FBI unveils large-scale college admissions bribery scandal

FBI unveils large-scale college admissions bribery scandal - high-profile arrests made

JimEverett said
Its worse than that. I sued a for profit college and got to know how it worked really well. While I think its ture that non-profit colleges go overboard in what they say a college (or professional degree) can deliver they do not come close to the overbearing weight these for profits put on kids and families.

I was surprised to see that there were many recruiters earning close to $500,000 a year at this school.

it's been a while since I've done the research, but a few years ago when I was looking at the impact of for profit (there are private, non-profit institutions - make it clear I am not talking about those) on inner city communities and poor students.

It was appalling. Too many of these institutions are predatory and abandon their kids with no pretense to an actual education. There were cases of a school rounding up homeless and poor people, putting them on a bus, and having them fill out paperwork to get loans. The loans went directly to the school and that was pretty much the end of the transaction. I want to say it was a Cleveland-area school. I'd need to dig into my notes.

Regardless, there's not *enough* oversight of these schools.

Here's a good episode from 'Fresh Air', with a transcript, from NPR done a couple of years ago.

https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=521371034

The guest is someone who worked at a couple of for-profit schools and after doing some thinking and digging, began to second-guess what these schools were doing and then spent time researching it as part of her own dissertation. In the interview they cover a number of issues, such as the evolution/history from the 'mom and pop' to the corporate. She talks about the subsidizing of these places to the tune of "13 to 14 billion dollars a year. " She talks about why these places are so much more expensive. They talk about how much these kids are borrowing to go to these schools and what it means for their futures. It covers a lot of ground pretty well in a relatively short time/space. The book she wrote is called Lower Ed:

Lower Ed: How For-Profit Colleges Deepen Inequality in America

Despite the celebrated history of not-for-profit institutions of higher education, today more than 2 million students are enrolled in for-profit colleges such as ITT Technical Institute, the University of Phoenix, and others. Yet little is known about why for-profits have expanded so quickly and even less about how the power and influence of this big-money industry impact individual lives. Lower Ed, the first book to link the rapid expansion of for-profit degrees to America’s increasing inequality, reveals the story of an industry that exploits the pain, desperation, and aspirations of the most vulnerable and exposes the conditions that allow for-profit education to thrive.

Tressie McMillan Cottom draws on her personal experience as a former counselor at two for-profit colleges and dozens of interviews with students, senior executives, and activists to detail how these schools have become so successful and to decipher the benefits, credentials, pitfalls, and real costs of a for-profit education. By humanizing the hard choices about school and survival that millions of Americans face, Lower Ed nimbly parses the larger forces that deliver some of us to Yale and others to For-Profit U in an office park off Interstate 10.

in the interest of disclosure - I have only read excerpts of this. A colleague has used it for work and had really high praise and what I've read is compelling and supports the things I found on my own years ago.

These places need more oversight - not less. The Obama Administration actually began cracking down on these - which is something I actually applauded his Department of Ed doing (I didn't really care for much they did at all... Arne Duncan was a blight).

Anyway, I realize this is apart from the main discussion but wanted to complement your experience in the legal field with what I'd seen in the academic side of things.