Why WOULDN'T They Choose a For-Profit?

A recent blog post in Inside Higher Education was titled “Why Would They Choose a For-Profit?” (IHE, October 30, 2018)  The content was one in a series of thinly veiled, or perhaps buck naked, snipes at for-profit higher education. Although the post is composed largely of the same tired litany of accusations to which the for-profit community has become accustomed, it takes a new approach. The attack this time is couched in terms of how a community college might compete with for-profits.

The first strategy would be to advertise a lot.  The author opines that students who are “targeted” by for-profits often don’t know that a given school is for-profit, and that they may be unaware of “the traditional status hierarchies in higher education.” Further, he characterizes these students as “desperate for a life change.”  But wait, aren’t these the very same students for whom he is competing?  As a student, why would I choose a high-status community college (an oxymoron?) that already has branded me as a loser, over an institution that offers me an accessible, relevant curriculum without looking down its nose at me?  And in the end, does an institution’s tax status define its value?

The second strategy would be to “dramatically” increase the size of the admissions staff.  He claims that the “concierge service” afforded by some for-profits is a “best-kept secret.”  Kept from whom, I wonder?  Certainly not from the students who appreciate and benefit from it.  And is it somehow a bad thing that an institution would try to help students navigate educational systems that are not only unfamiliar, but also often user-unfriendly?

And application fees need to be eliminated for community colleges to compete, we are told. I’m not sure where he is going with this strategy.  On the one hand, he seems to be in favor of it, noting that for-profits make it relatively easy to enroll because they reduce or eliminate the much of the unnecessary bureaucracy found in traditional higher education.  But somehow he seems to find making it “easy” a bad thing.  Why? And by the way, he neglects to mention the whole host of nickel-and-dime fees that most non-profits impose on students that do not generally exist at for-profits.

The author advocates keeping the number of majors down as a way to compete against for-profits.  He sees this as a way to cut costs in advising and marketing.  How about seeing it as a way to provide students with relevant and focused programs that help them to advance personally and professionally? Trimming fat is not cost cutting.

He then moves on to faculty.  He claims that the absence of tenure and unions at for-profits is because they are a threat to the business model.  Here he completely misses the point that the institutions of tenure (I once had it) and unions (I once belonged) are anachronistic remnants of an earlier system where they served a protectionist purpose. If he looks over the edge of the box he is in, the author might notice that the professional landscape, both inside and outside of higher education, has dramatically changed.  Community colleges (and all of higher education) might be better advised to try treating faculty like valued, accountable employees. Suggesting, for instance, that for-profits base faculty evaluations on pass rates is demeaning to both faculty and students.

In the same vein, he suggests that public education might consider moving resources away from instruction, towards marketing and admissions, in order to compete. Here he unwittingly indicts the business model that both underlies and undermines public higher education.  To assume that instruction is at odds with admissions and marketing shows a basic ignorance of how a viable business model works. There is no need to suppose that academic quality need be forsaken for  admissions numbers. This notion comes from the perspective of a rapidly decaying business model built on state and federal subsidies, balanced out by ever-increasing tuition burdens on students. 

In fact, the author acknowledges that there is some incentive for public and private institutions to “act more like for-profits.”  I think this might be better phrased “act more like the rest of the business world and society in general.”  The for profit model should not “be embedded” or “infiltrated” into higher education; it should “become” the model before the current unsustainable structure collapses. This is the message that recent mergers and partnerships between the nonprofit and for-profit are sending.

The author concludes by urging us to understand the for-profit model better so that we can “defeat” it.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Perhaps there is something to be learned from the for-profits, but let’s not collaborate or cooperate. A model that is not only financially viable but also provides curricula that are accessible and relevant needs to be eradicated. Really?  And one wonders why American higher education is in the state it is in.