College Inc demonstrates how large scale corporations are taking advantage of people around the world every single day. Some extremely wealthy people decided it was a good idea to buy some colleges and "turn them around," but they really just created money making machines that deprive people from receiving a real education. From a marketing perspective it is a great idea but it is completely immoral, educating people is not about getting rich.
Higher education is becoming a multi-billion dollar industry fueled by the money of taxpayers. For profit colleges have been opening across America spending more money on marketing than they spend on teachers, their ad costs can rival or exceed those of multinational brands. The grandaddy of for profit schools,University of Phoenix spent over 130 million dollars on ads in 2008. People who go to for profit colleges are left with a useless degree and thousands of dollars in debt. One university spends 25% of their total revenue on sales and marketing and only 10% to 20% on faculty. These colleges rely on an army of sales representatives who use illegal high pressure recruitment tactics and lies to get people to attend their school. Many of these sales representatives are paid based on how many people they recruit each month. "Create a sense of urgency, push their "hot" button, don't let the student off the phone, dial, dial ,dial..."
Congress claims to be looking into these schools to make sure that they are doing fair and legal business but still after four years of "investigations" nothing has happened. With only a small portion of people who attend for profit colleges out of all college graduates they hold almost half of the defaults. They graduate with insufficient training in their field and most of time they have more debt than someone who attended a state school. There is definitely a major flaw in this system.
The for profit college could be a great way to create affordable education for people around the world, but sadly they are owned and operated by greedy people who just want to scrap up every cent that they can before they die. If someone who truly cared about education opened a for profit college they could create a cheap institution with scholarships to help people with less money and provide all of their students with a quality education.
Higher education is becoming a multi-billion dollar industry fueled by the money of taxpayers. For profit colleges have been opening across America spending more money on marketing than they spend on teachers, their ad costs can rival or exceed those of multinational brands. The grandaddy of for profit schools,University of Phoenix spent over 130 million dollars on ads in 2008. People who go to for profit colleges are left with a useless degree and thousands of dollars in debt. One university spends 25% of their total revenue on sales and marketing and only 10% to 20% on faculty. These colleges rely on an army of sales representatives who use illegal high pressure recruitment tactics and lies to get people to attend their school. Many of these sales representatives are paid based on how many people they recruit each month. "Create a sense of urgency, push their "hot" button, don't let the student off the phone, dial, dial ,dial..."
Congress claims to be looking into these schools to make sure that they are doing fair and legal business but still after four years of "investigations" nothing has happened. With only a small portion of people who attend for profit colleges out of all college graduates they hold almost half of the defaults. They graduate with insufficient training in their field and most of time they have more debt than someone who attended a state school. There is definitely a major flaw in this system.
The for profit college could be a great way to create affordable education for people around the world, but sadly they are owned and operated by greedy people who just want to scrap up every cent that they can before they die. If someone who truly cared about education opened a for profit college they could create a cheap institution with scholarships to help people with less money and provide all of their students with a quality education.
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