Okay, with my recent post about the poor report cards on most of for-profit higher education, I may look like I am piling on here. But these strips are just too good to pass up. Yes, I repeat, some for-profits are performing well, others are improving; but as an industry they are not yet approaching their heralded role and promise in reshaping higher education, either in flexibility of content or delivery systems--and certainly not in affordable cost.
So far, it's been more about short-term profits based almost solely on government financing rather than pioneering in educational content, methodology, and cost reduction. That still may come. It should. But in the meantime, you'll have to forgive me for enjoying the well-deserved mocking of those who would just work the system for short-term profitability at the taxpayers expense, while delivering relatively little value to nontraditional students. Other entertaining strips in this series can be found at the Doonesbury/Slate site.
So far, it's been more about short-term profits based almost solely on government financing rather than pioneering in educational content, methodology, and cost reduction. That still may come. It should. But in the meantime, you'll have to forgive me for enjoying the well-deserved mocking of those who would just work the system for short-term profitability at the taxpayers expense, while delivering relatively little value to nontraditional students. Other entertaining strips in this series can be found at the Doonesbury/Slate site.
2 comments:
Trudeau is on the money. But the for-profit colleges are not the only ones running a Government drop-out farm. Check out the revenue to drop-out rate at the community colleges.
Four students pay tuition, only 1 student completes the course. If two of the three drop-out returns within a year, they count him as "continuing" and claim a 50% retention rate.
Thanks. Appreciate your point on the CCs. They do have a similar problem, although the data I've seen suggest the for-profits are worse, on average. Also the CCs are more likely to provide the kind of support services that help students get through. But the fact remains, they have an unacceptably poor record on continuation and graduation, too, and the return on taxpayer investment is unacceptably low. I have a post below this and up above that you might also find intersting.
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