… or is it some other school with a similar logo? (via Inside Higher Ed)

My blog stats often show that someone has found posts like this or this one by searching for information about proprietary schools (UTI, Lincoln Tech, ITT Tech, etc.).  Today I saw that someone came to this blog by searching on “Is TSTC better than UTI?”  I put that search in Google and found my blog.  I also found this thread about whether UTI or Wyotech were better schools.  In the middle of the thread, I found this comment:

“I went to TSTC. Got my instrumentation and electronics degree. I couldn’t be happier unless I hit the lotto.”

The poster is listed as an Operations Manager in the power industry.  Great education, great job - happy customer.

BTW - If you are considering a for-profit education, please read the posts linked above and check out TSTC or a local technical or community college technical program.  They vary in quality, but they are ALL a better deal than the for-profits.  Be happy, be educated, be employed.  Don’t get yourself in a huge debt to do it.

For the rest of the “Joy of Technical Education” series, click here.

UPDATE:  Instead of making you click back, let me recapitulate my suggestions for choosing post-secondary technical education here:

• If the school you are considering can’t or WON’T summarize your costs like this - RUN!
• If the school you are considering offers credits that can only be transferred to other schools that they own - RUN!
• If attending a school leaves you in a financial straitjacket for many years to come - RUN!
• If you teach high school CTE classes, please point your students toward high-quality technical and community college workforce programs.
• Teacher or student: Check out the schools for yourself.  Talk to employers and advisory committee members.  Don’t just trust what the recruiters tell you.

… from the pages of the Seattle Times.  A shady for-profit is involved.  (Via the e-Learning Pundit)

I have blogged about the lack of transparency that some schools exhibit concerning actual student costs (Transparency Anyone? Check out the comments - they are better than what I wrote).  The information vacuum caused by the reluctance of ITT Tech, UTI, Lincoln Tech, or others to be forthcoming about actual charges leaves potential students searching.

Almost every day, someone finds this site while searching on something like “How much does it cost to go to UTI?”  I hope that they read the information available and make the decision to take their business elsewhere.

Let me summarize my thoughts one more time:

• If the school you are considering can’t or WON’T summarize your costs like this - RUN!
• If the school you are considering offers credits that can only be transferred to other schools that they own - RUN!
• If attending a school leaves you in a financial straitjacket for many years to come - RUN!
• If you teach high school CTE classes, please point your students toward high-quality technical and community college workforce programs.  Check them out yourself.  Talk to employers and advisory committee members.

I am a capitalist through and through.  These schools have every right to exist and do business and make a profit.  I am just doing my part to point out better options that get lost due to the imbalance in promotional spending.

I have a lot of respect for the accomplishments of the University of Phoenix.  Although I regularly take for-profit schools to task, those are usually the non-accredited technical
schools which I believe provide an inferior education at a superior price. University of Phoenix falls into a different category for me - an accredited university with more diverse offerings.

Some would argue that UofP also provides an inferior education at prices that are too high.  The cost is not far out of line for a private university.I have had colleagues who were continuing their educations through UofP that eventually changed to lower-cost public college online programs. They all seemed happy with their classes and learning but they could not pay private university prices

What I admire about UofP is their focus on customer service and access to education. Many universities seem to believe that these values are inimical to a university education. It is the focus on making a profit and expanding market share that causes UofP to act the way it does. Institutions of higher education that are insulated from the market by large endowments and public funding have no motivation to change.

I recently noticed a UofP ad campaign that I think is brilliant. You can view an example below from YouTube:

Thinking ahead ad (you have to go to YouTube to view - embedding is disabled)

I went through these ads to record the messages being delivered:
University of …

• boundaries are nothing
• next level, here I come
• I don’t want to miss a thing
• classes that escape the classroom
• where I am is not where I am going to be
• class is in session when I so choose
• I am not a hamster and life is not a wheel

Every ad ends with the confident statement, “One university understands how you live today, and where you want to go tomorrow.” Emphasis is very heavy on the word, “One.” The ads aim right at the needs, desires, and fears of the audience UofP is addressing. Is the message fair and not misleading? Certainly the idea that only one university can deliver this kind of program is incorrect, but I think the message is dead on for helping UofP capture more market share. Other colleges and universities tend to focus on prestige in their commercials aired around NCAA sporting events.

Will other universities start to focus on these kinds of customer needs? I think it all depends on whether or not they are exposed to the market forces that UofP faces.

