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Special Report
Elitism at the Department of Ed
The Obama administration intensifies its war on career colleges.
Upon learning he and the rest the Omega Fraternity were being expelled from Faber College, John Belushi’s character in the 1978 film Animal House elicited audience laughter with the line “Seven years of college down the drain!”
The fact of the matter is a sizable percentage of students in bachelor degree programs do not graduate in four years. According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Education, nearly 43% of students who enroll full-time in a 4-year bachelor degree program fail to graduate in six years. The graduation rate also varies by race and gender. The Ed Dept does not make available data break-down based on socio-economic status.
Notwithstanding this reality, the Department of Education is fixated only on career colleges. Unlike state-owned public institutions and private, not-for-profit colleges, career colleges operate on a for-profit basis. In addition to 2-year, 4-year, and master’s degree programs, career colleges also include post-secondary schools that offer certificate, continuing professional education or occupation-specific education such as golf academies and culinary, technical and cosmetology schools.
In November, the Ed Dept charged ahead with a slew of new rules that would impact the ability of career colleges to enroll students who rely on federally backed student aid. The typical career college student is already in the workforce, 25 years of age or older, minority, oftentimes single and female, has lower income, cannot rely on family resources to finance college, and comes from a family without college degree experience.
In general, the demographic of the typical career college student is more prone to defaulting on loans, much like the high loan default rate of students attending historically black colleges and universities.
Because of these demographics, career colleges tend to have a much higher percentage of students who rely on federal student financial aid that is parceled out under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (federally insured loans, Pell Grants, etc.) than do students at public universities and private colleges.
The most significant of the new Ed Dept rules focuses on “gainful employment,” an arbitrary standard to determine if graduates are earning enough income to repay school costs. Schools whose graduates and former students fail to meet this standard will be cut-off from enrolling students using such aid.
The gainful employment standard is not only arbitrary but also applies only to career colleges. Applied to public universities and private colleges, the same rule would severely restrict aid to medical, dental, law and engineering school students as well as students attending some of the most elite private schools with high enrollment costs.
This narrow focus is justified, claims Education Secretary Arne Duncan, because career colleges “benefit from billions of dollars in subsidies from taxpayers.” It is true that career colleges have student enrollments that more heavily rely on federally backed student aid than do public universities and private not-for-profit colleges.
When judging the “value” of for-profit versus not-for-profit schools one ought to assume a broader approach. There are trade-offs between for-profit and not-for-profit schools. Public universities and not-for-profit colleges receive billions of dollars in taxpayer money — directly in the form of government outlays and/or indirectly by taxpayer subsidies due to non-profit status. In contrast, career colleges do not receive government monies and instead pay taxes to federal, state and local governments.
These taxpayer subsidies significantly add to the cost of education. An analysis prepared by Professor Bradford Cornell of the California Institute of Technology found that when accounting for direct taxpayer subsidies the overall cost is an additional $25,000 for a student to graduate from a public 2-year college than from a 2-year for-profit college.
There are other tangible differences between for-profit and not-for-profit colleges. The extracurricular activities of college students such as Faber’s Omega House that are prevalent at campuses around the nation are virtually non-existent at career colleges.
Briefly scouring news headlines in just one week in October revealed these campus gems:
• Police find drug lab in Georgetown [University] dorm room.
• Fraternity pledge’s chant [trivializing rape] raises concerns at Yale.
About the Author
Mark Hyman hosts “Behind the Headlines,” a commentary program for Sinclair Broadcast Group. You can follow him on Twitter at @markhyman.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (39) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 12.1.10 @ 7:12AM
We have some experience of this in our own family, chiefly with cosmetology and hair-related schools. It is extremely difficult to make money in either of these fields, and even when you find a job, it takes patience and a span of years to develop a following of customers and build up a book of business. The chatter about cosmetology is *I will go to Vegas and work in Top Shows or the Movies.* No, honey, you will not. Those jobs are filled, and they bring people up from a small, tightly-controlled pool with very good connections. You may as well aspire to go from the playground basketball ranks right to the NBA.
Ditto golf academies and the like.
On the other hand, one sister went to Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School for two years and she outearned all of us.
Alan Brooks| 12.1.10 @ 10:10PM
Lady Cornball.
