For-profit-colleges: An attack on the poor

                They come at night. They’re tucked unassumingly in between Taco Bell ads and Welcome Back Kotter reruns. They come in the morning. They appear between dramatic courtroom shows and Maury. We’ve all been subject to their slogans and bad acting. They are for-profit college commercials. ITT Tech and University of Phoenix are just a few of the many “colleges” that are raking in cash by using predatory schemes to lure in uninformed people.  The image above is actually one that popped up in my Facebook ads this afternoon.  They’ve become the educational version of a “get rich quick scam.” In a nutshell, these “universities” advertise that getting an education from their program is a quick and easy way to get better jobs. After all, the news is constantly talking about how one needs a 4 year degree to be competitive in the job market, right? What could be so bad about offering someone an education? Well, it turns out that these programs are nothing more than a massive scam designed to sap money out of the government and burden poor people with gigantic student loans.

                Their techniques are predatory. They advertise late at night or during working hours. They’re targeting the unemployed and uninformed. There also seems to be overwhelming evidence that these institutions are specifically targeting minorities and the poor. “More than a quarter of low-income black female students entering college for the first time attended for-profit colleges during the 2008 academic year, according to Department of Education data.”(Link). These so called colleges have dreadfully low rates of graduation and often saddle students with ludicrously high amounts of debt. “Twenty-two percent of first-time, full-time students seeking bachelors’ degrees graduate from for-profit colleges within six years, compared with a 55 percent graduation rate at public colleges and 65 percent at private nonprofit universities…” (Link). From that same article, we have a terrifying figure regarding the debt of these students: “The median debt level for bachelor’s degree recipients at for-profit colleges is $31,190, compared with $7,960 at public institutions and $17,040 at private nonprofit colleges…”

That number should terrify anyone paying attention. That’s just the student loan side of the equation. They also siphon an astounding amount of money out of the federal government too. According to research completed by the group Education Trust, for profit colleges “get up to 90 percent of their revenue from federal grants and loans and received $26.5 billion last year in U.S. student aid.” (Link). Along with the federal grants, these institutions go after soldiers. The GI bill is a program that assists soldiers with college tuition. These for profit institutions are not overlooking the US military when scavenging for new students. In fact, “Eight for-profit colleges and universities received $1 billion — or 24 percent of all G.I. Bill money in the last year…” Of course, graduation rates are just as low with returning soldiers as they are with low-income students. ““Of the eight for-profits receiving the most G.I. Bill money, five saw more than half of their students fail to graduate…” (Link)

What a well placed ad.

     Now it’s time for a personal anecdote. I don’t know many people that got sucked into these colleges, but I know two. My brother in law and his best friend got their bachelor degrees from ITT Tech in Tampa, FL. After four years of education, my brother-in-law’s friend managed to amass 76,000 dollars in student loans at an 11 percent interest rate. My brother-in-law got off much worse. His student loans are well over 100k also at 11 percent interest. Now, after shelling out that much cash (or rather, borrowing it) they must have incredible degrees and high paying jobs, right? Nope. Not at all. In fact, my brother didn’t have a degree yet (he’s in the process of getting his engineering degree), and he managed to get a position at the same business as my brother-in-law’s friend. My brother came in earning 4 to 5 dollars more an hour than the friend. The Human Resources department at that company was willing to pay him more solely because he wasn’t getting his degree from a for profit college. He ended up talking to an HR director one day and brought up ITT Tech and the like. The HR director said that it’s a massive red flag to see that on a resume. She stated that individuals from for-profit-colleges often graduate lacking any real job skills. They may have passed their courses, but they are technically unsound. She stated that she would rather hire someone working on their degree at a public four year university than hire someone who had already graduated college from a for-profit. That’s saying something right there. Even if you ignore the fact that these businesses are preying on the poor and siphoning money from the government, these institutions still aren’t properly educating students.

Even if someone realized that they were getting nowhere in a for profit school, their credits are almost entirely useless. Most colleges refuse to accept transfer credits from for-profit-schools. The reason is that these institutions are not regionally-accredited. If you listen to one of their many commercials, you will hear the spokesman proudly say that the institution is nationally-accredited.  That makes it sounds like it’s a legitimate school. But in reality, the process of national-accreditation is much more lax in comparison to regional accreditation.

I don’t believe that many people know about the dangers of for-profit schools. Considering that they target the poor and uninformed with predatory marketing practices, I believe that these institutions pose a huge danger to the working class. What’s even more terrifying is that Republican candidate Mitt Romney actively supports for-profit-colleges. He stated that the free market helps keep the price of education down and that for-profit colleges are an excellent way for the working class to get educated (Link). One more reason to be careful of who you vote for.  

