College Inc. PBS documentary

Any other hackers totally disgusted by the state of education?<p>On one hand, you have "for profit" schools like those documented here. At best, these are a slippery slope. The fact that they are "for profit" doesn't scare me so much, but the predatory marketing and questionable value do. Bottom line, I would never attend one in current form and would take anyone unable to see through the facade with a heavy grain of salt while hiring.<p>On the other, you have traditional state and established private schools. The problems are myriad here as well. Costs continue to rise and most are hurting for money and have practically become "for profit". The danger of tenure means that quality can and often is lackluster. From personal experience, many professors are more interested in themselves and forget that the primary mission is the development of students. I've found that many college professors are down right awful at conveying their subject matter to students. All in all, it's a hundreds of years old bureaucracy with little oversight and questionable relevance to the 21st century.<p>I think the real crime is the expectation that everyone in America needs a college education. There is certainly value in pursuing the standard liberal arts curriculum; it pushes you to explore a wide area and develop at least some analytical and argumentative skills. Whether everyone is cut out for this study is another matter. It is a mistake to assume that the worlds needs such a large quantity of generalists. My intuition points to quite the opposite. Technology will continue to push complexity farther and farther into all walks of life. What is really needed is the ability to quickly assimilate knowledge and separate wheat from chaff (i.e. throw out the constant stream of bullshit that society and marketing throw at us). Most coursework focuses on quite the opposite by requiring rote memorization and prepackaged knowledge from the professor. There also seems to be a growing trend of disdain for good, honest work -- the thankless jobs that allow us knowledge workers to exist. It is deceitful to perpetuate that everyone is capable of everything and just because they don't have a degree are inferior. Society requires all sorts of people to thrive.<p>At least for building software, I can't help but think that apprenticeships and mentoring would do a lot more for software quality than four years of expensive daycare that most degree programs are.<p>Disclaimer: I've just finished my Junior year as a CS major at a small public military college. All in all, the best thing I gotten are a bunch of really good friends and networking opportunities. Those that weren't programming on their own prior to entering the CS program are going to be seriously disadvantaged in the market place. I'm curious what other startup junkies have to say.

I understand this space and can speak to it at a high level.<p>The current for-profit system exists ONLY because of the broken federal student loan system. The goal of 95% of these schools is to extract the federal student loan money from the student as efficiently as possible with a nominal focus on quality of education.<p>To prove it, spend a half hour reading online education feeder sites that provide reviews (do a few google searches). They fall into three buckets - 80% complain about the aggressive recruiting tactics, poor education and poor customer service. 15% are sock-puppets paid by the universities to write reviews. 5% are satisfied students.<p>But here's the rub - and I wake up daily baffled by this phenomenon, but the students read the reviews and still attend the schools.<p>There are by my estimation four reasons for this:<p>First, you're dealing with, ironically, uneducated, low-income people who don't understand what they're getting into - they have been lead to believe that a college degree is worth something, and they'll take 30-40K of UNFORGIVABLE debt (because it's a federal loan) to make minimum wage.<p>Second, you're in an environment (higher education) where the very idea of certifying and grading the quality of education would have been unthinkable in decades past and the regulatory environment hasn't caught up with the business realities.<p>Third, the ease of access to government money won't dry up until major changes are made at the federal level and there's little likelihood that politicians would set themselves up as being against education for lower-income students. Lobbying has ramped up to protect the stream of 20-30 billion dollars of money flowing into the industry.<p>Fourth, aggressive recruiting tactics driven by the money at stake are keeping the doors full and forcing students into school without knowing what they're getting into.

I'm sure real estate, mortgage and contracting corporations hate the heavy hand of "government bureaucracy" holding them back, but have no trouble taking whatever help is offered from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, local tax incentives and the like. Don't worry, the taxpayer will give you some help. It isn't a handout, it is a hand-up.<p>I'm sure the banks, insurance industry and the investment houses despise all those layers and layers of red tape that tie them up and prevent them from helping Americans reach their God-given right of financial independence. No worries, you are all too big to fail and we'll just pass the payments on to the generous citizens of the United States. No, really, it is our pleasure. In fact, why don't you give yourselves a bonus?<p>Wal-Mart, America's greatest economic success story, loves America and loves regular folks. You know, the sort of folks that work at their store for minimum wage. The sort of folks who, upon becoming employees, are given paperwork to help apply for government assistance when it comes to medical care and such. Why would they share a tiny fragment of their distended profits reaped from cheap foreign-made American flags and "God Bless America" bumper stickers when they can just help their employees go on public assistance? If we gave them more money, how would that teach them to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps? Sheesh, you just don't know business, do you?<p>GM, fed up with all those unions, OSHA standards, foreign companies who collude with their governments and incessant regulation decided it was time to close up shop. Sure, they've been moving jobs out of the nation for years and years even while they were making record profits, but that is just business, right? I mean, we need MORE profits, don't we? So, it is a good thing that TARP money was around to help them back on their feet so they can put more Americans out of work. But it is an American company, right? Yep, a good old American company with a few Americans still building cards and getting paid and paying taxes and buying things in their home town. And, they've even started paying back that money (with more TARP money... you know... taxpayer money). You see, capitalism DOES work!<p>After watching this PBS program, I see the next bubble rising in the distance. These visionary capitalists are throwing off the dusty shackles of dated institutions and bringing a new model to the world. If only the government would step aside and let them realize their dream of educating those who might not otherwise receive education! Why must the Nanny State always talk about standards and expectations and accreditation and other big words? Begone, you scoundrel! Yes, I am talking to you accreditation and regulations and truth-in-advertising! Just get out of the way Uncle Sam and just keep those student loan checks coming. Stop obstructing the market, comrade!<p>Same old shell game. Bang the drums of free market capitalism with one hand and hold out the other hand for government money. Exploit whomsoever you can and call it freedom. So glad these forward-thinking capitalists are running this and not the evil commie-socialist-fascist (or whatever term they are using this week on Fox News) government. Why won't the government just get off our backs (and just start sending us checks). No, it isn't all bad, I'm sure, but I guess I'm just jaded after all these types (and I didn't even start on the military industrial complex or the medical industry) screaming about freedom and free markets until they need money or help. Good thing the teat of liberty is full (just like the Gulf of Mexico is full of oil).<p>/rant

I saw this and it's a good overview of the fringes of higher education.<p>How to make people more "productive" by essentially finance them to a small bump in their qualifications.<p>Very very predatory (at least for me, coming from a top school)!

Does anyone (who went there) have an opinion on the University of Phoenix or The Open University?<p>EDIT: Woah, look at this link <a href="http://www.ripoffreport.com/Search/Company/University-Of-Phoenix.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.ripoffreport.com/Search/Company/University-Of-Pho...</a> - so many complaints. I really wonder what is going on here. Is there any online university that is not a ripoff?

Can't watch it, i'm on an iPad

This is one of the cool things I think about capitalist systems. Whenever there is some kind of vacuum huge amounts of capital always flows to it. If the federal government had some smarter bureaucrats they would use this mechanism as a gauge and focus their energies on the sectors that are being heavily invested, e.g. education, because that means state services are not meeting certain demands. But more often than not they do the exact opposite. Instead of bringing more innovative thinking to state run schools by stealing some of the good ideas from for profit educational institutions they just cling to their old ways and try to strangle the for profits. This is just backwards because the value state run schools provide to their students is always more than any for profit school can provide but with money being cut back and teachers being let go at state schools the students have nowhere else to go but to greedy for profit institutions.