(not conservative)
Appleby| 12.1.10 @ 7:12AM
We have some experience of this in our own family, chiefly with cosmetology and hair-related schools. It is extremely difficult to make money in either of these fields, and even when you find a job, it takes patience and a span of years to develop a following of customers and build up a book of business. The chatter about cosmetology is *I will go to Vegas and work in Top Shows or the Movies.* No, honey, you will not. Those jobs are filled, and they bring people up from a small, tightly-controlled pool with very good connections. You may as well aspire to go from the playground basketball ranks right to the NBA.
Ditto golf academies and the like.
On the other hand, one sister went to Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School for two years and she outearned all of us.
Alan Brooks| 12.1.10 @ 10:11PM
Lady Cornball.
(not conservative)
Doctor_X| 12.1.10 @ 7:16AM
It took me 6.5 years to earn a B.A. degree from S.U.N.Y. Buffalo.
I was on the pay-as-you-go program, I worked 35 hours a week and went to school part time. This way I could pay my tuition as I went and didn’t have to take out loans. I guess because I did the right thing for me I skewed the stats and made things bad for others.
We have way too many people going to 4 year colleges and now we have degree inflation! Now a B.A / B.S. is what a high school diploma once was. I bet the biggest money makers at schools like University Of Phoenix is the MBA and MS degrees. You have people like me who now “need” a Master’s just to stay where we are! We won’t even hire an administrative assistant unless they have a B.A / B.S degree!
In the 1950’s you could get an engineering job with a high school diploma and a strong math and science background. Now the Doctorate program I am in has 5 applicants for each open spot and an active wait list!
College is now “job training”, not academia like it once was. When will Obama and the elite come out of the 19th century and into the 21st!
Ray| 12.1.10 @ 2:15PM
"I guess because I did the right thing for me I skewed the stats and made things bad for others.'
So, you blew the curve, huh? Heh.
Fist of the Fleet| 12.1.10 @ 9:28PM
Doctor_X. I grew up in the neighborhood around the South Campus, back in the day most of the people I saw at U.B. were hippies and dope smokers. Now it seems that every third student there is from China. Great Medical, Dental and B School. Law school not so much, I think you know why.
Alan Brooks| 12.1.10 @ 10:13PM
It's the cost:
if education were 1 cent a semester hour, it would be the best bargain since Manhattan Island was purchased with beads.
Coal Miner's Son| 12.1.10 @ 8:15AM
Aristotle said (and I'm paraphrasing) that the purpose of education was to develop the CITIZEN to do what was best for the city during both war and peace. Whether we admit it or not, schools are literally "citizen factories". Of course the product being churned out of those factories is in desperate need of quality control. Recently, I met a man who claimed to have dropped out of school and went to work driving trucks until he started his own trucking business and started earning six figures. This man had since left the trucking business and was contracting in the oil fields. He and his wife are raising three kids. (she stays at home).
My own grandfather went through the eighth grade. He served in the Seabees during WWII and later worked in carpentry before going into the coal mines where he worked until he retired.
The upcoming generation of citizens is blissfully ignorant with no sense of responsibility toward anything beyond "just being happy" and "I am a good person". I once had a "conversation" with two twenty-something high school graduates who didn't know what Prohibition was and thought I was lying when I told them that the possession, sale and distilling of alcohol was once totally illeagal in the US--go figure.
Alert1201| 12.1.10 @ 8:41AM
This is true. We are homeschooling our children and an important part of that education is getting my son (age 15) to start and run a business. For two years he has run a small neighborhood lawn care company where he goes out and gets customers, mows and cares for their lawn, collects the payment, keeps books and so forth. We also make him save all of his money for future college expenses (he has over $3000 saved). The trouble is that the peer pressure is incredible. All his friends, who do not have jobs but get gobs of money from relatives and parents, are going out and buying $100-$400 air-soft guns, fancy leather jackets and a host of other items that he could afford, were we to let him do so, but cannot because we want to teach him how to save. We are finding out it actually gives him a sour attitude toward work because he is working his butt off yet does not have the immediate gratification of getting something right away for his work. The other parents attitude is just let our kids be happy now, give them whatever they want. They do this instead of instilling in them a sense of responsibility. It is a painful lesson for my son but hopefully he will end up like you, your father and grand-father instead of the flighty empty headed kids we see all around us today.
cowgirl| 12.1.10 @ 2:14PM
Your homeschooled kids and my homeschooled kid will be running this country in a few years.
FastJohnny| 12.1.10 @ 9:24PM
God, I hope so.
