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From: Nyssa <Nyssa@LogicalInsight.net>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: [OT] College closures averaging one per week
Followup-To: rec.arts.tv
Date: Sun, 09 Jun 2024 17:28:13 -0400
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anim8rfsk wrote:

> Nyssa <Nyssa@LogicalInsight.net> wrote:
>> Rhino wrote:
>> 
>>> According to a recent Brett Cooper video (two days old
>>> as I write this), an average of one American college PER
>>> WEEK is closing down permanently or amalgamating with
>>> another college. Are the kids finally beginning to
>>> figure out that college is not good value for the amount
>>> of debt they will incur?
>>> 
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVm6yy3LGq0
>>> 
>> I can't watch video over my slow connection, but are
>> some of these college closures proprietary schools,
>> sometimes called business or technical schools?
> 
> She?s reporting on what a friend reported to the X.
> 
> Here is the original article. The friend is reporting on:
> 
> https://hechingerreport.org/colleges-are-now-closing-at-a-pace-of-one-a-
week-what-happens-to-the-
students/#:~:text=Most%20students%20at%20colleges%20that,long%20enough%20t
o%20get%20degrees.
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> Many of the proprietary schools are owned by corporations
>> who have bought up previously local, privately owned
>> business, technical, or two-year junior colleges. Not
>> all are certified or are certified by very narrowly
>> defined "associations."
>> 
>> Having worked for three of these schools decades ago,
>> the quality can vary widely, especially in the
>> corporately owned ones. (One school I taught at part time
>> was owned by a corporation that also published the books
>> used in the school's classes.)
>> 
>> The fees for these schools was usually high compared to
>> the value of the courses and usually paid by loans or
>> grants to students or the GI Bill for veterans (with
>> staff of the school doing the paperwork for the claims).
>> 
>> I'd not be surprised to here that many of these sorts
>> of "colleges" are closing down or being bought up by
>> corporations who see them as an investment as the
>> tuitions at real, traditional colleges grows ever higher
>> and people look for lower (they think) alternatives to
>> getting some sort of training.
>> 
>> Nyssa, who actually had to sue one of these proprietary
>> schools in small claims court to get paid
>> 
Thanks for the link to the article, anim.

From what I glean from the article, the colleges in
peril aren't the types I was describing. I feel sorry
for the students caught in the middle, and I would
have thought that those college administrators would
have helped the students with finding and transferring
their credits to other similar schools.

Of the three proprietary schools I was a part of two
were on the scummy side as far as delivering any
meaningful value in their course offerings. Students
in both had trouble transferring their course credits
to local community colleges when one closed and the 
other simply wasn't offering courses that would qualify
them to find jobs. Both schools relied on either tuition
money from the Veterans Administration (which changed
rules on what schools were qualified for usage by the
GI Bill) or state and federal loans for student tuition.

I can only remember one student *not* using government
money and she was the wife of a student who was using
VA funds and they wanted to study together. :/

The third school was a privately owned business college
that also had a tutoring department for ESL, Basic Skills,
and GED prep that did have a state grant for the program.
They also had a regular slate of business courses such as
typing, medical terminology and transcription, and
bookkeeping which offered certificates rather than degrees.
All on the up-and-up.

While more of the latter would be handy for kids these
days as an alternative to expen$ive tuition at traditional
colleges, we certainly can do without the former scuzzy
types of schools that either waste GI benefits or lock
students into loans that they cannot repay because the
courses don't qualify them for the jobs they've been led
to believe they are working toward.

Off my soap box now. I wish all of the students caught
in the closing-college trap well and hope they find 
other ways of improving their skills to get good jobs
down the road.

Nyssa, who was very happy to NOT work at the scuzzy 
schools for long...and good riddance to 'em