Are For-Profit Colleges a Scam? Jesse Ventura Investigates the Privatization of Higher Education

Does a college degree guarantee a good job? If you fell victim to one of the scam artist for-profit colleges, it definitely does not! Myself and my Vigilant Producer Alex Logan follow the Money Trail on this investigation into how for-profit colleges like Everest Institute and Corinthian College prey on low-income students.

a reply to: JesseVentura

I think some are. It definitely feels like a scam when all you seem to get from a higher education is debt.

a reply to: JesseVentura

I have a daughter looking to go to college next fall and I have to say the cost of 'higher' education is astronomical. This is true even regarding state schools and community colleges. My daughter has a great test score and a high GPA so of course she is looking at the more expensive colleges because she has the grades to get a first class education.

I am wondering more and more if the entire college system is a scam. She is smart enough and mature enough to get a good job now, but of course she must jump through the hoop of getting a college degree before she can be hired.

I have implored her to make sure that IF she wants to go to college to please ensure she gets an in-demand degree because she is going to be in debt for a long time. Now I haven't told her that I am going to pay off her college debts after graduation because I want her to make a smart financial decision on her own, but if I wasn't there to pay it off what would she do?

Is it worth it? Is there an alternative? I don't know all the answers, but it sure does seem like some if not all of the entire system is rigged.

a reply to: JesseVentura

Half the classes are a waste of time and money. A jobs program for instructors and administrators.

Streamlined degrees should be available, get rid of electives entirely. If it is not needed for the specific job function, # can it.

actually, I think we all lose with this one.
except maybe the colleges.
we are ending up with a generation of professionals that once you take into consideration this debt, will probably be making what would be decent money, but well are probably aren't any better than those who didn't get that degree, maybe even worse off. they won't be buying as much, and they might end up living with their parents longer instead of buying that new home. And well, if they don't manage to get jobs that pay that decent amount and default on these loans, are we going to see those defaults ripple through the financial markets much like they did with the housing market crash...and lead to nice bailouts, or wait a minute... it's bail ins now, isn't it??

originally posted by: infolurker
a reply to: JesseVentura

Half the classes are a waste of time and money. A jobs program for instructors and administrators.

Streamlined degrees should be available, get rid of electives entirely. If it is not needed for the specific job function, # can it.

There was a woman I know that went to medical school, but was a complete idiot. She tried three times to take the test to become a doctor and failed miserably all three times.

She ended up teaching as a tenured professor at Arizona State.

Ugh.

a reply to: Metallicus

Ha!

LOL, that is why they have tests like the NCLEX in order to keep idiots from killing someone.

Not always true of course but the old saying:

Those who can't DO, Teach.

a reply to: dawnstar

You would be correct. We are living that. Minus the default and living with parents.

If we didn't have the loans to pay off, our income would be enough to make us reasonably comfortable, not wealthy, just comfortable. As it is, we have the equivalent of a double mortgage thanks to the loan payment.

So, someone goes to harvard for a liberal arts degree. And because they decided to get 100k into debt for a degree in 16th century opera history, that must mean the school is a scam right?

If people focused their energies on math, science, and engineering, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The fact is, people spend a lot of money on education, or what they think is an education, only to come away from it with prospects for a 30k a year job and they are 3 times that in debt and wonder why.

originally posted by: lostbook
a reply to: JesseVentura

I think some are. It definitely feels like a scam when all you seem to get from a higher education is debt.

I don't know about that, you get the knowledge. There just aren't any jobs available to apply that knowledge. Knowing more however is worth more than knowing less.

originally posted by: Metallicus
There was a woman I know that went to medical school, but was a complete idiot. She tried three times to take the test to become a doctor and failed miserably all three times.

She ended up teaching as a tenured professor at Arizona State.

Ugh.

I've spent a long time in college and have had all sorts of professors. The best professors I've ever had are the ones who either work part time in their industry while teaching, or teach part time while working full time in their industry. The ones who devote themselves 100% to teaching are usually teaching because they can't make it in their field.

originally posted by: projectvxn
If people focused their energies on math, science, and engineering, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The general advice is to go for a STEM degree. There are however many STEM graduates that don't have jobs. Business majors are the most overproduced major in the US. In second place are STEM degrees, a large part of this is caused not just by us producing too many but the H1-B issue and India's MASSIVE overproduction of them which bleeds into our labor force.

