Is that some for-profit colleges mislead students and some even encourage financial-aid fraud. According to The New York Times, the report not only found that four schools allegedly encouraged undercover investigators to commit outright fraud by lying about their savings but all of them lured students in with overblown expectations for future career glory:
In addition to the colleges that encouraged fraud, all the colleges made some deceptive statements. At one certificate program in Washington, for example, the admissions representative told the undercover applicant that barbers could earn $150,000 to $250,000 a year, when the vast majority earn less than $50,000 a year. And at an associate degree program in Florida, the report said, a prospective student was falsely told that the college was accredited by the same organization that accredits Harvard and the University of Florida.
It is not at all surprising that an industry that thrives on business from the poor is engaging in some shady business, and this makes Wal-Mart's decision to "help" students get degrees at a for-profit college all the more discouraging. My biggest problem with these types of colleges, and with many certification programs in general, is that they create barriers to entry for many careers that didn't exist before. It used to be true that massage therapists, barbers, and even plumbers could serve an apprenticeship and get a license to practice. Now, many schools offer programs in those fields, which ups the ante for those who want to enter them, even if schooling is not technically required. As Michael Lind wrote in Salon yesterday, the idea that we can build a vast upper middle class is largely a myth. We should devote energy to removing the barriers to a college education faced by many, but we should also make sure that there's a non-college path to a skilled job. We should worry about the sorts of base-level support families have, like access to the health insurance market and affordable child care. It shouldn't take a college degree to earn a decent living.
-- Monica Potts