I teach as an adjunct in two local community colleges and I thought my college generation (25 years ago) was irresponsible, but today...whew. Don't get me wrong I still see some very well adjusted young men and women, but they are farther and fewer than I remember.If ever there was a selfish generation, the present one in college is it. Of course their parents are the ones who spared the rod, so to speak.
MikeD| 12.1.10 @ 8:23AM
The federal government has no business in supplying anything to colleges or business schools. This administration's treatment of business schools is just one more example of the elitism and self adulation of obama and his fellow thugs. (I realize I over use the word, but it is what it is. They ARE thugs.)
There is no provision in the Constitution for the feds to do anything with education; and, in that obviously intentional absence it should be left to the states or even local agencies.
Our colleges teach almost nothing of value anyway; and I completely agree with Dr. "X"'s opinion that current degrees are essentially worthless. Academics are obscenely overpaid and a huge percentage of the courses offered, and often required, are not just completely ridiculous, but even offensive and obscene. GET RID OF THEM!
Every course in every institution that receives one cent of federal money shuold meet a strict test of 'necessity', in that it must quantitatively lead to specific measurable skills that contribute to the use of that skill in a profession where the student can make a living after graduation. If students want to take the more stupid courses like "Gay and Gender Studies", or "Women's Studies", or "Black History", ad nauseum; let them pay for them on their own; and forbid the colleges from requiring any 'non-quantatative" course for any degree program.
Salaries should also be reduced 50% across the board for all professors; and I might even go as far as making EVERY course 'self funding', that is, whatever the course generates in revenues is what the professor is paid. Life is tough, and we can no longer afford paying colleges and universities to lead the charge in the academic/liberal war on America.
believer| 12.1.10 @ 8:56PM
MikeD- Remember it wasnt that long ago that there was no such a thing as the Dept. of Education, and the country was better off without one.
TomG| 12.1.10 @ 8:28AM
I believe the education bubble will be the next one to burst (I'm obviously not the 1st to say this). Double digit tuition inflation year after year is a joke, particularly when you examine the endowments of some of the larger universities and colleges that are simply rolled over every year instead of providing scholarships. I think the author hits on a good point that in many cases, this is simply an attempt by the big boys to monopolize the market.
I believe you will see an ever increasing amount of students utilizing the career college route to their benefit, eschewing useless social science degrees and pursuing careers in useful trades/occupations. At least I hope that's the case.
MikeD| 12.1.10 @ 8:47AM
Being old and slowed from various afflictions and wounds, I forgot to mention that I DID actually teach in a university for nearly 10 years before the current reign of terror washed over the college landscape. When I finally got to the point I could no longer stomach the self righteous liberals expressing their 'so called' superiority over the rest of us who actually worked for a living, I put my money where my mouth was and 'failed' my way to a group presidency at a Fortune 100 Company.
Not only are our colleges failing in their role of developing future citizens, they are gleefully leading the destruction of our exceptional Country. (Regardless of what barry the muslim thinks!)
SEMPER FI!
abodyofminds| 12.1.10 @ 9:31AM
When the private sector steps up to address consumer demand for a worthwhile education its just further evidence that OUR education system is on the gurney and destined for major surgery. To extend my analogy, a major problem experienced on this journey is that the doctors can't do anything because they can't get access to the medical equipment. The union bosses have the keys.
The system is corrupt from the top down (as discussed above) and the bottom up (school boards are strongly influenced by the liberal agenda and history has demonstrated no amount of money will resolve education's decline).
Vocational schools are all about jobs but DoE is on a different page. Every time there is a serious challenge to THEIR system, they circle the wagons and push through protectionist legislation as being discussed here. This is a vicious cycle that has perpetuated for decades.
My challenge - if the Tea Party Patriots wants to embrace a social issue, the re-engineering of OUR education system should be first and foremost on the Agenda.
I bet many of those young women caught in the education system crosshairs voted for Obama and his liberal cronies because they don't know any better.
Want their vote in 2012? Let's put the blame of education's decline where it belongs, with the progressives.We took the House and many state legislatures in 2010. To address the bottom up problem, let's shake up the school boards in 2012! The top down solution, the new House should introduce and pass a simple five page vocational education reform bill and hold those that vote against it accountable.
WayneFarmer| 12.1.10 @ 1:53PM
YES! Best idea I've heard recently!
Joe Strader| 12.1.10 @ 9:36AM
I am 55 years old and I am still going to school, 27 years now. How does that skew the numbers? I am on schedule to graduate in 2012, finally. My college education was interrupted by two careers. My plan is to graduate before I retire.
