… continues. Tomorrow, Senate hearings on deceptive and illegal student recruiting practices in the industry resume. IHE provides, in this and other articles, a good deal of background, as well as links to important documents.
Undercover investigators posing as students found that employees at all 15 for-profit colleges visited for the [GAO] investigations made “deceptive or otherwise questionable statements” to students about accreditation, graduation rates, employment outcomes, program costs or financial aid.
At four institutions visited, admissions or financial aid officials encouraged students to submit fraudulent financial information in order to qualify for federal aid, the GAO says in its report.
UD’s been covering the scandal for years. In ’07, she wrote a fight song for the University of Phoenix.
Sing it out!
To the tune of Rawhide!!
Enrollin’ …rollin’ …rollin’ …
Keep movin’, movin’, movin’,
Though they’re disapprovin’,
Keep them students movin’, Phoenix!
Don’t try to educate ‘em,
Just rope and throw and bait ‘em,
Soon we’ll be living high and wide.Boy, my head’s calculatin’
My paycheck will be waitin’,
Be waiting at the end of my pitch.Move ‘em on, head ‘em up,
Head ‘em up, move ‘em out,
Move ‘em on, head ‘em out, Phoenix!
Set ‘em out, ride ‘em in
Ride ‘em in, let ‘em out,
Cut ‘em out, ride ‘em in, PHOENIX!
August 4th, 2010 at 8:08AM
I hope that they clean up the for-profit abuses. It would then be a good idea to turn some rays of cleansing sunshine on the non-profits’ admissions pitches. I think they might find some abuses there too.
August 4th, 2010 at 8:33AM
One of the most popular forms of defense among the for-profits is to accuse non-profit universities of being guilty of all of the same things. This is wrong and unfair, but – as you suggest – non-profits had better watch it.
August 4th, 2010 at 1:50PM
Several years ago, the Backslapper regime claimed that 97% of Gilligan grads were “employed” in their major fields within six months of graduating. Given the large percentage of our grads who traditionally go to graduate school, medical school, dental school, law school, etc., this was a flat-out impossibility. When challenged, the admin said that it was confident of its accuracy, but refused to say who did the study or how it was done. After more questions, it was eventually forced to argue that “going to grad/professional school” = “employment.”