AFT FACE - For-Profit Expansion: Systemic Problems and Larger Concerns (Part I)

For-Profit Expansion: Systemic Problems and Larger Concerns (Part I)

Thursday, 05 August 2010

In our last look at the expansion of the for-profit sector in higher education, we looked at some of the real problems arising around protecting students and the integrity of the federal financial aid system which is, of course, funded by taxpayers. Those concerns were amplified and put under one massive spotlight yesterday as the Government Accountability Office revealed its findings from undercover testing "to determine if for-profit colleges' representatives engaged in fraudulent, deceptive, or otherwise questionable marketing practices" in a hearing before the Senate, Health, Education and Pensions committee chaired by Senator Tom Harkin.

The answer to that question? Uh, yeah. GAO's Managing Director, Office of Forensic Audits and Special Investigations Gregory Kutz provided an overview of the investigation and the findings with the help of video clips from the "tests." They start with two examples of good practices, followed by a sampling of the multitude of bad practices the GAO uncovered.

As Inside Higher Ed reports this morning, Senator Harkin was fully engaged and is clearly outraged about what is happening in these colleges and rejected the oft-stated meme of the industry that this is just a matter of a few bad apples. "GAO's findings make it disturbingly clear that abuses in for-profit recruiting are not limited to a few rogue recruiters or even a few schools with lax oversight," Harkin said. David Hawkins , Director of Public Policy and Research, National Association for College Admission Counseling echoed Harkin's assessment stating that there was a preponderance of evidence that suggests these practices are industry wide. "How many stories like these do we need?" Hawkins asked. (Hawkins' written testimony contains a wealth of examples of these bad practices.)

The other defense that the for-profit industry and its supporters continue to utilize (and was echoed by Senate Republicans) was the idea that the investigation into just the for-profit sector is unfair-why not look at the non-profit sector as well. Setting aside some of the obvious differences in the sectors, this is simply a red-herring approach. This is not to say that bad practices cannot arise in the non-profit higher ed sector (remember the preferred lender investigations?) but rather the right response here is to accept the problem and address it, not attempt to misdirect by pointing out that there might be another problem over there.

But ultimately the larger problem comes down to the core question about the impact of money and profit on the enterprise of education which clearly is what is driving these bad practices in the first place. That motivation also gives rise to concerns we have with the impact of the for-profit model on the direction of academic staffing and how universities run.