The recent investigation by the Governmental Accountability Office has reminded us that for-profit schools are still in the lime-light, and the pressure on accreditors to keep track of them illustrates a deeply embedded public suspicion of for-profit schools; and the integrity of this growing industry has is surrounded by heated debate.
Often, many are forced to begrudgingly admit, such as a painfully honest article by education writer Jay Matthews, that for-profits are here to stay. Their growth, even if slowed down after the 2008 financial crisis, has remained steady. They have also managed to reach (if aggressively at times) previously untapped “nontraditional,” college students. These non-traditional students are generally comprised of adult, working, low-income men and women.
These schools are not to blame for all of higher education’s woes, and in fact there is much to be learned from them.
Why For-Profits Don’t Deserve All the Blame for the Problems of Higher Education
Online for-profits have been labeled as money-hungry corporate demons of the higher education world. The new kids on the block that come to taint an ages-old institution with their greed and their newfangled gadgetry. However, the finger unfortunately points too often in one direction, and too many critics forget that not-for-profit schools and public institutions are not angelic, do-no-wrong institutions, themselves. Public universities have mishandled funds and resources very poorly in some cases, and can be badly mismanaged. Higher education’s “traditions” have kept it at times mired in out-dated practices and locked higher educator’s focus only on what is “prestigious”. Students of academia can spend their entire lives studying a sub-set of a sub-set of a sub-set of a problem to the point their study is no longer application to other university departments, never mind the outside world.
High education is in a fix, but beating on the new kids on the block excessively isn’t going to get student’s loans paid or graduation rated increased. For-profts and not-for-profits must learn from each other and find what really will be the future face of higher education. Today there is already much to learn from the online schools.
For-Profit Online Colleges Actually Have Some Smart Ideas
Online for-profit schools are good at what they do, and the revolution we need in higher education might even begin by examining what an for-profit schools does well rather than how much its CEO makes (though by no means am I endorsing over-compensated corporate CEO’s). So what do online for-profit colleges do right? What kinds of knowledge can they claim that is useful to higher education at-large? Luckily, Andrew Kelley of The Atlantic has figured out some of the most important factors. Online for-profits have a lot of experience with working with and reaching out to non-traditional and at-risk students. They know how to expand their capacity, should the need arise (and it does). They also know how to get their students through school, as 57 percent of first-year college students in two-year programs graduate in online for-profits, but under 21 percent of the same demographic graduates in public community colleges.
Read more about what good ideas online, for-profit schools have in Kelley’s article.