At the end of July, a Senate committee released a report showing that for-profit colleges are hurting American students.
For-profit schools, including the University of Phoenix and DeVry University, aggressively target potential students, promising them a degree and employment prospects they cannot provide. They charge high tuition and offer little to no financial support.
On average, 54 percent of students at these for-profit schools drop out. Some schools have dropout rates as high as two-thirds. Yet 96 percent of students at these schools take out thousands of dollars in student loans to pay for them. Students at for-profit universities account for only 13 percent of American college enrollment, but half the nation’s student debt load. These for-profit colleges receive $32 billion in taxpayer money annually.
The obvious story here is that, at a time when America’s non-profit public schools are strapped for cash, cutting programs, increasing class sizes and raising tuition, federal funds are wrongly going to for-profit private institutions. We should demand that Congress stop funding these for-profit schools, particularly in light of a report showing that they have no interest in educating American students.
But there is another, larger issue at work here — one that reaches to the heart of American academic culture. Can private universities be part of our education goals? Are universities simply meant to provide a degree in exchange for money, like some sort of academic transaction? For these for-profit schools, that seems to be their sole purpose. Increasingly, it seems to be the purpose of our public schools as well.
Government funding at the state and federal level for public colleges continues to decrease. Universities must rely more heavily on private donations, fundraising, and student tuition and fees. Student enrollment has stopped being a goal in itself and instead has become a university’s best source of money.
This is not just hurting students, it’s hurting education in America. Students spend more and more money for degrees that continue to become less valuable. Many cannot afford to complete their degrees, and even more potential students don’t consider college a good investment.
We need to treat education as a public good in this country. An educated workforce is better trained, more innovative and better able to compete with the rest of the world. Education can’t simply be reserved for those who can afford it, and it certainly can’t become a for-profit enterprise.
The abuses of these for-profit private universities did not happen in a vacuum. They are a symptom of a society that has devalued public education, and education as an idea. Higher education should be a goal for all Americans to work toward, not another means for a company to turn a profit.
We need to stop funding private colleges and get back to making our public universities some of the best in the world. We need to stop treating a degree as a product, and students as a commodity. We need to make a college education a worthwhile investment again, rather than a source of debt and frustration for students across the country.
Max Bartlett can be reached at [email protected]