My friends tell me I think everything is a scam. After week sevens readings I don’t feel like so much of a cynic. It seems as though people on top will do just about anything to swindle money out of the less well off. I mean we all can make the argument that tuition is too high but they can make it that high because there is a market. The same goes with textbook prices. But charging a lot for higher education does not seem quite as deceitful as no actually providing a “higher” education. I love to hear that more and more less fortunate people are going to college and I know America is proud of this too. However, if we are simply getting these kids into college without seeing them through then what do these numbers even mean? All they are are a selling point for the next generation of prospective students. If we allow under qualified students to be admitted into college we are wasting a countless amount of time and money. The article “Subprime Opportunity” goes into detail about how students are receiving “access but not success”. I think this is the biggest shame of all. Here these students are, breaking away from the pack, going to college, trying to get degrees and get high-paying jobs. They are mislead into believing that the costly degrees they are working towards will land them in the high paying jobs they are hoping for. However, as mentioned in the readings, the education they receive does not qualify them for these positions. In the article, “ Will The For Profit Bubble Burst in 20100” a women named Hope from Georgia talks about this very problem. She went to school to work as a paralegal and found a job out of college but was fired after a year due to a lack of skills and proper education. I cant not imagine how she must of felt having graduated thinking the would be able to fall back on her degree for the rest of her life only to be let down completely. This weeks readings focus a lot on the University of Phoenix. One of my relatives went there to get her MBA in Business. She is currently unemployed. She had already had a undergraduate degree in microbiology but decided to go back to school. I am not sure if her unemployment is due to economy or another factor. It would be a real shame to find out that employers are holding off on hiring her simply because she attended University of Phoenix. In the article “Fed Up with The University of Phoenix” the Stephen Burd talks about how the University has the mentality of putting “asses in classes, including those of unqualified students”. This is bothersome to me because I know my relative was qualified and works very hard. I am sure there is a large group of students that do attend these for-profit universities, similar to my relative, that are qualifies but are cheated as well. I feel like at least at the U of O there are some pretty reasonable standards to the way the university conducts itself. This is not to say they do not do their fair shame of questionable things but at least for the most part academically sound. And shouldn’t that be what a university is all about anyway? When did congress and lobbyist come into the picture? It’s all very disheartening.
-I was unable to open the last reading
I definitely agree with you that its a waste of peoples money and time if the only focus is on the amount of students enrolled in a school and not on how well they do while enrolled. Yet, its not just the for-profits schools fault, it is also the k-12 schools and government/states for not providing quality education to these students from the beginning and now they are under qualifies. However the fact that some of these for-profit schools are now exploiting them even further is wrong. I also don't understand why these schools, which seem to predominately focus and market towards lower income single parents have such high costs. It doesn't seem to make sense, however I might be combining different information from the readings.
ReplyDeleteIf you think everything is a scam or somehow has ulterior motives I think you would like this opinion article that was in the Oregon Daily Emerald today. http://www.dailyemerald.com/opinion/harris-weed-out-courses-have-wrong-idea-1.2002182 We read a lot about for-profit schools, but in class we talked a lot about the school we are all currently attending. There are so many problems everywhere and then to read this article it really opened my eyes. We should be shaping this school instead of it shaping us. There are so many people I know who did not get into their desired majors, and it made me think, "why not?" We are paying A LOT of money to attend this school and we should receive the education we want.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is such a tragedy that these students who work so hard to get college degrees and acquire so much debt are not getting the skills to be placed in high paying jobs. Especially because the nation has such a strong need for skilled workers in fields like science and computer programing ect, and in order to fill the need for these jobs we are importing people from other countries. If only these people had access to a better education some of them could be filling these high skilled jobs. I think there needs to be more of an emphasis on math and sciences in our country, there are many times in which I wish I had a stronger background and affinity in those fields, because they lead to the highest paying undergraduate degrees. It seems like the government sector needs to make a higher incentive for students to study in these areas so that scientifically and technologically we can keep up with global competition.
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