Lets Not Allow A Few Bad Apples Define the Education Vertical
What is more relevant than to talk about the hottest news in our marketplace Are For- Profit schools a bad option for students? Frankly, I strongly disagree. The new GAO report has caused a big stir in our industry and brought on media scrutiny. The report showed videos of admission advisors at 15 For-Profit schools using pressure tactics to get students to enroll. The videos were sickening, and the schools involved have taken actions to address those issues. Some have shut down certain campuses, and CCA is working on a solution as well. The industry as a whole has been growing in positive direction in the past few years, employing over 220,000 people, but there will always be a few bad apples. Let's not let those spoil the rest of us.
Opponents of our industry argue that colleges should not be run by corporations. They feel that educational standards will always be sacrificed in order to increase the bottom line. My opinion vastly differs. On Monday August 8th, President Obama outlined his goals for the United States to boost its graduation rates. He mentioned that in the past decade, we have fallen from 1st place to 12th place in graduation rates of young adults in a recent world ranking among the top 36 developed countries. Today, many community colleges and traditional universities across the country are turning students away because of budget cuts and young adults are looking for courses and degrees that are more relevant to their desired professions. This means that the For-Profit sector is even more important than ever in order to achieve our graduation rate goals outlined by President Obama.
