For Profit Colleges: Why they say no to tuition free public education.

[Skwmom]

The biggest borrower on the list is Walden University, whose grad students borrowed $756 million last year, according to the CAP report. Walden is owned by Laureate Education, a for-profit education company that hopes to go public next year. This seems to be a profitable enterprise, at least for its CEO. If you’ve never heard of Walden, join the club: it has no academic reputation to speak of. (Don’t confuse Walden University with Walden College, the fictional school made famous in the Doonesbury comic strip. Garry Trudeau did poke fun at Walden U. once, in his August 2012 strip. In that strip, the president of Walden College laments that the graduation rate is so low that “it’s like we’re a for-profit school!”)

A new study from the Center for American Progress finds that just 20 universities account for nearly one-fifth of all grad student debt, a total $6.6 billion. What’s perhaps most surprising is who those universities are: 10 of the 20 are for-profit schools, including two foreign schools.

The problem here is that these schools offer terrible value for the money. There’s little debate (except from the schools themselves) that these schools have very low standards for admission. The only requirement seems to be money, and if you don’t have it, they will help you borrow it (often from the federal government). The degrees themselves are barely worth the paper they are printed on, because the reputations of most of these schools are–well, let’s just say they aren’t good. Graduate degrees do improve your career choices, if you get them from a well-regarded institution. But when the school isn’t even ranked in the top 200, a degree isn’t going to open any doors, and it’s certainly not worth borrowing tens of thousands of dollars to get one.


And who made over 16 million in consulting fees in 4 years. None other than Bill Clinton. And who has invested in Laureate? Laureate is backed by several of the biggest names in finance, including Henry Kravis, George Soros, Steve Cohen and Paul Allen.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2015/07/12/for-profit-colleges-encourage-huge-student-debt/#5d2db7dc2a05

See also: Nothing like trying to hide the fact Laureate owned college named 1 of the worst online colleges

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511648399

[CanadaexPat]

1. Sort of undercuts Hillary's criticism of Trump U.