Goverment investigating for profit college

[Dracent]

I think the aid really helps most students, but alot of them take advantage of it too much

[Ryany]

Sure, you can take simple classes like English 101 online, no problem. But you're never going to learn complex subjects like engineering, high level physics, differential equations, etc. on an online class, it's impossible, you need a real professor and real equipment from a real university.

I'll be honest. I had all those classes you listed as examples, and I learned a few of them almost 100% from the book because of TAs that weren't fluent enough in English to speak in complete sentences. Of course, if you expected decent communication, you were a "racist". Luckily, most of that was gone past freshman year.

I do agree that things such as the labs can't be replaced by an online course.

...Wouldn't we all like the convenience of that, but if you want a real degree you have to bust your ass off for it, it's not supposed to be convenient, if it was convenient everyone would have one and it wouldn't be a valuable thing.

This ALWAYS seems to get overlooked by even intelligent people. I also feel this is good example why people put too much stock into the "graduation rate" category. (when they think every graduation rate should be 100%) My opinion is that every major needs multiple weedout classes. (and weeding out shouldn't just be those that can't "pay the bill" like I believe it is in many majors) Something is wrong when you see a C student in high school go to a 4.0 student in college while spending less time per week studying.

[Skyylya]

Pretty much every school offers online classes, but not entire degrees based off it. Because there's only so much you can teach in an online class, usually very simple subjects.

Sure, you can take simple classes like English 101 online, no problem. But you're never going to learn complex subjects like engineering, high level physics, differential equations, etc. on an online class, it's impossible, you need a real professor and real equipment from a real university. The funniest thing I've ever seen is online nursing degrees, there's just no way, you need hands on experience, you need to be taught by an actual doctor, you need professional grade lab equipment, etc. you can't just take that shit online.

Those online degrees are diploma mills because of their very nature, the classes are so easy you can take them online. Wouldn't we all like the convenience of that, but if you want a real degree you have to bust your ass off for it, it's not supposed to be convenient, if it was convenient everyone would have one and it wouldn't be a valuable thing.

And there are good small private/for-profit schools out there, like UAT, but they're only good because they operate almost exactly like a state university does, just on a smaller scale.

While not meaning to attack you or what you're saying you are speaking very ignorantly about the subject.

There are things you cannot learn online, and no truly accredited school offers those programs or they would not be accredited. However, there are plenty of things you can learn online just as well as in a classroom. Honestly and this goes to anyone who attended a campus, how much did you actually learn physically in the classroom. And how much did you have to teach yourself out of class by studying your professor's powerpoints/textbook etc... and going over things on your own time. It's no different for an online school most of the learning is done on your own time.

There are no online nursing programs to become a nurse. That is not possible for obvious reasons however there are online nursing programs that are perfectly valid if you are trying to advance from an LPN to an RN for example. The caveat however is that you must be currently working in a clinical environment in order to take this type of program. You take knowledge based classes online learning concepts and such and you do your clinical work under direct supervision in a hospital where your supervisor can sign off on what you're doing. In this way you are still learning hands on and gaining conceptual knowledge in the online classroom.

There are plenty of fields out there where a classroom environment adds nothing more to the learning process than you can get from online. If you're intentionally bringing up hands on careers you are being very shortsided in your arguement. Are there schools that do this? of course, they make it harder for the rest of us trying to do it the right way.

[Meresgi]

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There are things you cannot learn online, and no truly accredited school offers those programs or they would not be accredited. However, there are plenty of things you can learn online just as well as in a classroom. Honestly and this goes to anyone who attended a campus, how much did you actually learn physically in the classroom. And how much did you have to teach yourself out of class by studying your professor's powerpoints/textbook etc... and going over things on your own time. It's no different for an online school most of the learning is done on your own time.
.

I agree with you, i'm doing Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online classes right now as it's the closest college with the program I want to study, but there's no way I can afford to move down there to attend on campus classes. The faculty so far is pretty decent, some of the course work can be demanding on my time as I have to commit to doing sketches and drawings that take a good 2-3hours to finish to the quality I want.

I find it no different then going to on campus. Granted I did all of my extra classes on campus and transferred them in so I could just focus on core classes online, which all deal with digital art and animation.

[Minions]

While not meaning to attack you or what you're saying you are speaking very ignorantly about the subject.

There are things you cannot learn online, and no truly accredited school offers those programs or they would not be accredited. However, there are plenty of things you can learn online just as well as in a classroom. Honestly and this goes to anyone who attended a campus, how much did you actually learn physically in the classroom. And how much did you have to teach yourself out of class by studying your professor's powerpoints/textbook etc... and going over things on your own time. It's no different for an online school most of the learning is done on your own time.

However, who is to say I don't have someone I know (which has already taken the courses) just do the tests for me, or heck I'm sure people hire people to do shit for them. This is a huge problem with not meeting someone in person, in theory you can earn a degree by paying someone else to do the work. I liked online courses when I was in college, but It's damn shady IMO to have a 100% online degree.