Stan Redmond| 12.1.10 @ 10:14AM
Having the unfortunate upbringing with lib parents and attempting college at a California university (ALL LIBERAL) I saw the scam that college had become after a couple of semesters. the vast VAST majority of all college courses are totally worthless and their sole existence is a "make-work" job for smug jerks who have useless college degrees. I dropped back to a tech community college learned some skills and dropped out of college completely. I out earn nearly all of my contemporaries and started my own business.
My advice to college bound high schoolers... Make sure you know what you want to do before you waste a ton of money on a useless degree. Sure you need a degree for engineering or architecture or medicine (which who in their right mind would go in to medicine with Obamacare on the horizon). But is a music degree or philosophy degree really going to get you anywhere? Probably not. Learn a trade for 4 years and consider that your college, learn to run a business the next 4 years, then start your own business. I love what I do and have no regrets there is no BS after my name...
Petronius| 12.1.10 @ 11:03AM
How sweet it is. Last time this got kicked around I expressed my satisfaction for not getting that "sheepskin" which is the ticket of admission to the managerial class and carries the certification of the issuing academic institution that the bearer has the minimum appetite for excrement as may be required. Reading the other posts herewith, I rest my case. Unless and until academia treats students as customers, like for profit career schools do, and allow them to study what they want and need to know to realize personal goals, they will remain ossified conformity factories. I've known too many well educated people with office walls covered in diplomas who don't possess a lick of common sense and can't think on their feet to save their sorry hides.
School's out: Right out!
Richard| 12.1.10 @ 11:48AM
Many traditional universities are merely Leftist Seminaries. Career colleges are not.
JmsA| 12.1.10 @ 1:41PM
Very good post, Richard; you stole my thunder.
lloyd| 12.1.10 @ 12:11PM
They were the DELTAs , not the OMEGAs!!!!
evergreen78| 12.1.10 @ 10:42PM
And Belushi's character was a SOPHOMORE when he lamented "Seven years of college down the drain!"
Al Adab| 12.1.10 @ 1:20PM
Here is a perfect opportunity for us to begin deficit reduction by eliminating this agency. DOE continues to think that schools have an endless need for other people's money. We should recall the words of John W. Davis, Democrat candidate for President in 1924 who stated, "To tax one person, class or section to provide revenue to another is robbery." Is that not the definition of how this agency views ir's mission?
believer| 12.1.10 @ 9:03PM
Al Adab-Great post, however it didnt start with this Administration, it started with LBJ's great society and Democrats fought and scratched their way into our pockets ever since.
Ray| 12.1.10 @ 2:34PM
It's ironic that the very institution we "rely" upon to educate our young citizens never seem to teach their own students that, contrary to the claims of the Universities themselves, a college degree isn't a guarantee of success. I''m not surprised that the college educated "officials" in government are mistake in this "belief" (education guarantees success) as well. After all, they were never taught this basic truth by the very colleges that "bestowed" that diploma on them.
Yes, a college degree can indicate someone's potential, but potential is not the only criteria an employer considers when hiring someone. It's not even the biggest criteria (personal references have a bigger impact, followed closely by actual experience), as most employers know that potential and performance are not necessary related.
I'm a good example of this basic truth. I am a "mid-level"office manager for a large insurance company, a position that is normally "reserved" for college graduates, but I not only never attended college, I'm actually a high school dropout with only a GED in which to indicate my "level of education," my "potential." How did I get that position? It's easy I worked my way into it.
I started out as a pc help desk technician (another position in which I didn't have the "proper level of education, aka a computer science or information systems management degree, just 15 years of experence), and after only a few years, my actual performance in this position lead to greater and greater opportunities, opportunities that I took.
So, in my situation anyways, a college degree was unnecessary and, since I didn't have to worry about paying back student loans I never had, that lack of degree was far more adventitious, far more profitable, for myself than even my fellow managers.
Tom| 12.1.10 @ 3:47PM
Congratulations on your success but I have something for you to think about. If you had a college degree would you have moved up the ranks quicker? Very often the cream rises to the top, you did, but that piece of paper makes the rising easier.
