An adjunct professor talks about the shoddy practices at for profit colleges and their poor record in finding employment for the students. He approves of a new proposal by the Department of Education to reign in these schools, which rake in piles of student loan money.
The Department of Education has proposed a “gainful employment” rule, which would cut financing to for-profit colleges that graduate (or fail) students with thousands of dollars of debt and no prospect of salaries high enough to pay them off.
I love this proposal, but I predict that nearly all college would take a hit on this. I'm linked up on Facebook with many of my former students from the very affordable public college that I used to teach at. One just got a job at Starbucks. Another is employed at Toys R Us.
Also, what graduate program did this poor adjuct attend? Surely, it would fail the "gainful employment" rule.
Apt. 11d 
As far as I could tell (I tried to read the rule, which was written in gibberish), the rule would *only* apply to for-profit institutions. So, an affordable not-for profit would not be impacted by the rules, even if they had similar student outcome statistics.
I think the rules are reasonable, and that they should be applied to all federal student-aide recipient schools. I know there would be consequences, but I think that the folks who complain are engaging in magical thinking (or a parallel of Feynman’s “Cargo Cult Science.) Because they see that college-educated folks do better in the economy, they think a diploma will magically bestow those benefits on everyone. But, it doesn’t (except in rare instances). It’s the associated learning/focus/concentration/work skills/intelligence/personality/. . . . That doesn’t mean that I think that college is irrelevant, merely that granting degrees isn’t enough.
There’s a similar blurb out there pointing out the cost of 1st year college drop outs to the State university system — and it ends by having someone point out that you can’t simply conclude that those students should have had a 2nd year. That might waste even more money.
I think more of these aide dollars have to be spent helping these students before they reach college.
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Oops. Wikipedia points out that the term “Cargo Cult” is an anthropology term that Feynman borrowed to describe some science (rather than one he invented).
“Later, in an effort to call for a second visit the natives would develop and engage in complex religious rituals, mirroring the previously observed behavior of the visitors manipulating their machines but without understanding the true nature of those tasks.”
I think there’s a lot of cargo cult behavior going on in education.
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The late-night TV commercials are enough to convince me that whatever is happening should not be getting government help.
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“Also, what graduate program did this poor adjuct attend? Surely, it would fail the “gainful employment” rule.”
Wow. Holy anti-adjunct slam, batman!
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Well, the deal with many for-profits is that explicitly say that after you get your degree there, you will get a job. They’re not in business, so they say, to make well-rounded citizens out of people. They claim to be primarily vocational training. I think what we really need is some truth in advertising.
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I would really like to see the for-profit colleges required to engage in full disclosure — both of their actual job placement rates, and of the fact that the same degree is available for {some vastly smaller sum} at the state university / the local community college.
I also think that if the feds are going to guarantee the loan, they absolutely should be regulating these schools more tightly. At the very LEAST no one should be getting a federally guaranteed loan in order to attend a school that isn’t even accredited (and yes, I realize that this will affect a lot of the crazy Bible colleges; I consider that a bonus).
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Didn’t mean to slam adjuncts, Julie G. It was a slam against institutions that create and exploit adjuncts.
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That’s how I read it, too, Laura. As in, universities that won’t function without adjuncts need to pay them enough for it to pass a “gainful employment” test.
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It’s funny. If all goes well, UC-Denver will hire me as an adjunct this summer. The remuneration is reasonable — although lacking benefits, as far as I can tell.
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That this should apply to non-profit schools, too, goes without saying, but why should colleges be the unit of measurement? Why not departments? Divinity school often costs $30k/year. Are there not plenty of social work and psychology and English majors with plenty of debt “no prospect of salaries high enough to pay them off”?
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“why should colleges be the unit of measurement? Why not departments?”
Right. I’d add “master of fine arts” to that list.
Locally, I’m occasionally bumping into young women who have or are doing degrees in Christian education. That’s wonderful, but I always hope they didn’t borrow to do it.
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I’m guessing that many women seeking MFA and those seeking Christian education degrees are actually seeking an MRS in the path most respectable for their social class.
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“..very affordable public college..” Yah. The kid who went to Cal State Dominguez Hills is pretty much just as hosed as the kid who went to Strayer, I think – the public/private distinction is not as important as having lost several years of income and coming out no more employable. Randy Newman, he said: “…college men from LSU Went in dumb. Come out dumb too Hustlin’ ’round Atlanta in their alligator shoes Gettin’ drunk every weekend at the barbecues..”
I’m for college! I want my kids to get a sense of priorities and to become confident citizens and not be prey to every political con man who comes along. But the idea that success lies through the doors of College and there is no other path there is wrong.
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I left a comment at Joanne Jacobs – they were talking about the fact that you can’t discharge student loans in bankruptcy – and I think it was good, so I am recycling it here. That is, I think the comment is good – I am more and more seeing the policy that student loans bind you for your miserable barista life as a bad one, which encourages bad behavior from lenders and heedlessness on the part of students.
“Actually, useta be you COULD discharge your student loans in bankruptcy. You had the spectacle of every newly minted doctor going bankrupt in his / her first year of residency, and starting again clean. Congress got huffy, and excluded student loans from bankruptcy. I think this was a bad decision -means that people who make loans to undergraduates for expensive majors ending in “…Studies” know they will be paid back even if the graduate has to spend fifteen years as a barista to do it. Some mechanism to put fear in lenders – while keeping some fear in the borrower! – has to come back, maybe you can discharge 80 per cent of the loan if you are not working at a job which is related to the degree and you aren’t making more than the national average wage?”
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