StickWithANose

In previous posts, I’ve pointed toward the underlying motivation behind the charter school movement as being the colonization of a new marketplace funded by taxpayers, see here and here. However, it would be a mistake to believe that this trend is isolated to K-12 education. As this AP article details, the for-profit tertiary sector is making bank at the taxpayer expense with little to show for it in terms of educational attainment.*

An Associated Press analysis shows surging proportions of both low-income students and the recently boosted government money that follows them are ending up at for-profit schools, from local career colleges to giant publicly traded chains such as the University of Phoenix, Kaplan and Devry.

Last year, the five institutions that received the most federal Pell Grant dollars were all for-profit colleges, collecting over $1 billion among them. That was two and a half times what those schools hauled in just two years prior, the AP found, analyzing Department of Education data on disbursements from the Pell program, Washington’s main form of college aid to the poor.

This year, the trend is accelerating: In the first quarter after the maximum Pell Grant was increased last July 1, Washington paid out 45 percent more through the program than during the same period a year ago, the AP found. But the amount of dollars heading to for-profit, or “proprietary,” schools is up even more — about 67 percent…

Critics acknowledge for-profit schools can be a good match for some. But they point out median graduation rates of just 38 percent (for-profit colleges counter they’re taking on less well prepared kids, and say they actually do much better than community colleges with two-year programs).

Students who don’t graduate will be hard pressed to repay their debts. On average, for-profit schools cost five and a half times the price of community colleges. Virtually all students must borrow some money, and even among graduates of for-profit four-year programs, the average borrower ends up owing $33,000, according to the latest government data analyzed by Mark Kantrowitz of the Web site finaid.org. That’s about $5,000 higher than even private nonprofit four-year colleges.

The sector also can’t seem to shake recurring allegations it’s accepting underqualified students just to secure their federal aid, dooming them to failure. Phoenix has set aside $80.5 million to cover a possible settlement of a whistleblower lawsuit alleging it illegally compensated recruiters based on how many students they enrolled. Other complaints include a lawsuit against privately held Westwood College of Colorado alleging students were misled about fees and tricked into signing high-interest loans. Westwood denies the allegations.

*As is standard practice, the AP article is framed in the “he said / she said” narrative that leaves the reader unsure what to make of the issue.