Been dealing with a friend who is about to make a major major mistake, and I guess it's time to just give up and let her ruin her life. She's 20, her dad died when she was a kid and she qualifies for a shit ton of student aid money. She wants to be a medical assistant and then go into nursing - not a bad idea, nursing is a nice field. The problem is that she is dead set on going to one of those "colleges," similar to Everest/Ross/ITT Tech/etc. Non-accredited, lots of bad reviews...just a blatant waste of money.
I've been begging her not to do this, given that it will waste her aid money and she'll "graduate" with nothing to show for it. Then when she can't find a job she'll try to go back to school and realize she has to start over again at a non-scam school, but have to pay out of pocket now that the aide is gone. She doesn't want to go to a community college because "I don't want to go back to school."

There is no easy path here. Having worked in medical fields before (dental) I know this shit first hand. I've seen hygienists from these scam programs come in and do working interviews...and not be able to do their job at fucking all. I'm not exaggerating, I literally knew how to do their job better than they did. And at the end I watched as the doctor told them hiring them wasn't going to happen in large part because small businesses have to pay a % to the "school" if they hire one of their "students." I shit you not, it's fucking terrible.
But at this point she's dead set on it. She was going to start in the summer but delayed it to the fall. So I have more time to talk some sense into her but it's not gonna work. I told her straight up look, in 2-3 years you're going to think back to this conversation and be devastated that you didn't take my advice, and I won't be able to help you at that point. You're going to be fucked.