Is this a joke? Of course its a SCAM. Classic government move. Use taxpayer money to subsidize their own education back to the tax payer and collect interest on their own money that we lent back to them. Pay no regard to the curriculum and provide a money-grab to colleges for useless degrees. Keep the citizens in debt, always. This is not unfairly targeting low income students; it is creating them.

a reply to: JesseVentura

Guess I should find it funny that the ad I got be for the video was the Art Institute. Not sure of that was planned or not.

Seems like all High school also promote the need a college degree be for getting a job. Gone seem be the days of school promoting tech skills as well, at least in my area.

a reply to: JesseVentura

Are For-Profit Colleges a Scam?, yes they are, the only reason they are in place is for the sole purpose of generating profits.

I remember very well when education went from the job of educating the future back in the late 70s to an all for profit scam.

Under the umbrella that everybody had the right to higher education.

When I went to college back in 1978 after graduating from high school, it was all about grades, if you didn't make the grades you could not get into higher education, the government pay at that time for your education for 4 years, you maintained your grades or lose your grand.

Those students that could not made the grades they had what was call back in the days, "vocational education" this was also part of the government programs and at not cost.

But things changed, the motto that everybody have the right to higher education even if they didn't met the requirements set at the time, meaning that if you had the cash you could get educated in a "private college", regardless.

Everything seemed nice and fair, but that is how private education took hold at least in my neck of the woods back in my Island of PR.

I guess is like everything, it starts as a good thing but then turn into nothing but a profitable scam and the profiteers careless for those that get caught up in the web of private student loans and debt, is always somebody that will profit from all that, while our young professionals have to fight to find a job while competing with what is now also a big problem with the insource of foreign students.

Is becoming very hard to be a graduate in America this days, full of debt and competing for jobs, thankfully when I was a student we didn't had that problem.

We had Mike Rowe who told us there's a ton of jobs out there, for people like welders. They're not pencil pushing jobs, they're labor intensive jobs. And for people that want to go to college, why not get the job, earn an income, and then go to school at night? Go to school on the weekends? Where there's a will, there's a way. I believe you can still get a college education. And if you're smart enough, you shouldn't have to go into that type of debt.

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: JesseVentura

I have a daughter looking to go to college next fall and I have to say the cost of 'higher' education is astronomical. This is true even regarding state schools and community colleges. My daughter has a great test score and a high GPA so of course she is looking at the more expensive colleges because she has the grades to get a first class education.

I am wondering more and more if the entire college system is a scam. She is smart enough and mature enough to get a good job now, but of course she must jump through the hoop of getting a college degree before she can be hired.

I have implored her to make sure that IF she wants to go to college to please ensure she gets an in-demand degree because she is going to be in debt for a long time. Now I haven't told her that I am going to pay off her college debts after graduation because I want her to make a smart financial decision on her own, but if I wasn't there to pay it off what would she do?

Is it worth it? Is there an alternative? I don't know all the answers, but it sure does seem like some if not all of the entire system is rigged.

A college degree does not guarantee a successful life and a secure job. It all depends on each person's head. However, I am not saying that academic education is not important at all; I am simply saying that it is not a sure path to success.

originally posted by: JesseVentura
Does a college degree guarantee a good job? If you fell victim to one of the scam artist for-profit colleges, it definitely does not! Myself and my Vigilant Producer Alex Logan follow the Money Trail on this investigation into how for-profit colleges like Everest Institute and Corinthian College prey on low-income students.

If you thought it was bad in 2015, look at it now. Colleges aren't just NOT guaranteeing a good job, or a job at all, after graduation but our education system has been dumbed down so much that now a 4, 6, or 8 year student will come out less knowledgeable of the world around him, but will think of himself as more educated than everyone else. Our education is a quantitatively enormous letdown to today and tomorrow's children and they'll never even know it. We'll continue to slink below third world levels under the deception that we're intelligent.