A N.Y. Success: For-Profit Colleges
Across the country, for-profit colleges have prominent critics, President Obama included.
For some good reasons: National data show that students at such schools default on their loans at high rates. And they've racked up complaints about everything from deceptive marketing to poor quality to low graduation rates.
But there is more to the story. When properly administered and regulated, these schools can offer a valuable educational alternative, especially for lower-income and minority students. In New York State, where for-profit enrollment has doubled over the last 30 years, a sensible regulatory regime has helped foster a number of successful schools.
Through its two higher-education oversight bodies — the Board of Regents and the State Education Department — New York has encouraged for-profit schools without overindulging them, an approach that doubtless helps explain the schools' generally good record. But in part to guard against the spread of predatory institutions, New York also maintains strict requirements on for-profit entities wishing to establish degree-granting colleges.
In 2013, New York's two-year degree-granting for-profits graduated a larger percentage of their full-time associate's degree students than any other higher-education sector, including private nonprofit colleges. Even when controlling for students' high school GPAs, degree-granting for-profits' superior record in graduating students in short-term programs holds up against CUNY and SUNY schools.
Though New York's four-year degree-granting for-profit schools have seen less dramatic success than their two-year counterparts, they, too, outperform CUNY's four-year graduation rate, though they lag behind SUNY and nonprofit institutions.
Meantime, the percentage of New York's for-profit schools with three-year default rates below the national average and graduation rates above the national average is higher than that of other large states, such as Illinois, Texas, and California, and neighboring states such as New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
There's a lesson here for those concerned with equalizing educational opportunity. Students at for-profit colleges tend to be older than students at nonprofit schools. They're more likely to be minorities, female and financially independent. Many are working their way through school and find online courses, which for-profit colleges offer in abundance, appealing.
Example: Berkeley College lets students enroll on a quarterly basis, so that they can finish their degrees at their own pace. Courses have a distinctly practical bent, and many for-profits hire industry practitioners as faculty.
Selina Suarez credits her career success to the education she received at Monroe College, on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. Suarez grew up in Coney Island — “not a great neighborhood” — and dropped out of high school in 11th grade to have a baby.
After languishing in an alternative school, she enrolled at Monroe when she was 19. The first in her family to attend any kind of college, Suarez appreciated Monroe's robust support system. Staff discussed career goals with her “from day one” and helped her understand the rules of federal financial aid, which provides $4,159 in grants and $6,015 in loans to the typical federal aid-receiving New York for-profit student.
After graduating in 2005, Suarez obtained an MBA at St. John's, and started a company that helps nonprofits manage their databases.
“The population that attends for-profits wants a degree that makes them immediately marketable,” Suarez told me. “We can't afford to just get a degree in psychology and not have a job.”
Given the disparate needs of today's college students, it's a mistake to write off the for-profit college industry. As New York's record shows, it can offer poor and minority students opportunities they're hard-pressed to find elsewhere.
This piece originally appeared in New York Daily News
This piece originally appeared in New York Daily News