First of all, mad props to HuffPost for running this piece on just how bad Kaplan University really is:
Second of all, this entire article just underlines the growing problems with higher education and education as a whole- and one that isn't just confined to non-profits. Actually, I'm really irritated with the Almighty Instapundit because of this- he keeps going on about the 'war' on 'for profit' education which, while making a good point (that attacking for profit schools ignores the massive costs and problems with the not-for-profit schools) still annoys me because for profit schools are really, really, really, really bad.
I'm not going to champion the glories of not-for-profit education to you- we all know the problems, ranging from administrative bloat, exploding costs, messed-up tenure systems, overreliance on graduate students, political conformity and correctness to points past stupidity- but all of that is an entirely different bag of chips compared to the ethically compromised and downright shady practices of for-profits. For around six months last year, I had the rare pleasure of being a Financial Aid Counselor for Kaplan University and I'll pass on several facts to people: first, it's a total rip off. At least with not-for-profit schools your degree might, maybe, possibly, depending on what it is be worth something. I've seen soiled pieces of toilet paper that would be worth more than a degree from Kaplan.
I won't go into the nitty gritty details- the article should be enough and it underlines a huge problem that I have with the whole notion of for-profit education as well as the difficulties of education reform in this country as a whole: should it be about making money or student success? For-profits are driven purely by money, plain and simple. Students take a back seat to making money- off the government, off students that don't know any better, off anyone that will take their bullshit sales pitch and buy into it. Kaplan overcharges students so they can get degrees in things like Medical Transcription (do you really need a degree for that?) and work jobs that might pay something like $17 an hour if you're lucky but will more likely pay something along the lines of $12 an hour.
Kaplan assigns students Financial Aid Officers after they're admitted who I honestly believe might not exist. I did Financial Aid Counseling for next six months and no one I met- even people who had been doing it far longer than I had, years even, had ever talked to a Financial Aid Officer. You know those credit card commercials where the Russian guy is in his hut full of ringing phones? That's exactly what it is. So students (who get shown a 12 credit a semester plan before they complete their admissions process) might take more than 12 credits a semester, tuition might go up and a dozen other hidden charges might be slapped on the student, but can they find out for sure? No. Because either no one calls them or they can't get their Financial Aid Officer on the phone- so when they suddenly get told they owe Kaplan 12 grand and oh, they can't get a diploma that's the reason why.
The whole structure, from what I could tell in my thankfully limited time there was designed to enroll students so the company could make money off Federal loans from the government. Student success? It was talked about, but that was it. But that's what happens when your educational institution is designed to make money. Money matters, whether or not you're actually educating people doesn't.
And therein lies the biggest problem with educational reform: how can you justify charging for something a lot of which might be readily available for free? Consider history or English majors: if you love reading books and learning about history, are you really going to stop doing either of those things once you get your degree? What's the point of the degree? It's not just about pay, money or structure that the debate should center itself around, it's about the deep, philosophical questions at the heart of what it means to be 'educated? Why pay for it when you could do it for free? Even as the high school diploma has become massively devalued over the past three decades, we're seeing a similar situation start to unfold with a proliferation of college degrees. Learning is a lifelong process. Now that I'm up to my ass in debt because of my two degrees I have to wonder just how much it was actually worth…
(All of this, by the way, is why I'm really hoping Santa gets me 'DIY U' by Anya Kamenetz. Santa are you listening?)
Buy a Degree...Good One..
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