September/October 2010 Issue

You Know Your College Is Ripping You Off If…

How for-profit schools take students for suckers.

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Read also: The rest of the 2010 MoJo Mini College Guide, plus the 2009 MoJo Mini College Guide.

The for-profit education industry—think University of Phoenix, Corinthian Colleges, and schools owned by Kaplan—is booming. Enrollment at these institutions is growing 5 to 10 times faster than in all of higher ed combined. But with that growth has come an onslaught of criticism (PDF) for hard-sell recruiting tactics (PDF), risky loans, and inflated degrees. Here are three warning signs that your for-profit college may be cheating you out of your money—and an education.

Warning Sign #1: You were recruited at a blackjack table or soup kitchen. For-profit colleges spend huge amounts advertising at bus stops and online, but recruiters also visit (PDF) homeless shelters and casinos, where they often exaggerate their school’s rigorous academics and job-placement success rates.

You know your college is ripping you off if...

Warning Sign #2: You’ll be paying off your student debt well into your golden years. The average debt for a for-profit grad is $32,650, among the highest in all of higher ed. More than 90 percent of for-profit students borrow money, versus 70 percent at private schools and 50 percent at public universities. Several for-profits have been accused (PDF) of saddling (PDF) students with high-interest loans and other onerous terms.

Warning Sign #3: Every time you make a new friend at school, he disappears. Only one-third of for-profit students will have graduated (PDF) six years after they enrolled, compared to 55 percent at public schools and 65 percent at private colleges. Part of the problem is misleading information about a degree’s total cost, or disappointment at the quality of the education received.

Illustration: John Hersey

Also read: The rest of the 2010 MoJo Mini College Guide, plus the 2009 MoJo Mini College Guide.

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DEMOCRACY DOES NOT EXIST...

without free and fair elections, a vigorous free press, and engaged citizens to reclaim power from those who abuse it.

In this election year unlike any other—against a backdrop of a pandemic, an economic crisis, racial reckoning, and so much daily bluster—Mother Jones' journalism is driven by one simple question: Will America move closer to, or further from, justice and equity in the years to come?

If you're able to, please join us in this mission with a donation today. Our reporting right now is focused on voting rights and election security, corruption, disinformation, racial and gender equity, and the climate crisis. We can’t do it without the support of readers like you, and we need to give it everything we've got between now and November. Thank you.

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