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Jill Finney
RWS 100
Mr. Werry
20 October 2014
Carey
Paper
Non-Profit
versus For-Profit education has been a central debate for some years now. Kevin
Carey is a policy director of the Education Sector at New America as well as an
expert on PreK-12 and higher education issues.
Carey continuously researches higher education reforms, how to improve
graduation rates, online education, and more. His articles are often seen
published in The New York Times, Washington Monthly, and The Chronicle Of Higher Education. A man with research and background in
education, Carey addresses the debate between For-Profit and Non-Profit
schooling in his article titled, “Why Do
You Think They’re Called For-Profit Colleges?”. Carey’s central claim of the paper is as
follows, “While problems exist, and some new regulation is warranted, for
profits have an important place in higher education as they are innovative,
help students ignored by traditional institutions and are here to stay.”
According to Carey, despite all the argumentation surrounding for profit
education it provides several benefits to its students. Any education has
holes, cracks, or faults and that is what Carey goes over in his paper. In my
own analysis of Carey’s paper I will examine the claims regarding benefits of
for-profit education and schooling and extend, challenge, complicate them with
other credible accounts and sources.
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One
of Carey’s main claims in the article was that the for-profit sector isn’t
necessarily bad; the reputable parts are valuable as they drive technological
and organizational innovation. Carey acknowledges that, “Horror stories of
aggressive recruiters’ inducing students to take out huge loans for nearly
worthless degrees are filling the news”. The media will do anything it can to
attack the business setting of for profit corporations around the country. However, through the acknowledgement that
yes, horror stories do occur in the for-profit education world, this does not
and should not define the system. All schools have faults or small holes in
education and Carey supports this argument through the regional accreditation
standard as he states in paragraph 14. Traditional institutions are flawed and
hypocritical in their criticisms. He says of traditional institutions, “They’ve
[traditional institutions] pointed instead to regional accreditation, which
conveniently allows colleges to decide for themselves whether they’re doing a
good job.” If traditional institutions are in charge of reporting how they are
doing, wouldn’t they report outstanding feedback? Looking deeper, “we cannot
determine measurements of academic quality…accreditation is meaningless and can
be bought”. According to Carey, “for profits fill a void left by traditional
institutions… fast developing methods of teaching students over the Internet
have given the velocity of change a turbo boost.” Michael Seiden extends
Carey’s claim of non-profit education benefits through personal testimonies in
the article “For-Profit Colleges Deserve Some Respect” from The Chronicle of Higher Education. Seiden is a retired president of Western
National University,
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and supports Carey’s claim of
innovation through his words from working many years in the non profit
education world, “...innovation has been their [for-profit institutions] hallmark,
and they have led the way- from the early days when accelerated courses and
evening classes attracted adult learners…to the explosion of distance learning
through online courses”. This example
supports the ease of for profit education as well as outlines the role that
technology has played in benefiting many people enrolled in any of the for
profit corporations. In relation to Carey’s claim the idea from Seiden’s
article connects to emphasize the benefits of for profit educations. From
Seiden’s perspective for profits have “several positive aspects” and include a
“focus on quality assurance”, which provides a justified extension of Carey’s
claim that “for-profit higher education is not inherently bad”.
One
of the next claims made by Kevin Carey is a counter to the benefits of for
profit corporations. Instead Carey contradicts the benefits as a way to connect
with the audience from both perspectives. Problems and abuses do exist in the
for profit sector of education, unfortunately many operators refuse to admit
this. Carey addresses that yes, “for profits make most of their money from the
federal government”. In fact he further supports this statement through the
evidence from the University of Phoenix, “Phoenix alone is on to reap $1
billion from Pell Grants this year, along with $4 billion from federal loans”. Although Carey first addressed a major benefit
of for profit education, the audience can now see him here weighing rebutter’s
point of view. Holly Petreaus proposes
an additional
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argument in the article “For-Profit
Colleges, Vulnerable G.I.’s,” from the New
York Times that generalizes with the money argument of Carey. Petreaus, an
assistant director of service member affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau,
suggests that for-profit schools
see service members as, “nothing more than dollar signs in uniform”.
