Thursday, August 12, 2010

Is the For-Profit Bashing a Red Herring?

by Daniel L. Bennett

Washington, especially Congress, has been on a bashing spree of the for-profit sector lately. I won't go into the details, as there have been plenty of headlines in the media in the past few weeks. Together with Zac Bissonnette, I describe how the recent crusade against the for-profit colleges is a red herring for a broken higher education system in an article for Forbes that was released yesterday.

We're not the first to suggest that the attack is misguided and highly politicized. Other articles on the topic worth reading include ones by Neal McCluskey and Lindsey Burke. Also, be sure to check out CCAP's recent report on for-profit higher ed, if you haven't already done so.

2 comments:

RWW said...

Daniel,

I would bet an appendage that for-profit schools present a clear and present danger to the staus quo in the higher ed establishment. And I think CCAP is quite aware that this is also true with CCAP's critiques and common sense ideas for reform. But since there is little intellectual diversity in higher ed, anyone who stands outside of the status quo is villified.

The heady days of rising tuition and other costs (as pointed out Matt and Andrew C.) are going to come to end. higher ed is going to have to cut all the periphery classes that play to students based on color, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference. We celebrate diversity too much. Diversity is by definition divisive and teaches people victimhood. We should be selling UNITY and become Americans again.

I encourage people to watched Ben Steins "Expelled" and "Indoctrinate U."

Lady Bird said...

Nonprofit higher ed in the US has been trying to be what it thinks is all things to all people for too many years. This is a very expensive proposition and does nothing to differentiate institutions For-profits are gaining a stronger foothold by listening to the market needs and targeting the education they provide to meet the needs of specific niche markets. Yes, for-profit schools present a clear and present danger to the status quo. However, isn't the purpose of higher education to create new knowledge? Inherent in that is to challenge the status quo.