If you have thoughts or experience with UofP, please share them in the comments section.

Is it possible that a business model hundreds of years old could be outdated? There is an article at “The Chronicle of Higher Education” that suggests that higher ed must change to respond to the market. The examples presented are the recording and newspaper industries. As usual with these kinds of articles, the comments make even more interesting reading. There is a lot of back-and-forth and the arguments are instructive.

Unfortunately, the comments eventually devolve into the perennial argument over whether students are customers. Of course students are customers. They fit every definition of the word of which I am aware. One of the most important distinctives of a true customer is freedom of choice regarding a product or service. If your students can take their money (or federal aid) and go elsewhere, you better start determining how you can serve them better.

For the record, I agree that the higher ed business model must change. It will change because the customers (including the organizations that employ the graduates) will no longer support it. It won’t all be online, but a lot more will be. Flexibility of many kinds will be demanded and provided. The growth of the for-profit sector is an indication of the desire that education consumers have for that service-oriented approach. In the end, our perception of what is really important in education will change.

For a technical school or program, the issues surrounding online courses are even more difficult. There are some skills that absolutely require students to have their hands on the equipment. We can’t just hide and hope the changes pass us by, though. Technology can be utilized to prepare a student to be more productive in a lab environment and increase the efficiency of the the learning process. Much of this technology can be delivered via the Internet along with the theory elements of a course. Improved technology will continue to make that delivery even more effective.

I agree with everything in this article from Inside Higher Ed. It is very much worth reading the whole thing. We are going to need a completely new way for funding and organizing post-secondary education in this country. Our system of technical colleges is already moving in the direction of greater efficiency in equipping students with truly marketable skills. This society can no longer afford the ‘college experience’ as it currently exists for these reasons:

1. It does not serve the students
2. It does not meet the needs of the economy
3. It wastes huge amounts of taxpayer money
4. It leaves higher ed customers under a heavy load of debt

Right now, public post-secondary technical education already represents an exceptional deal. When you remember that five of the top first year earnings degrees were the AAS variety (see here), you realize that ROI is much better from a technical college degree.

Read the article. Like all bubbles, this one will leave winners and losers when it pops.

UPDATE: I can’t agree with everything I read in this post. Connecting career choice solely with IQ is ridiculous. I’ve known too many Ph.D types that weren’t very smart, and a lot of technicians that were brilliant. I think it has more to do with choice than IQ.

I do agree with this bit, though:

Many go to University who ought to have learned their career skills in high school — or at least in junior college. It is not necessary for all the citizens of a republic to have gone to university and learned French Narrative Theory. One need not know know anything at all about Foucault or Deconstruction to be a good citizen, vote in elections, pay taxes; and indeed I put it to you that being without debt is probably preferable to knowing French Narrative Theory.

Don’t just sit there - make a comment!

See the story over at e-Learning Pundit

Do for-profit schools offer an education comparable to low-cost community and technical colleges? The e-Learning Pundit points to a gap in CPA test performance in this very interesting post.

eLearning Pundit points to this post on the Higher Ed Watch blog. Read the whole thing.

I recently heard that if you call UTI (Universal Technical Institute) and ask them what it costs to go through a program, they won’t tell you. What they say is, “Our counselors work with every student to make certain that the cost of school is not a problem. The cost of school is different for every student.” This is a obvious lie. The cost of the training program is the same. What is not certain is how many loans will be required after other sources are exhausted. They don’t want to quote the real price for the same reason that car salesmen want to talk to you about monthly payments and almost anything else other than the actual price of the car.

This made me wonder about what information is available online. I looked at the websites of both UTI and ITT Tech. Although there is a lot of information about aid and loans, I could not find a page where the cost of the programs is directly or indirectly addressed. Neither site listed, “How much does it cost?” in the FAQ’s. Does anyone really believe that this is not a very frequently asked question?

As a contrast, I invite anyone to visit our TSTC Waco page for prospective students. “How much does it cost?” is there and so is a complete list of cost sheets for every program. Every cost sheet shows the full cost of tuition, fees, books, and tools broken down by term. For an example, here is a link to the cost sheet for an Avionics AAS degree. I would be willing to bet that most for-profit programs would cost three to five times more.

Deal with people and organizations that are transparent, forthcoming, and are willing to treat you with respect. Those that won’t answer your questions probably have something to hide.