[Skyylya]

However, who is to say I don't have someone I know (which has already taken the courses) just do the tests for me, or heck I'm sure people hire people to do shit for them. This is a huge problem with not meeting someone in person, in theory you can earn a degree by paying someone else to do the work. I liked online courses when I was in college, but It's damn shady IMO to have a 100% online degree.

Because nobody ever cheats in a classroom....ever

[Bingbong]

So let me get this straight, a small "for profit" college is a bad thing, but roll up billions, call it an "endowment" , and suddenly you can just be called a non-profit educational institution?

http://www.boston.com/business/artic...ent_officials/

[Meresgi]

However, who is to say I don't have someone I know (which has already taken the courses) just do the tests for me, or heck I'm sure people hire people to do shit for them. This is a huge problem with not meeting someone in person, in theory you can earn a degree by paying someone else to do the work. I liked online courses when I was in college, but It's damn shady IMO to have a 100% online degree.

And thus you learn jack shit, and when you go to perform your job IF you can even get the job in the first place they realize you know nothing and fire your ass immediately. You're only hurting yourself if you pull that shit and you can do it just as easily on campus as well. I could have gotten tons of people to write papers for me, or do some of the take home exams etc etc.

So let me get this straight, a small "for profit" college is a bad thing, but roll up billions, call it an "endowment" , and suddenly you can just be called a non-profit educational institution?

Yeah it's kind of funny. Sure some for-profit colleges are scams, but be intelligent and weed through them. Some are actually there to help people out while making money. Harvard or other costly schools are different because they have a name and have been around longer?

[Holly Short]

Because nobody ever cheats in a classroom....ever

Of course they do, but it's MUCH easier to cheat on an online setting. When I was living in SD for school, I was always too afraid to cheat. Not worth getting kicked out. But when the risks are non existent and no one is monitoring you? The temptation will be higher.

I knew someone who paid a chem major to do all her chem coursework for her online at her house because she was terrible at it.

Not everyone does it, but you can't really say they didn't now can you?

[Drex]

"A student interested in a massage therapy certificate costing $14,000 at a for-profit college was told that the program was a good value. However the same certificate from a local community college cost $520," a summary of the report on the GAO website said.

lol, I looked into one of these for-profit colleges around here for a summer class and bailed out as soon as they showed me the cost per credit hour. it's really sad that some people look at figures like this and think "well college is expensive so i guess that makes sense" and go along with it instead of exploring their options.

it's even worse when online degrees do it. you're seriously gonna run me through some pre-programmed shit with a pdf file for a text book and an "instructor" running off a script who is available maybe 2 hours a day to correspond by email, and tell me it makes sense that it's 20x more expensive than a classroom, a real instructor i can meet in person, and a real textbook?

[Acturus]

The Obama administration has proposed rules to limit federal student aid funds to for-profit career colleges that do not prepare students for "gainful employment" in recognized occupations.

It's about time something is done. Cutting aid will kill the chances of fake schools to stay competitive. My opinion is that government money is fueling tuition outpacing inflation.

....now if only government handouts could be more so based on academic performance rather than how "poor" your parents are.

A buddy of mine is a professor for DeVry, and he showed me the news on the new standards. I like them.

As I understood it, in VERY general terms, loan default metrics will be captured and the for-profit school will be held accoutable to an extent if their graduates aren't able to pay back the loans. Schools with poor metrics in this area will have government monies restricted or removed. It sucks because that puts students in the middle, but it does add the burden of following through with accountability of a business' finished product (i.e., the graduate).

Since I guess DeVry prides themselves on post-school placement and success, my buddy says they don't mind these new oversights.

[Sariae]

I thought I sensed something funny with I saw their per credit hours were more than what it took to take the same entire class at a local community college!

[Meresgi]

Of course they do, but it's MUCH easier to cheat on an online setting. When I was living in SD for school, I was always too afraid to cheat. Not worth getting kicked out. But when the risks are non existent and no one is monitoring you? The temptation will be higher.

I knew someone who paid a chem major to do all her chem coursework for her online at her house because she was terrible at it.

If they are the type of person to pull that kind of shit, screw em. You're paying for the college and the courses, the least you can do is actually attempt to learn something from them...otherwise why the fuck are you even shelling out money in the first place? I used to have a history teacher at my Community College who told us we could skip every single day of the class if we wanted to and just cram for the final and if we passed that we passed the class. During the term though he gave a pop quiz on random days and those could not be made up. He told us "You paid for this class, if you want to gamble with your money, not learn a damn thing about it and continue on that's your prerogative."