MBD| 12.1.10 @ 3:06PM
The widespread availability of government funded or guaranteed loan programs has done much to facilitate the inordinate increases in tuition and fees at our colleges and universities. So long as the consumer - the student - does not feel the immediacy of the nearly annual tuition increase in his pocketbook, but considers it as a distant future obligation, he has little incentive to raise an objection and there is, consequently, little check on a school's generosity to itself in enacting regular increases well in excess of general inflation. Our institutions of higher learning have understood this phenomenon for years and have been the major supporter of such programs.
I recall some forty years ago, while attending law school at one of the 'elite' midwestern universities, the school announced a $250 a semester increase in the tuition. There was an immediate uproar from the students even though the administration pointed out that tuition had remained stable for some five years and felt that an increase was in order just to keep up with inflation. It should be noted that the large majority of the students at that time (or at least their families) paid their own expenses without aid of any sort. It is hard to imagine such a reaction today from a student body where the large majority are in loan programs and see the annual tuition increase as little more than impacting them in a far distant future.
Slibberty Jibbet| 12.1.10 @ 3:40PM
Hear, hear! You are exactly right! Not only has this driven tuition into the stratosphere, but has opened the door to some of the ludicrous degree programs now available at universities in an effort to appeal to the broadest segments of society. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Doctor Right| 12.1.10 @ 4:31PM
Isn't it obvious?
People with marketable job skills are usually employed, and thus NOT sucking on the government teat.
On the other hand, perpetual, "professional" students (as in Europe) are guaranteed to be on the dole for as long as they're "studying", and thus more likely to support big government liberals who will keep subsidizing their l;ack of initiative in graduation. As in welfare, don't expect Liberals to ever put a limit on how long you can receive government assistance, or even prove that you're actually studying.
And for those who can't get afford to attend a career college, or who don't want to go to an academic college...Well, they can just go on government assistance, too, can't they?
Once you REALLY understand Liberalism, and how sick it is, it's easy to see through their schemes.
DaveS| 12.1.10 @ 5:14PM
A 'for profit' institution is, on the flip side, a 'for loss' institution as well. Draw students - or get out. Student success afterward has little to do with it - otherwise, a lot of so-called 'select' schools would be out of business. The Dept of Ed disfavors them because their mission to educate is first - not to gain employees.
Steven Hollingworth| 12.1.10 @ 6:46PM
I earned my degree from a "career college" and I'll hold it up against the "Ivy Leagues". My professors were working executive level professionals in the fields that they taught, not the clueless never held a real job in their lives academics at the state university.
But let's get down to brass tacks. The morons that developed the exotic "investments" that lead to the last two bubbles and crashes were Ivy League "elites". They had to be because no graduate of a "career college" is that stupid.
Fist of the Fleet| 12.1.10 @ 8:35PM
I am currently attending a career college, I started after I lost my last job. I have new methods, which along with my life skills have helped me transition to a new career after 16 months of unemployment. I became better at researching, reading, writing and math. No fluff, just what I need to graduate and start producing. Practical knowledge that can be used daily.
Nite| 12.1.10 @ 10:25PM
Not everyone is college material, but thousands have had decent livings in a trade such as plumbing. I started at a Junior College and finished at a University with a degree in Nursing. I worked 35 years in this profession. This profession has certainly gone downhill. I have been a patient in a hospital in the past three years. I was appalled at the horrible care that I received and the nurses hardly understood the medications and were trying to give me medications that should never have been combined. No wonder so many patients die from medical errors. It seems nursing programs are high on theory and light on adequate good nursing practice. I have find the profession seems riddled with unions and liberals for the most part, especially in California and New York.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 12.2.10 @ 5:21AM
For a cow herder to be successful he must first teach the cows not to wander from the herd.
Kim B| 12.3.10 @ 11:19PM
Too bad their study didn't get into all the reasons why it takes so long to complete a 4 year degree. But... I think to get more people through any school quicker, we need to start improving at the grade school level. My kids did hardly any writing/research papers in 12 years, spelling tests disappeared in 5th grade, there was no requirement for cursive writing, and there were absolutely no book reports. When my kids first started school, I was shocked to see that the 93 I needed for an A, you now only needed a 90. And a 70 gets you a C. As my kids reached college age, I was told that a large number of kids require remedial math and English (excuse me, language arts) before they can start the core courses, no matter what type of school they are attending. My company has over 2000 job openings, many being posted for months. While the postings will ask for degrees, many will offer to substitute experience. And quite a few ask for a security clearance (I have been told having one of those can get you a job quicker than the degree). But there are not enough qualified people to fill the positions. Maybe the jobs are too specialized? But we deal with software development....