You can give a snarky reply if you would like and if it makes you feel better. As I said, I am trying to learn here, not tell people how things are. But if you all feel like I am challenging you and want to get pissy, have at it. No, I am not in the tech industry, more pharmaceuticals and consumer packaged goods. But is Verizon in the tech industry? Because they are listed in all of the three screens I provided. What about IBM, Sprint or AT&T? Or is that more telcom? In fact, in Devry and Strayer, Information Technology is the most common sector for their graduates! At UoP it's the 4th down.
I expect that most of the graduates working for Sprint, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, etc. are sales staff in stores. Which can actually be decently lucrative if you are good. My last iPhone was purchased by a DeVry graduate working at the Verizon store. The positions with the banks and cell phone companies are not technical for these graduates. Likewise HP Enterprise is the sales division with call centers selling ink. The bank positions are not tech back-office, probably somewhere in the teller space. Walmart and Amazon are probably warehouse or sales positions. I don't know about Boeing, etc. I can say with clarity that the Information Technology programs are Devry and Strayer are worthless, and their graduates unemployable in a real IT or programming position. I don't see a real Tech company in the list. Where is Cisco, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.
The ability to pull detailed data from Linkedin isn't really all that robust. Look, I get that you hate these places. I'm not inclined to believe they would be my first choice either. But I think there is more value than just labeling them "worthless" as you and Tony have done. I would expect Tony to throw out blanketing, non-fact based emotional posts with regularity. You, however, have shown your ability to reason a hell of a lot better. It is probably sector dependent, and there are quite a few folks out there that have done very well with a degree from one of these places (or in spite of, if you prefer). Clubber brought up an interesting point in the previous post (that Tony linked to) where he had asked if people in my organization had gotten the degree while at those organizations vs. getting the degree and then getting hired by the organization (my apologies to Clubber for not seeing the question before this). The answer is: I don't know. But I suspect it is a fair question. Do these colleges have aggressive, even predatory marketing to attract people? I think they do. That would make sense, since they are FOR profit and have to rely on the bottom line. Do they probably promise unreasonable expectations in terms of salary or career opportunities after graduation? Yep, probably. Are their classes worthless? I doubt it. It would be interesting to actually take a class in a subject one was well versed in to know for sure. Maybe I'll see if I can take a Finance course or something.
What percentage of these people from for-profit colleges actually work in the field they got their degree in. Previous articles I posted state it was a mere 10%. Why spend big bucks on a for-profit IT degree so you can work in a sales position in a Verizon store? People can get the same sales position without the expense for-profit degree. I expect they took the sales position when they could not land an IT position anywhere.
Again, I don't know. What percentage of people who got degrees at a not-for-profit school work in a field other than that in which they studied? I suspect that is substantial as well. I know lots of folks that have an undergrad in one field that is completely unrelated to what they do now, which they then fixed with an MBA. Did the articles you posted ask the same question for not-for-profit schools? The point is, neither you nor I actually know the answer.
So I went back to read your article (the one Tony linked to). A few comments: "You've got a bunch of graduate programs that by and large look OK. You've got some bachelor's programs that look OK. Where you see the high failure rate is the associates' and certificate programs," says Ben Miller, senior policy analyst in the education policy program at the New America Foundation, referring to for-profit education. Ah, well this makes sense. So no shit. Graduate degrees and bachelor programs seem OK, but associate and certificate programs suck. Yeah, well I'm not all that surprised. Of the more than 5,000 career programs for which the agency has recent earnings data, 72 percent offered by for-profits produce graduates who earn less than high school dropouts. (The comparable figure for programs at public institutions is 32 percent.) I dunno about that. You're telling me that someone who goes for an MBA program at a for profit school has a 72 percent chance of earning less than a high school drop out?? That sounds like bullshit to me. The graduates who are hampered by the worst post-graduation earnings are those who attain credentials not required by law or by industry standards — a certificate in massage therapy, for example. Students fare best when they complete programs for required credentials, such as a nursing degree. The catch is that those higher-level degrees associated with greater income also weigh down students with more debt. Again, duh. So if someone takes Massage Therapy, or Underwater Basket Weaving, they're going to fare worse than students who take Nursing? Holy shit, stop the presses. The catch may be that nursing has a higher price tag, but it does at not-for-profit schools as well! Here's one example from the Education Department's data: In San Antonio, Texas, holders of licensed practical-nurse certificates from for-profit Kaplan College can expect to earn $36,730 and owe $1,759 in student-loan payments per year, on average. Holders of the same credential from St. Phillips College, a public two-year institution, can expect to earn $42,760 and owe $382 per year This is interesting, though I suspect some grant money of some sort has affected these comparisons - which Kaplan is not eligible for.
Actually the majority of graduates from not for-profit schools land up working their entire lifetime in the field they graduated in. Medical people such as nurses and doctors stay in the medical field, teachers remain as teachers, engineers stay as engineers.... etc. The issue in the for-profit segment is that the vast majority of these "graduates" cannot get jobs in the fields they graduated in -- therefore they never get a lifetime career in their field. This is couple dwith the other problems with certifications in your field -- for example in North Carolina, despite the promises of these for-profit colleges, most graduates of for-profit colleges cannot get state certification to work in nursing... they effectively got a fake degree. Let's take a look at how for-profit schools do nursing clinicals - "A nursing student reports, “We had 2 semesters of clinical s at the hospital where we spent 90 percent of the time in the cafeteria instead of on the floor learning. Then after the school was not allowed back at the hospitals we did our clinicals on you tube videos. There was also a class I had that we . . . [n]ever had a teacher.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/davidhalperin/new-student-lawsuit-detai_b_13941516.html