[Holly Short]

If they are the type of person to pull that kind of shit, screw em. You're paying for the college and the courses, the least you can do is actually attempt to learn something from them...otherwise why the fuck are you even shelling out money in the first place? I used to have a history teacher at my Community College who told us we could skip every single day of the class if we wanted to and just cram for the final and if we passed that we passed the class. During the term though he gave a pop quiz on random days and those could not be made up. He told us "You paid for this class, if you want to gamble with your money, not learn a damn thing about it and continue on that's your prerogative."

lol, my friend told me he only gives random quizzes when the class dips below a certain amount of people, just as a fuck you for not going to organic chem.

I do agree on what you said, but there are people who just want the "I have a degree" but didn't actually take away from it. And there are others who just don't want to deal with areas like math or science so they pay people to do it for them. Hell, in my astronomy class this one girl was making bank by making up a project for people who didn't start 6 weeks into the semester. Prof gave each of them A's and she was charging 100 bucks a pop as it was the final project.

[Meresgi]

lol, my friend told me he only gives random quizzes when the class dips below a certain amount of people, just as a fuck you for not going to organic chem.

I do agree on what you said, but there are people who just want the "I have a degree" but didn't actually take away from it. And there are others who just don't want to deal with areas like math or science so they pay people to do it for them. Hell, in my astronomy class this one girl was making bank by making up a project for people who didn't start 6 weeks into the semester. Prof gave each of them A's and she was charging 100 bucks a pop as it was the final project.

I loved the pop quizzes. Dude called them Shotguns, and would slam his hands on his podium and yell "SHOTGUN!". Was hilarious, also he would sometimes ramble on about how to make homemade booze and other crazy old man shit right in the middle of a lecture. Yeah there are people that just want the piece of paper, hell I feel that way partly too, as I've self taught myself a lot of what I need to know already, but I have to take the classes for the credits for the paper because a lot of the jobs I apply too don't care about my portfolio, they want to see my degree first. Which is kind of a shame. That's pretty awesome about that chick making all that cash haha..man I should have done that for some of my media classes when people couldn't even figure out how to open Flash much less use it.

[Cream Soda]

Garbage man is where it's at. They gets money

[Shazaam]

. Yeah there are people that just want the piece of paper, hell I feel that way partly too, as I've self taught myself a lot of what I need to know already, but I have to take the classes for the credits for the paper because a lot of the jobs I apply too don't care about my portfolio, they want to see my degree first. Which is kind of a shame.

Jobs DO care about your 'portfolio'. In fact, they care more about the REAL work you have done more than your time in school and your grades.

Just going out on a limb here, but I am guessing your 'portfolio' doesn't include any experience with the jobs you are looking for, or doesn't include any real work at all.

If you want to work in any field, start working... even at a damn fast food joint. If you are lucky or spend enough time in the muck, you can get a job in the field you want to be in.

Dress for the job you want, work in anything you can get.

[Meresgi]

Jobs DO care about your 'portfolio'. In fact, they care more about the REAL work you have done more than your time in school and your grades.

Just going out on a limb here, but I am guessing your 'portfolio' doesn't include any experience with the jobs you are looking for, or doesn't include any real work at all.
If you want to work in any field, start working... even at a damn fast food joint. If you are lucky or spend enough time in the muck, you can get a job in the field you want to be in.
Dress for the job you want, work in anything you can get.

My portfolio contains examples of my artistic works ranging from simple graphic art and color theory to 3d modeling, animation, video editing, life drawings and still life, and concept art. I can't get the job type i'm really looking for working int he fast food industry . But I also have a background in a whole slew of random jobs from Security to Sales and Teaching and other random crazy shit. Right now i'm just trying to secure an internship to show actual on the job work for my career field, but a lot of the places right now refuse to hire interns who don't already have a background in the field, as they arn't really using them as interns, but more just low/no wage slaves haha.

Garbage man is where it's at. They gets money

University of Phoenix told me they make like at least 6 figures a year. I mean they get like 25$ a trash can and if you do like 10 trash cans a day that's 250$ a day! You can't go wrong!

[Seanr]

Cracked.com juuuuust had an article about this, but I'm on my phone so I can't look it for y'all at the moment

[Skyylya]

The reason the cost is higher than a community college is because community colleges are government funded...you can't really compare them to a typical online school just like you can't compare their cost to any other normal 4 year university. apples to oranges.

And there are a lot of schools that do use real text books and not e-books. My school, for example, gives our students real text books and ships them to the students via UPS, the cost for both is included in the tuition. Our tuition right now sits at 369 per credit hour which compared to other online schools (apples to apples) is pretty good, most are around 300-600 (i think devry is in the 500 range). For the type of student we cater to that has 0 out of pocket available funds this is a good perk, it means their texts are covered by their financial aid and they don't have to spend 300-500 dollars per term on textbooks out of pocket.

My school also has a provisional period where in the first 45 days of class if the student isn't doing well, or it doesn't appear they have the smarts to do well they can drop without being charged. We're the only school in the country right now with a "drop/add" period of this length to make sure we're putting our students best interest first.

Not all for profit schools are scams or only care about money. So you all should do your research before regurgitating the same old stereotypes.