Essentially Petreaus is criticizing the for profit system for using these
military veterans as bait to their often long harsh consequences. Pointing out
the unethical ways that for profits recruit students she cites, “As the PBS
program “Frontline” reported, the recruiter signed up Marines with serious
brain injuries. The fact that some of them [military students] couldn’t
remember what courses they were taking was immaterial, as long as they signed
the dotted line.” This shocking evidence proves the cold hearted business of
corporations in the for profit world. They are simply willing to do anything as
long as they receive money. This generalization includes but is not limited to,
University of Phoenix, Chapman University, DeVry, and Grand Canyon University.
Furthermore statistics are used to present a sound conclusion to how much for
profits are receiving from just the military alone. According to the article,
“between 2006 and 2010, the money received in military education benefits by
just 20 for profit companies soared to an estimated $521.2 million from $66.6
million”. From just 20 for profit
companies, the use of language by Petreaus through saying “companies” rather
than “schools” portrays just how the minds of owners of for profits work… as a
businessman or businesswoman. I would
like to point out that the argument put forth in Holly Petreaus’s article
presents a different level of
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cruelty than that of Carey’s
position. While Carey just touches the surface of money and how much
universities are received yearly, Petreaus looks into where its coming from and
delivers an answer that claims majority is derived from military students that
are preyed upon.
Going
back to Careys original article, “Why Do You Think They’re Called For-Profit
Colleges?” he makes a final claim that for-profits “exist to fix educational
market failures”. Universities such as
Phoenix, Chapman, Grand Canyon, and DeVry, serve ”students traditional students
often ignore”. To support himself Carey notes that Kaplan “provides courses
that bankrupt colleges cannot” as well as American Public University that
teaches Wal-Mart employees. To extend
this claim, professors of Harvard University published a study titled “For
Profit Colleges” The Future of Children.
Utilizing statistics in the article done by David Deming, Claudia Goldin, and
Lawrence Katz, they write, “For-Profit colleges were responsible for nearly 30
percent of the total growth in postsecondary enrollment and degrees awarded in
the first decade of the twentieth century”. Despite the sluggish growth of
state funding, these professors propose that for-profit education has grown
significantly to the point that 30 percent of people graduate from them. To
elaborate on Carey’s claim furthermore, “For Profit Colleges” article states
“for profit colleges also enroll a more disadvantaged group of beginning
undergraduates than do other postsecondary schools”. As a reader, it is clear
that Careys article is extended through the additional claims of the
“For-Profit Colleges” article. While Carey states and makes claims regarding
how for
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profits serve a different community
that is often ignored, the outside article addresses the same concerns as well
as numbers to describe how many people have been successful with the for profit
system. By investigating the claims of Carey and comparing them to this outside
article the base of evidence remains solid and credible to any readers. In both
of these articles it is shown how majority of people are wrong to think that
for profits will be going away anytime soon.
Through
the analysis and examination of the many claims in Carey’s article, I was able
to discover the different claims, meanings of those claims, and how those
claims can be extended or complicated through outside sources. This overall debate between the for profit
school system and the non profit schooling system was, prior to researching for
this paper, new to my learning. As a college student, school is everything. The
next step to the big future ahead of you, a time when one wants to receive the
maximum bang for their buck. In this case as well as every other college kid,
the best education with the least holes and consequences to follow. After
researching the topic and reading over the benefits of both schools (non profit
and for profit) through Carey and the multiple outside sources I was able to
utilize I found a conclusion to my ultimate position. School is school, and like
Carey pointed out every school, degree, education experience, is going to have
flaws. There is absolutely no perfect system that is 100% of the time going to
leave a student with a degree and zero debt to pay off. Money to pay off after
your education is absolutely inevitable. Therefore, in my stance, after
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seeing all sides of this great
debate, I believe that no matter what you choose non-profit or for profit, you
will receive the education that is necessary. Whether you need the flexible
hours and night time classes, or are stuck in
a dorm to go every single day, education is the key to success and both
types of institutions provide valid educations.
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