The thoughts expressed in this article are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views and interests of my employer. No proprietary information is contained herein. I shouldn't have to state these things, but it seems like all corporations just can't resist monitoring their employee's speech on the Internet, and making "friendly suggestions" as to what is or is not appropriate. As far as my employer should care, I am not divulging any proprietary, confidential, or private corporate information, so leave me alone. I'm entitled to my opinions and viewpoints.
2010 has been a peculiar year for me at my job. I teach at a proprietary post-secondary educational institution -- i.e. a for-profit college. In some quarters, the Federal government and certain other interest groups have been abuzz about how we -- and by extension, I -- do the job of educating students. I think we can all agree, we are not every graduating senior valedictorian's choice of college after high school. That's okay. My school serves the underserved: The housewife re-launching her career after kids. The autoworker laid off from Chrysler. The bright kid who chose the Marines first after graduation. The kid who wasn't expected by anyone to go to college but wanted to try after finding themselves in a dead-end spiral of fast food and telemarketing. In a very real way, we do sell dreams here. It is our hope that we help those dreams come true.
I'll state up front that I have little, if anything, to say about the marketing or admissions side of things. That's not my job, and that's the part of the industry that, if I were to begin to opine upon it, would give my employer the hyper-jeebies. I think that *any* college should be honest, forthright, and square-dealing with prospective students, whether that's a for-profit college, a private non-profit, a local community college, or a major public university. We aren't selling washers and dryers, or cars, or weight loss schemes. We are all selling a service that has a large human element. The philosopher Immanuel Kant considered "using people" to be immoral (the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative) and colleges of all types should be moral in their operations. I cannot speak on the way admissions or marketing are done. I've heard the same stories and read the same articles as you have. I hope that my school operates at the highest level of moral responsibility in that regard. But that's not what I'm about, and so I'm not going to pass judgment.
I'm also not going to talk about other schools. They may or may not be the same. I've only ever taught for this school, and I can only speak on my own experiences. I've read articles in the media concerning Federal inquiries, and I think to myself, "I hope *my* school never does *that*! That would be stupid." If any school of any type, not just for-profit, is acting unethically, immorally, or illegally, they are inviting action against themselves, and regulation of all of us. Of course, sometimes the regulators make crap up (such as in
this article on The Motley Fool that dragged one school through the mud very unfairly). Never take a politician's word at face value.
What I really want to talk about is, what is it like to be a teacher? This matters, because a lot of the concern about for-profit schools is about outcomes. Do they teach students? Why do students quit? How many students graduate? How many students get jobs afterward? What if they don't get jobs, what then? This is germane, because the most controversial proposed regulation on for-profit schools, the "gainful employment" rule, all depends on how good a job a school does at what it purports to sell, which is an education. Millions of people depend on Federal backing of their student loans, and so eventually taxpayers become involved in the scheme of things.
I know how many regard us. They don't consider us a real college. Most people who think that are attached to public colleges and universities, who of course see us as a direct threat. I'm sure private non-profit colleges, such as my alma mater, probably just look down at schools like mine and say, how cute, the boys are "playing at college". Hey, my alma mater was a good one. But I'd be lying if I said it was anything like what my school was like. You're not even comparing apples and oranges. You're comparing apples and toasters.
I teach technology courses. My background is in database development and web development, and I've had broad professional experience that is perfect as a background for technical education. I've learned a little bit about a lot in my life, and I have the communication skills and teaching desire to pass that seed on to others. I can only speak on the educational programs I've participated in, which is mostly IT (information technology). So I can't comment on cooking schools or paralegal programs or auto maintenance or whatnot. Just computers, basically.
My programs are both Associate and Bachelor degree levels. I have a Bachelor's degree in computer science from Bradley University, Master's Degree in educational technology from the University of Missouri, and I'm on the cusp of my Master's Degree in information technology from Dakota State University (just gotta survive 2 more classes!). I also have a wide range of other interests that I enjoy sharing. I do computer and web stuff outside of work. I can practice what I preach. So if you're thinking, "those who can, do; those who can't, teach", I've done the do and found it lacking in satisfaction. Teaching, on the other hand, brings me great satisfaction. That's why I'm still here, after all. Sure, there are better paying jobs out there, but a paycheck isn't all there is to life.
Who are my students? Generally, they fall into a few easy-to-identify categories. I see lots of older people who have had it with their current jobs and careers and are re-training. I love these students. They're driven, engaged, and determined to do a good job. Sometimes they miss class because of family demands, but I admire them for doing the juggling. I see quite a few military veterans. Same deal, pretty much. They've learned discipline from the armed forces and are usually very reliable, though we sometimes have to juggle reserve and guard duty. I see younger folks who didn't go to college out of high school, kicked around in service or manufacturing jobs, are sick of it, and want to make something more of themselves. These folks are a mixed bag. I've met solid ones, and I've met plenty who still don't know what they want to be when they grow up. They can be a challenge to engage. Occasionally, I see self-made folks who are just there for themselves, or for the degree. They already have a lot of the skills, but they don't have that magic documentation that says "degree" on it, or they're looking to fill the gaps in their knowledge. I tend to like these students too, since they typically know what they want.
