doubtingt
Senior Member
John Oliver had a great show a few weeks ago skewering the for-profit higher “education” industry.
Here are some of the things he discussed about for profit colleges:
Student loan debt is 3 times higher at these schools than for public college students. The cost is 5 times higher than community colleges and twice as high as 4 year Universities. They spend only half as much on instructors as they do on marketing (i.e., lies and emotional manipulation to get people to make the self destructive choice to attend). They graduate less than 1 in 3 students, which is less than public colleges, and ultimate employment in the profession is very low, even for private trade schools whose sole function is training for a particular profession (under 10% for ITT grads). For profit colleges have formed a coalition organization that spends millions in political lobbying, such as their successful killing of legislation attempting to require them to actually prove their false claims of job placement. They also target military vets with their marketing because this allows them to go beyond the 90% Fed limit in terms of tuition at any school that can be paid via loans (vet loans do not count toward that limit). Schools have gone to vet hospitals to sign up brain damaged vets. The marketers speak about finding people’s “pain points”, which refers to identifying things about which people feel bad in their lives and emphasizing it. During training seminars they illustrate the utility of this “pain point” approach with actual images of Nazi torture.
Oliver spoke with a representative of the coalition organization and asked about the 2:1 spending on marketing versus instruction. They guys response was that it made sense and was just like selling people perfume. The actual cost of the perfume is a few cents, but if you want people to pay hundreds for it, you need to spend much more than a few cents on marketing. IOW, these schools view the higher education they provide like expensive perfume, a useless product of little value in itself that suckers must be manipulated into paying ridiculous prices for via emotional manipulations that are nonsensical in terms of having no relation to any objective qualities of the product being sold.
Here are some of the things he discussed about for profit colleges:
Student loan debt is 3 times higher at these schools than for public college students. The cost is 5 times higher than community colleges and twice as high as 4 year Universities. They spend only half as much on instructors as they do on marketing (i.e., lies and emotional manipulation to get people to make the self destructive choice to attend). They graduate less than 1 in 3 students, which is less than public colleges, and ultimate employment in the profession is very low, even for private trade schools whose sole function is training for a particular profession (under 10% for ITT grads). For profit colleges have formed a coalition organization that spends millions in political lobbying, such as their successful killing of legislation attempting to require them to actually prove their false claims of job placement. They also target military vets with their marketing because this allows them to go beyond the 90% Fed limit in terms of tuition at any school that can be paid via loans (vet loans do not count toward that limit). Schools have gone to vet hospitals to sign up brain damaged vets. The marketers speak about finding people’s “pain points”, which refers to identifying things about which people feel bad in their lives and emphasizing it. During training seminars they illustrate the utility of this “pain point” approach with actual images of Nazi torture.
Oliver spoke with a representative of the coalition organization and asked about the 2:1 spending on marketing versus instruction. They guys response was that it made sense and was just like selling people perfume. The actual cost of the perfume is a few cents, but if you want people to pay hundreds for it, you need to spend much more than a few cents on marketing. IOW, these schools view the higher education they provide like expensive perfume, a useless product of little value in itself that suckers must be manipulated into paying ridiculous prices for via emotional manipulations that are nonsensical in terms of having no relation to any objective qualities of the product being sold.
