There’s a great photo of a (Goldman Sachs-controlled, for-profit) college admission director’s vanity plate here.
There’s a great email from an admissions director here. Oh, let’s quote it.
Why are we letting them off of the phone? Are we making them push us off 3 TIMES?? We have proven that we can close the students we talk to but we need to talk to more students!!!!
Testimony from a former admissions person is here. Oh, let’s quote that too.
“The scales are so tipped; these people have no way of possibly making a good decision. …It was like we were used car salesmen. We would basically psychologically manipulate people into doing this. My master’s was in clinical psychology, and it was like I was using my powers for evil.”
And of course:
According to a JP Morgan Chase analyst report in 2010, [Goldman’s] schools have among the highest tuition of publicly traded corporations in higher education. Tuition at EDMC’s Art Institutes schools can average about $50,000 for an associate’s degree and between $77,000 to nearly $100,000 for a bachelor’s degree.
It’s predatory capitalism, folks: John Boehner changed the laws:
John Boehner, then the chairman of the House education committee, helped to eliminate a key provision that had moderated the growth of exclusively online universities.
The so-called 50 percent rule, which required half of all students to be at a ground campus in order for a school to be eligible for federal aid, had been put in place to discourage dubious distance education programs that offered subpar learning. Boehner helped to nix the rule in a budget agreement that took effect in early 2006, allowing schools to expand enrollments — and revenues — without having to invest in additional ground campuses. A spokesman for Boehner did not respond to requests for comment.
At which point fools rushed in. And the wolves ate them. They’re still eating them.
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Brown University’s president, Ruth Simmons, sat on the board of Goldman Sachs while it re-made for-profit online higher education.
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UD thanks Roy.