Then I see the young kids who are here because their parents are making them. My god, save me from these people. Parents, don't use school as leverage to get them out of the house. These are the students who struggle the most. Their heart isn't into it, and they do the minimum necessary to keep the privilege of living at home. Do them a bigger favor and just boot them out on their own. Kids have to decide for themselves what to do with themselves. Plus, you're racking up a big bill for your experiment.
There have been -- and please note, it's been rather rare -- students who can't really handle the material. Sure, they passed the entrance exam, and everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves, but some folks just aren't college material. I think in my almost 10 years time teaching, I can count the number of these folks without taking my socks off. So discard the idea that my school is taking in subliterate homeless people and siphoning them for money. Most of our students want to be here. There's no shortage of schools, and lots of programs of study, and they could have gone wherever they wanted to, and they chose to come here. It's my job to teach them.
Unlike some of our competitors, I don't think we have a ton of on-line students. I think that most of our students come to campus. While that may seem old-fashioned and against the trend, that is actually a good thing. On-line education is great, *if* you can make it work. I'm doing my Master's Degree in IT on-line. And yeah, I've gotten myself in trouble a few times being inattentive and unengaged and generally undisciplined. I've gotten a couple of B's that should have been A's. That's most colleges. Though you'll find individual exceptions amongst instructors and professors, generally speaking it's all up to you and they don't really care much either way if you show up or not. Many schools are, in fact, designed to weed out those who they don't feel are up to their standards. That's okay, they can do that, it's their privilege.
But I don't do that. I want my students to learn the skills that I know and are presenting to them. I want them to be as passionate about the topic as I am, and I can be a little deflated when they're not. We call students every time they are absent, to ensure that everything is okay, and to give them an opportunity to get the work they missed. See, a lot of our students, they may not have experienced a ton of success in the past, and rather than weed them out, they need a gesture of faith.
One of the things that we have, that typical community and public colleges don't have, are mandatory courses for learning basic coping skills. How to learn, how to study, how to use Internet resources to help themselves. "Lifelong learning" is the message. Another big thing is time management. Attendance is a huge emphasis. After all, if you show up for school every time, you're more likely to show up for work every time. So it's not just academic skills, it's career skills. It's learning how to be a professional. It's learning how to organize yourself so you can get everything done. Most colleges can teach you knowledge, but they don't teach you how to be successful. A big part of my job is exactly that, teaching my students how to be successful. Did your college do this? Why not? You see, other colleges just assume you know, or if you don't already have it, you won't ever get it. The despair.com poster about Achievement reads, "Not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up."
The inevitable question always gets asked, do people actually get jobs after they graduate? Does their degree mean anything? Funny, nobody asks that about Mizzou, or even St. Louis Community College. I consider my students learning, excelling, and getting a job to be a matter of pride. And I do take it personally when one of my students doesn't get a good job in their field of study. But you know what? Those students who show up for class every day, and do all the work, and strive to be successful? They get jobs.
Not everyone does, of course. Why is that? The Feds and the public universities would like you to think that it's because we don't teach them anything, we just take their money. Overpromise and underdeliver. Well, let's just put the lie to that, shall we? Let's see, why do some students not get jobs?
* Sometimes, the economy sucks. Like now. Tough to get a job of any sort at the moment. It's an employers' job market. And my home city has been leaking corporate HQ's for 30 years. That tends to be where IT jobs are.
* Sometimes, when training for a new career, a student who has been in one job for a long time, making decent money in a job they dislike, can't afford to take the pay cut necessary to get the entry level job in their new field. You really need to plan ahead and rejuggle your financial obligations. Taking a $10k a year pay cut, even for a year or two, is too scary for some people with families to support.
* Sometimes, especially in IT, the folks who are forty-something and up face significant age discrimination. While I see a disciplined hard worker who has paid dues and could be a potential leader, some employers see an expensive, stuck-in-their-ways cost sink who will ask for benefits and resist 80 hour work weeks. It's not fair, but it's out there.
* Sometimes, a student goes their entire academic career putting in the bare minimum. You need a GPA of 2.0 to graduate. But seriously, if you were hiring, would you want someone who eked by with a 2.15? This isn't grad school, where a C is basically failing. Show me someone who graduates from Mizzou or SLCC or even Rolla or Wustl with a 2.15 and I'll show you someone who will have a tough time getting a job no matter what school they attended. The school you attend isn't nearly as important as what you do when you're there.
