The Danger Of For-Profit Universities

This Exonomix post by economist Nancy Folbre isn’t exactly Shakespeare but it has some insightful (and also scary) points for out-of-state students like me:

In other words, enrolling in college is a bit like joining a health club. And as with a health club, the revenue comes from signing people up, not from encouraging them to use the services.

[...]

Intensified marketing campaigns are aimed at out-of-state students, who typically pay higher tuition and fees. This well-meaning strategy can backfire for several reasons.

Administrators can feel pressure to invest in new facilities that look good on the glossy brochures — like a new recreation center — rather than improving student advising or course availability.

[...]

If more students are added without increasing the number of faculty and staff, students get less individual attention and can’t get into the courses they need to graduate. Some students thrive despite these problems; others get demoralized.

As I emphasize out in a new book entitled “Saving State U,” the percentage of students taught by full-time, tenure-track faculty members per student at state universities has steadily declined in recent years. And it is likely to decline even further.

Yikes.

–Daniel Strauss