EDIT: Here's a wonderful website filled with personal anecdotes from former ITT Tech students. http://myittexperience.com/ITT_Comments.htm

Here's a handy little infographic from NPR:  

Poverty and a complete lack of empathy and belief in human dignity.

I know that one of the main critiques that I received about this blog was that I talk too much about myself. I make far too many "I" statements. However, I feel as though with the subject matter at hand, this time it is warranted. We've been talking about the concept of a living wage in our class for the last week. I know that it could be a touchy subject, but I was not expecting the sheer amount of insensitivity that I would be witnessing in the class discussions and further research.

I don't like playing the emotion card when discussing things such as politics, but i'm willing to make an exception here. The reason is that when people talk about politics, they talk about taxes and budget cuts. These things are abstract monetary concepts. Inherently, they are difficult to fully understand. However, when we begin talking about living wage and welfare, we're talking about human beings. We're talking about people who need assistance. We're talking about single mothers and people who have been laid off by giant corporations. I hate to sound like such a bleeding heart liberal, but I'm actually emotionally invested this subject.

Here's where I pull the bullshit pity card. I grew up as one of those kids in the documentary. That poor kid that offered to give his mother his allowance money? Yeah, that was me. Not initially, i will admit. I was born into a perfectly normal middle class family with three kids. I was the youngest and I had everything I needed or wanted. At some point my life things drastically changed. You can cite a divorce or maybe a failing business as the cause. It doesn't really matter what was the cause. The end result was that I ended up spending a series of years living in poverty. Now that I'm in a better situation -college, 4 jobs, somewhat of a bright future-I can look back on it and appreciate the hardships. Those years helped me develop a sense of empathy and compassion that I would not have, had I led an average middle class life.

This nation is lacking in empathy, common decency, and a sense of what it means to have human decency. Because of our misconceptions regarding the "American Dream," it's relatively easy to dismiss the poor as a lazy and shiftless lot. I'll tell you the truth, I've known dirt poor people that have worked ten times harder than anyone I've met at this university. Rich Republicans often complain about the welfare queens bleeding this nation dry, but they have no idea what it's like to watch a woman drive two towns over to use her food stamps. The privileged have no clue what it's like to see your mother weep over a box of church donated food. They don't know what it's like to feel completely overwhelmed by debt. It's a constant feeling of being held under the surface of the water. The system is designed to keep the poor in poverty and shame. Drive Mitt Romney to Hillcrest Apartments in N. Asheville and let him find one damn person who's proud to need government assistance. I doubt that will make the news. Of course it won't. The poor are a blight on this country.

Don't believe me? Jon Stewart has an amazing segment on the media's war on the poor. I'll link it here. The basic gist of the segment is that the upper class has absolutely no idea what it means to be poor. The newscasters are astounded that 99 percent of the so called "poor" own a refrigerator. Really? God forbid the poor want to keep their food. This disconnect is readily evident in our class discussion Thursday. Some of my classmates were completely unwilling to believe that the poor should receive a living wage. They cited that they -as upper-middle class, white, government scholarship supported- individuals, could survive easily on minimum wage, why couldn't the lazy shiftless folk in the documentary do the same? It's nowhere near the same. First and foremost, people that are in this college have already been afforded advantages that not one of those people in the documentary have. They have a high school education, are in their final year of college education, and most likely have amazing prospects ahead of them. The poor on the other hand have a series of institutions keeping them down. Anyone that can't see this is gazing through the rose tinted glasses of middle class white privilege.

I often make the mistake of looking at my local news' facebook page. It's a disgusting mix of thinly veiled racism and anti-poverty ranting. One of the very worst that I have encountered is a frequently posting individual who i will just refer to as Paul. I will quote some of Paul's comments right now:

"One one hand, the Obama Administration buys advertising to get more people on food stamps.
On the other hand, the National Park Service warns that we shouldn't feed the animals, as they might become dependent and not learn to take care of themselves."

That comment received 9 "likes" and that bums me out. In the process of writing this blog post, I have gone from angry to enraged to disheartened. To tell you the truth, I have no idea how to fix the idea that someone needing help is somehow a terrible gutless quality. Where do we begin? This clearly isn't a political idea, it's too pervasive for that. This is a social construct built off of years of middle class privilege.

I don't know anymore. It's damn near impossible to change people's minds it seems. So, I guess the best I can do is to try to help those who need it.

"My friend Erin says it best, "we're all two or three bad decisions away
from becoming the ones we fear and pity"
and Tony says it's important to bear some witness when you can
and that’s not hard to do in the city that I live in." - AJJ