And there's another reality to education: Not everybody graduates. I've often been perplexed as to why a school's graduation rate is significant to their quality. I always figured that if a school graduated half of the students who start, they're probably doing a fair job. You don't want to drive everyone away, but you don't want to just give diplomas to your students either. If a school has a graduation rate of 25 percent (which I believe was the figure for my alma mater, does that mean they suck and people are quitting to go elsewhere? If anything, it's a sign that they're challenging, perhaps overly so. A high graduation rate doesn't mean a school is doing anything well other than retaining students. It says nothing about why they're staying or what their academic success is. A proprietary school has to weigh retaining students (who pay us, after all) against maintaining standards. Let's say a school on the quarter system has a goal of retaining 80 percent of their students per quarter. After 8 quarters, for an Associate Degree, that works out to a graduation rate of 20 percent. That's not how it works in reality, of course. Any school is going to lose more students in the early quarters, and should be fairly stable in the late quarters. Still, bump the success rate up to 90 percent, and you're still seeing a graduation rate of almost right on 50 percent.
Why do people quit school?
* The most common reason is that they simply decide they don't want to be in school anymore. It's nothing against the school, they just decided they didn't want to attend anymore. Maybe they feel family pressures of working and going to school at the same time. Maybe they decided they didn't like computers after all (though many of these students will choose to transfer to other programs rather than drop outright).
* Every so often, the school does contribute, usually by being inflexible. My school gives courses frequently, and will work with students to ensure they get the classes they need. They'll offer classes in the morning and evening -- in fact, the majority of our classes are in the evening, because many of our students work for a living. Occasionally they'll be given the opportunity to complete a course by independent study, if they meet certain requirements, which can be the difference between graduating on time or not. Contrast that with traditional colleges, whose courses are overwhelmingly in the daytime, and are frequently given on a fixed schedule. At DSU, I fell a year behind to graduate because I missed *one* summer course, because classes are scheduled on a fixed rotation, and not because students need the course.
* Many of the students who are being made to go by Mom and Dad, or who are chronically unreliable, end up getting dropped because of lack of attendance. If you're getting Federal aid, which includes student loans, if you miss class for 3 weeks in a row, the school must drop you, no matter what your grade was at the time. If you get dropped from enough classes, you start running up against an accreditation regulation called "Percentage Time to Completion". Roughly, it means you have to complete around 2/3rds of the courses you attempt. This is the Feds trying to protect their investment in you. If you don't deliver, they don't want to keep giving you money. Very rarely, students flunk out. They cannot maintain the minimum GPA to remain in school, 2.0, and after various levels of probation, must be shown the door. In my experience, academic performance strongly correlates to attendance. That's why all of this is under the heading of "poor attendance". Simply put, you can't learn if you're not here.
* Some students get burned out and have to take time off. That's not an ideal thing to do, since the Feds will start your repayment clock -- after six months out of school, you gotta start paying them back -- but I'd rather my students have their wits about them and in a learning state of mind, and come back after they get their head straight, rather than force themselves to go straight through with their head somewhere else. A great many students who drop out because of stress will re-enter school later.
* Sometimes, bad, bad things happen. In my time here, several students have died. At least one was murdered. At least one committed suicide. Occasionally, students do deeds serious enough to warrant imprisonment. It may shock you to know that, yes, these students are counted against our graduation rate. We don't make the rules.
On the whole, a successful student will be a successful graduate and get a job in their field of study. The hope is that even though entry-level jobs usually don't pay well, after awhile, if you do good work, you'll be rewarded. That is exactly why at my school we focus on learning how to be successful, not just learning the academic stuff. I'm frequently amazed that people on the street are surprised that we teach classes on math (at least three, programmers get four), writing and composition (at least two, more on the Bachelor level), working in groups and public speaking, economics, and creating portfolios and interviewing for jobs. My programmers take a business class. We have classes like ethics, environmental issues, and research methods on the Bachelor level. People usually seem to think these "gen ed" courses only get taught at "real schools", i.e. public colleges and universities, but seriously, think about it, would you want to hire someone without basic math and writing skills? And those other colleges can frequently leverage high school experiences. We get people 10 to 20 years after their last math class.
The people I see most frequently be successful as students and then in their career typically do these things:
* Show up at least 90 percent of the time.
* Do most of the work on time.
* Contact me when they will be absent so I can keep them current in the class.
* Do not believe that homework is something that only happens to other people.
Generally speaking, successful students have turned that key inside their head that says, "I'm gonna do this". I can't do that for them. They have to do it themselves. Like someone having a religious epiphany or an alcoholic finally deciding to quit drinking, the student has to make that decision that they're going to do it for real and not just play at it. That, right there, is perhaps the biggest predictor of future success, in my opinion.
So when the Feds, or "public interest groups", begin making noise about whether or not for-profit colleges do their job, ask them why they're not concerned about traditional colleges and universities. They may start to tell you about loan default rates and graduation rates and what-not, but what do those things really mean? Pin them down. Make them explain the numbers. What's the whole picture? If they want to regulate for-profits, would they be willing to regulate *all colleges*? If the answer is no, then be suspicious. Find out who is punching their meal ticket, where their biases are, and what their true motivations are.