The article is another good one. Money quote:

Degree and diploma programs can vary wildly in price among for-profit schools, and those prices can look even higher when compared with public schools.

According to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice at ITT Technical Institute costs about $72,900.

That same degree costs roughly half — $36,890 — at University of Phoenix. And at Middle Tennessee State University, the same degree would cost about $21,000 for in-state students.

Also, be sure to check out this PDF comparing costs.

(via e-Learning Pundit)

The invaluable e-Learning Pundit has a post today that points to this Wall Street Journal article called “The Downside of Diplomas.”

“This high cost leaves many students with heavy debt loads. And while tuition has risen steadily, the portion covered by federal loans has fallen. Private-sector lenders filled the gap — until recently. The credit crunch has made it more difficult for lenders to repackage student loans and sell them on.”

Other revelations in the article include:

• For-profit enrollment has grown 14% annually for the last decade
• Admissions advisers who are commissioned sales people have a conflict of interest (Really?)
• For-profits charge as much as 10 times more for an associate’s degree as a local community college
• 34% of ITT’s student tuition and fees come from private sector loans
• Revenues are now shrinking and enrollments are down
• Promotional spending is 25% of total revenue (holy cow!)
• For-profit stocks have fallen a third on average since January 1
• Tuition has gone up at the schools faster than inflation for more than a decade (so they are like a lot of public universities in some ways!)

I posted on the for-profit school credit crunch earlier. I would highly recommend reading the WSJ article and looking at the stock graph.

- and a $20,000 a year income. e-Learning Pundit has a great post on the real cost of a proprietary school education.

OK - I’m beginning to feel better and most of today I was able to spend at least somewhat upright. but not very active. The result is that I’ve  seen proprietary school commercials all day long. ITT Tech alone runs television ads several times an hour on different stations. I can’t begin to imagine how much that must cost. Of course, we know who is paying for it.

Now, I’m not saying that I disbelieve the testimonials or think that proprietary schools are all bad. I do believe that they are not the best choice for almost everyone who attends. Better and much more cost effective technical education is available elsewhere. It is available in regionally accredited colleges that offer transferable credits. It is available without creating a huge debt burden for the student because those colleges are taxpayer supported.

Of course, technical colleges and community college technical programs can’t put commercials on TV several times an hour.  If they did, they couldn’t afford to continue offering high-quality technical education at an affordable price.

An article from Business Week says Sallie Mae is essentially pulling out of the for-profit education loan business. This doesn’t affect accredited public colleges. My favorite part:

Don’t let those 30-second commercial spots offering a better life in 18 months fool you. The for-profit colleges making those promises may be easy to get into, but footing the bill for many of them just got a whole lot harder.

Please, please don’t be fooled! The marketing is great, but the education can’t match the message.

The e-Learning Pundit links to my earlier post on the cost of technical education. The linking post covers the new laws requiring more oversight and reporting in the “for-profit” education sector in Tennessee. Read the post for some more thoughts on cost.

While you are there, look around. The rest of the site has some very interesting information about online programs, accreditation, and costs.

I ran across this cost comparison at the City Colleges of Chicago site. It shows the difference between their associate degree, Devry, a private college, and a prominent proprietary school. The proprietary schools are a pet peeve of mine.

I had the opportunity to examine an outlet of a well-known private tech school chain as a member of a site visit team. The facilities were OK and the teachers seemed fairly dedicated. After looking at the curriculum, I don’t think they were getting close to the education they could have gotten at our college. I am certain that at least some of the students were learning enough to get a job. What concerns me is this - The credits are not transferable and the cost is enormous.

Graduates come out owing well over $30,000 and with no way to take those credits and apply them to a BA or BS later. Our automotive instructors tell me that high school students committed to a proprietary auto tech school will refuse to reconsider because they have paid a $100 application fee. Saving that $100 will eventually cost them an extra $25,000 before interest. It will cost even more if the lack of a BA makes promotion impossible. (Insert your thoughts about the state of economics and financial education here.)

If you are a high school CTE teacher, please develop a relationship with good, solid, public college technical programs through articulation, dual credit, information sessions, visits, shadowing, industry contact, and scholarships. Don’t let your students wind up paying back $40,000 or $50,000 after interest for an inferior education.

Be sure your students understand where the proprietary school recruiter got the money for his tailored suit and BMW.