Five Critical Facts Veterans Should Know about For Profit Colleges

What do you want to be when you grow up?  The question was fairly easy to answer as a kid (robot ninja for me), but seems to get harder and harder to figure out as you get older.  The key to answering this question is to really evaluate your life goals: what makes you happy?  What is in the best interest of your family?  What are you capable of?

These questions are not easy, but regardless of your answers, you must do some research.  Picking the right education for what you want to achieve is critical, so we want to ensure you have as much information as possible.  A for profit degree may very well be the best idea for you, but before you sign on the dotted line take a look at these five facts.

• For profits are expensive

Public two year institutions, like community colleges, cost an average of $12,600 for tuition and living expenses, while a public four year institution, like a state school, costs roughly $18,900.  For profits, on the other hand, cost an average of $28,600 for tuition and living expenses.  That is a whopping 51% more than a typical state school!  If you get your money’s worth, then by all means, pay more.  But make sure you do some comparison shopping.  If your community college can confer the same nursing degree and licensure as a for profit, then why would you pay $16,000 more?

• Amazing advertisements ≠ amazing education 

In 2010, the Apollo Group, which owns University of Phoenix, spent over $1 billion dollars selling and promoting their schools.  A BILLION DOLLARS!  Of course, there is nothing inherently bad about advertising.  Great businesses advertise as much as bad ones, BUT a slick TV ad should not be the deciding factor in your decision to attend a certain school.

• Accreditation is not the whole story

If a school is not accredited RUN AWAY. However, accreditation is not the end of the story.  First, accreditation is not done by the Department of Education.  Accreditation agencies are private businesses that develop and judge schools by their own developed criteria.  If a school wants a particular accreditation, they pay for the agency to evaluate their program and give them accreditation.  For example, take a look at the Board of Commissioners for the Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools.  Notice that many of the members are also associated with for profit schools: the treasurer of the accrediting body’s governing board is also the President of for-profit Clary Sage College.

This does not necessarily imply a conflict of interest.  After all, the best accrediting institutions need expert knowledge to ensure they are evaluating schools properly.  The bottom line is that schools pay for their accreditation and accrediting agencies are frequently governed by the same people in charge of the schools they evaluate.

• They get paid regardless of your success

For profits get your money regardless of whether you do or do not get a job.  Put another way, your outcomes are not tied to their profit.  The same thing goes for any college, but the difference is that public and private non profit universities have other motives besides profit. Many public and non profit universities are motivated by prestige and often ranked by how well they place their graduates.  In contrast, many college rankings do not even incorporate for profit schools because many profit schools do not reveal employment statistics.

In a perfect market, value and outcomes are tied together.  Like a guardian angel, the profit motive weeds out faulty products and reward great ones.  This is because people pay for what they value ensuring those products thrive, while bad products sit on the shelf.  However, just like people, markets are not perfect.  In the imperfect market of for profit education, value (what your degree gets you) and profit (what you paid for your degree) do not go together.

For example, if I bought a Dell computer and did not like it, I could return it the next day or just never buy another Dell product. I am only out a few hundred dollars.  You cannot refund an education and when you graduate, you could be in tens of thousands of dollars in debt.  Further, a faulty product is much easier to understand than something complex like education.  Maybe I did not like the Dell because of the screen resolution or because the hard drive crashed.  However, if my for profit degree did not land me a job, it is harder to point to a specific reason.  On a final note, markets can take a while to reveal information.  Eventually, companies that make bad products lose customers.  But this could take years.  If a company produces a bad education, it could take the market several years to react to this information, especially if these schools keep their information withheld from the public.

• Flexibility is a double edged sword

For profits give you a great deal of flexibility.  Many veterans use this flexibility to take online courses because they are intimidated by going to a campus or feel like they will not fit in with your typical college age student.  Of course, civilian and military life are worlds apart.  But as a transitioning veteran it is important to meet new people and try new things to help adjust to your new world.  The military will always be an important part of your life, but it should not be your whole life.  Taking advantage of the flexibility of an online degree may delay your adjustment and make becoming a civilian more difficult.

For example, BusinessWeek featured a story about veteran Chris Pantzke.  He opted to enroll in an online course through the Art Institute of Pittsburgh but has not found success.  He is failing 7 classes and is having trouble getting along with his family.  He suffers from a Traumatic Brain Injury and thought that he would not be able to cope with a classroom and a crowded campus.  However, rather than help him, his online classes have made him even more socially isolated and have further delayed his ability to readjust to civilian life.

The most important thing for you to do is research, research, research.  No one goes into battle without good intelligence.  Similarly, when considering a school or employment opportunities, make sure you get as much “intelligence” prior to making a decision.  Research yourself.  What do you want to accomplish?  What post military career makes the most sense for your family?  Once you have gotten an idea of where you want to go, then figure out how to get the right education to facilitate your goals.  Check back with us to find out more information about the college quest and winning admission to school.