20100921.1524

I work, as some know, at a proprietary two-year college, the very sort of institution that is currently facing quite a bit of scrutiny. There are reports that "For-Profit Colleges Mislead Students," that they are sites of fraud and deception, and that by profiting they actually work against students. And it is true that there are problems in some for-profit schools. Associates of mine (one might even call them friends, though they may not always be glad of the label) have commented to me to the effect that some of the for-profit schools explicitly operate on the student-as-customer model. Students pay, so goes the model, and so they are entitled to receipt of credits culminating in a degree.

Even at my own institution, I have heard such an attitude voiced by certain of my colleagues. Some of the comments in that regard, I have discussed: that the school is a two-year school in no way means that the students who attend it are less deserving of learning and of intellectual rigor. One might argue that because they bear a heavier direct cost (in addition to the indirect costs the rest of us carry), they are more deserving; they pay more, so they ought to get more.

But "more" in terms of education does not necessarily equal employment...and it never really has. In any event, hiring decisions are not made by the colleges being targeted; while there are, no doubt, some bad practices that need to be corrected, punishing a school because businesses do not hire its graduates seems akin to kicking you for something I did. And that does not strike me as a well-thought-out thing.

It is, yes, one of the hopes of most schools (not just for-profit ones) that their graduates will go on to find decent jobs and become contributing members of society (and the alumni association). And that hope is intensified for many two-year schools, since they tend to focus on technical and service fields. But the point of the thing is to help students become educated people who can interpret the information that comes to them in such a way as to be aware not only of what is being said but how what is being said is manipulated, and thereby participate fully in civic society.

While there are things that need fixing, the ideas for doing so that are being advanced are not the way to get at the problems facing not just the for-profit schools, but education generally.