Conflict of Interest?

Reader comment on: The War on For-Profit Education

Submitted by J.Johnson (United States), Nov 15, 2010 11:12

The debate over for-profit schools is mired in a sea of irrelevant arguments and half truths and and this piece by Future of Capitalism has multiple examples of both, to the extent that I wonder if Mr. Stoll has any actual first hand knowledge of, and experience with, for profit institutions, other than possibly as a stockholder. Mr. Stoll's attacks on Harvard and Columbia and Bloomberg and the NY Times and other targets of opportunity do essentially nothing to advance arguments that might, even partially, justify the shameful way many for-profits conduct their business and educational affairs. Despite Mr. Stoll's elaborate smoke screen, it is absolutely true that the loan default rate at for-profits is far far higher than at non-profits; and tuition at for-profits is significantly higher than at virtually all public colleges and universities; and that credits earned at for-profits are generally not accepted for transfer students into non-profits because the quality of instruction at most for-profits is so poor, in that, so long as a for-profit student can pay tuition, he/she will receive passing grades; and that the SAT/ACT scores and high school grades of typical for-profit students are significantly lower than non-profit students, to the extent that a majority of for-profit students would not be accepted at most non-profit institutions because they are not qualified or prepared; and that for-profits habitually use deceptive marketing practices to mislead prospective students about their future earnings after graduation, one indication of which is the 'churn rate' whereby for-profits must spend heavily to recruit new students to replace the high number that drop out because of their student loan burden and lack of suitable employment. AND, OF COURSE, no writeup about for-profits by Mr. Stoll would be complete without an attack on 'short sellers' who, according to Mr. Stoll, MAY HAVE influenced certain media coverage he mentions in his piece. Heaven forbid that someone may think that WPO is overvalued for reasons other than, or in addition to, its for-profit educational activities. When a short seller says that Kaplan has problems, that is BAD, but when the Washington Post says Kaplan has no problems, that is GOOD.

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