It appears that a large part of the problem many in Congress and in the public have with for-profit education is that it is capitalist. In my duties as Devil's Advocate I have to point out that it is a bit ridiculous of us to get outraged about for-profit publicly traded companies doing everything legally allowed to maximize profit for their shareholders. That's what you wanted when you were demanding a business model and saying that the private sector could do it better. In defunding public education we are going back to the days of first century of this nation when most education was private and we had a pretty clear class system.
I can't defend the most outrageous money making conduct of some for-profits, but I can't find fault with the majority trying to be for-profits. The common cause of outrage appears to be anyone making a good living at something the public sees as a right. (Right to health care: doctors and pharmaceutical companies make too much money. Right to higher education: faculty are paid too much and have too generous benefits, textbooks cost too much, organic is too hard.) If freedom isn't free, neither are our other rights. Our leaders need to remind us of this, but our elected officials only give voice to our childish demands for something for nothing. If you don't want to pay taxes for public education, you will pay for private non-profit and for-profit education, as least until the public stops supporting education at all. This may well bring us full circle back to the class systems of the founders.
Be it defense contractors or education businesses we must remember, caveat emptor. It's what capitalism is all about.
And let's not forget that nobody is really looking at the value of non-profit degrees. Not the earning power but the ability to generate value for a business or the community that the degree holder gained with the degree.
T.S. Hall
These are very sad stories to hear. Some of my friends have fallen (or come close) to falling for these traps. The results of the investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) are to be expected. For profit colleges have an intense desire to maximize profit, even if that means stretching the truth in the face of little scrutiny.
ReplyDeleteDespite these results, I'm still on the side of further privatizing education. A look at the balance sheets of these companies shows that they aquired 85-95% of their money from public aid. Whereas the more reputable schools (non-profit private & public schools) received on average 55% and 42% respectively. (Source: National Consumer Law Center)
Private lenders are more likely to see a scam than bureaucrats running the public loan system. There is more liability and the risk is concentrated on fewer individuals, so the greed of colleges is checked by the greed of lenders. Public aid disperses that liability so thinly, no one watches. The prevention of bankruptcy from student debt gives even more incentives to crank of costs.
Your point about the public being unrealistic is good. Often the public tries to marry politically popular ideas to uneconomical methods. We live in a world of limited resources, we must be realistic about the total amount of goods that can be produced and how much they are actually worth.
The free-market, though brutal, is self-correcting through media attention and the self interests of the participants. We may see waste and fraud in it at times, but it is minimal when compared to publicly funded and run institutions. Compare K-12 charter schools to government schools, the cost difference is dramatic, and so are the efficiencies.