have valid comparisons by which to call for policy changes.