For profit colleges especially grate on me for a personal reason:
My sister went to a for profit college in spite of everyone telling her not to go. She wanted to be a personal trainer so she signed up at a for profit college. Naturally, the admissions office told her that everyone just couldn't hire enough personal trainers from their school. Everyone talked to her until they were blue in the face about how bad of a deal it was and how she was better off not going anywhere. Still, she insisted as she bought full in to the idea that personal trainers out of their program made $150 an hour. I can't make this shit up.
Unsurprisingly, it turned out to be a joke. It was essentially a $25,000 training course for a test that most people didn't pass anyway. Naturally, the school didn't hesitate to require expensive textbooks and hell, even a trip to Las Vegas. Why not? The poor saps were making it rain. Few people passed the tests and fewer people got a job. Most people were SOL with a pile of debt. They were worse off before than ever bothering to go. Although even a lot of public universities these days present the same issue.
The best part is that until she pays off the debt, they won't give her a certificate. That's right, it isn't even an Associate's degree. So she has no proof that she went to a shitty for profit college. Even worse is that she put that joke of a school on her resume and got nowhere. It was only after she took it off her resume did people start biting. I bet there are millions of suckers who put "Kaplan University" proudly on their resume, not realizing that putting that on there pretty much meant that the trash can was its fate.
Now she makes $13 an hour with some good benefits, which isn't bad for a high school graduate. Keep in mind, that is how they see it because she excluded the for profit college on her resume. Once she pays off the debt, she's planning on returning to a legitimate school.
I think the biggest reason why people go to these schools is that they get wowed by the bullshit figures. I mean, most universities will fiddle with their figures to make it seem like a basket weaving major has a 94% job placement. This stuff goes beyond that. They were promising my sister almost guaranteed six figures starting out. She could be her own boss! Most of these people are too ignorant to do any research themselves, knowing that $150 an hour for a starting graduate of any school is limited to maybe 1 percent of 1 percent of graduates. So they think that they can get out of their shitty lives with a guaranteed $80,000 a year career as a paralegal. They're desperate and willing to believe anything.
Long story short: they should be banned or at least need to have warning labels all over admission forms. Something like "Warning: What you were told is probably bullshit. Check out
http://www.bls.gov/ for actual statistics." or like the new cigarette boxes that have pictures of people hacking up a lung, they can have a picture of some dope with a Dental Assistant degree from LOL Fuck U working three jobs to stay above water.
