Voices That Need to be Heard in Debate Over Career Colleges

Last month, The New York Times ran a front-page article about how some of the largest publicly traded for-profit higher education companies are loading financially needy students up with unmanageable levels of debt for programs that fail to provide them with the training they need to obtain gainful employment in the fields in which they are studying.

The piece generated a lot of heat as it came out at a particularly sensitive time for the proprietary school industry. As readers of Higher Ed Watch know, the Obama administration is in the process of rewriting its student aid rules to try to better protect students from unscrupulous trade schools and for-profit colleges. Among other things, the U.S. Department of Education is considering toughening federal rules that bar colleges from compensating recruiters based on their success in enrolling students. Department officials have also floated a proposal that seeks to prevent proprietary schools from saddling their students with excessive debt. Under the plan, the amount of debt that for-profit college students could take on would be directly tied to the starting salaries in the fields in which they are seeking training.

More than 500 people wrote into the newspaper to comment on the article. Many readers agreed that government oversight over the schools has been too lax. Proponents of the schools blasted the newspaper’s coverage, questioning why the for-profit college sector had been singled out when student indebtedness is a problem throughout higher education. [Some of these comments were more helpful to the sector than others – for example, one angry reader asked, “When did it become a crime to separate fools from their money?”]

In our opinion, the most illuminating comments, however, came from those who work or have worked in the industry, and from others who have witnessed the struggles of these schools’ students up closely. Today, at Higher Ed Watch, we are highlighting these comments because we believe that they make a powerful case for why the for-profit higher education sector is so desperately in need of reform.

Take, for example, these comments from current and former recruiters at these publicly traded schools about the constant pressure to pump up enrollment numbers:

I worked as an admissions “advisor” (read: recruiter, though every one of us was an ‘Assistant Director of Admissions) at an Art Institute for three grim years, and I’m ashamed that I shepherded (shoved?) as many gullible young folks into those programs as I did. We were ABSOLUTELY recruiting anyone with the ability to be approved for financial aid: pulse desired, but optional. (Comment #312)

I work for a for-profit college. We are constantly reminded that we are sales people. If we don’t enroll and start enough students each month we are wrote up or fired. It’s all about keeping investors happy. They don’t care if you can’t even spell your own name they want us to enroll you. All about warm bodies and hopefully you qualify for financial aid. (Comment #452)

I am ashamed to say that I worked as an admission representative for nearly 7 years. For these institutions to say that they do not base the compensation for representatives on the number of students enrolled is laughable. No, they did not pay commissions, but rest assured that pay raises and continued employment were always based on increasing enrollment. It was clearly implied that success was based on putting butts in chairs. Exaggeration and misrepresentation were implicitly encouraged. We all referred to prospects as victims. Eventually I, like many reps, could not live with the deception, and refused to overtly encourage students to enroll without disclosing the crushing and ridiculous costs of these programs.  (Comment #511)

Meanwhile, here’s what some former teachers from these schools had to say about the demands they faced to pass failing students in order to keep the federal financial aid gravy train rolling:

I worked as an instructor for one [proprietary school chain], nationally known. In reality, it was a loan-mill…We were forced, under pain of job loss, to falsify grades and attendance. It was a sham – the very definition of good intentions gone wrong. (Comment #351)

I recently resigned as a professor at one of these “schools”…I discovered a student of mine had their failing grade changed to a passing grade without my ever being notified. The bottom line is always retention, retention, retention, in order to keep the federal student loan dollars coming in; dollars that the students will default on and we, the taxpayers, will end up paying for. (Comment #465)

According to these administrators and teachers, many students who attend these publicly traded school chains are left in much worse shape than before they enrolled — buried in debt without the training they need to get the types of jobs they were promised:

I work for one of the largest of these so called national colleges/vocational schools. They do attract a lot of students who are not ready for college and who are misled into getting into more debt than what they were told. Some of them are very good and do get jobs in the fields of study they signed up for such as Graphic Design. Most, however, do not. I would say at least 60 percent are headed for serious financial trouble with no job in the field they studied. Another 20 percent are not far behind and will somehow find fringe employment making about 35K a year if they are lucky. They graduate on average with 80K of debt.There are the 20% remaining students who are pretty talented and who are able to find something a little better. Out that group maybe 2 to 3% are getting very good jobs. They all graduate with huge debts. (Comment #488)

Most of my students were high school seniors who were not the best fit for traditional learning environments. These were kids who doodled on notebooks during Chaucer lectures and dreamed of becoming the next Puff Daddy. They enrolled by the hundreds in animation, audio production, culinary arts, fashion design, and web design programs…They were THRILLED to finally be among their own kind, artists and musicians, but come graduation, very few got gainful employment for more than $18,000 per year, while saddled with on average 30-70K in loan debt…I still feel guilty for the majority of students I ‘helped’ start – and not necessarily finish – their AA degrees. I think about them and feel sick about the thousands upon thousands of dollars that I’m certain are still owed. (Comment #312)

Some of the most compelling responses came from individuals outside of academe who regularly come into contact with students from these schools. Take, for example, this comment from Jayne in Georgia:

For years I have been a volunteer with our local Habitat for Humanity reviewing low income applications for homes. I’ve seen so many individuals saddled with incredible levels of student loans from these trade schools with no means of paying them back…Surely [these schools] are a successful option for a percentage of students, but the majority of motivation is profit, profit, profit, with graduates leaving no better qualified for employment yet strapped in debt – that they can easily default on. (Comment #367)

Meanwhile, a social worker from New Jersey wrote in about how proprietary school recruiters regularly target his clients and the advice he has for these individuals:

I counsel unemployed individuals for a non-profit. These people have a variety of disabilities and often come from disadvantaged backgrounds. They frequently come to meetings fresh with enthusiasm for a program at a for-profit school. ‘But,’ they say, ‘why aren’t you sharing my excitement”…I tell them about the commission the school rep gets when they sign up and how this rep’s salary and job security depends upon how many students he/she ‘closes’ each month…I ask if they read the small print where it says that training does not carry any promise of employment. Then I ask if their $700 monthly SSI or SSDI benefit will cover their rent, food, transportation, and a $500 school loan payment. Then we talk about a reality-based job search…Sometimes, the client leaves and signs up for the school. They very often reapply for my services and on the application, where it says, ‘have you ever defaulted on a student loan,’ they check ‘yes.’ (Comment #280)

Perhaps the saddest comment came from a landlord in San Francisco who has seen the damage that some of these schools have wrought:

In the last four years I have had 12 tenants in my building who enrolled in a Culinary School program in the SF Bay area and ended up leaving the area because they could not generate – as entry level cooks making 11 dollars an hour – the income needed to make a living, not to mention being able to make the payments on their student loans. Most of them left completely broke, owing money to the utility company, the cell phone company, the cable company, the DSL provider, friends and family whom they borrowed money from, and myself as their landlord.

…I feel sorry for them but I am not going to take any more Culinary School students as tenants, as they are very high risk customers. It’s not my fault that somebody else is cheating them with false promises of a glamour life and their dreams of becoming refined and sophisticated Chefs, even if they don’t have the chops, the taste buds, and the marketing skills for that, or because they are irresponsibly being set up for default on untenable debts by snake oil salesmen. (Comment #294)

For-profit college advocates will no doubt argue that these are simply anecdotes that should be ignored. But we disagree, as these are the same stories we hear over and over again when reporting on the publicly traded for-profit higher education industry. Hopefully, these voices will not be drowned out by the legions of lobbyists descending on Capitol Hill to fight the Obama administration’s efforts to eliminate outrageous abuses in the sector.