[tptacek]

How is the non-profit school system "inflexible"? You don't have to attend a major research university at all, let alone for your first several years worth of credit hours. There are more than 1,500 community colleges in the US, with flexible scheduling and costs per credit hour that are a fraction of major schools.

The marketing notion that the options are solely UCLA or ITT Tech is part of the problem with for-profit colleges!

[TillE]

And community colleges typically feed directly into the state school system, some of which (eg, SUNY) are very good and still very affordable.

There are a few legacy bits of the typical university which need changing (big lecture hall courses are pointless when you can just distribute video), but for the most part it's a solid system which is unlikely to be 'disrupted' by for-profit businesses.

[Retric]

Collage students are generally bad at working at a steady pace when given self directed classes they don't really like. So, having a specific time when lecture takes place even if it's just a video has merit.

[scotch_drinker]

In my mind, the ITTs of the world compete with community colleges for students. Are admissions requirements drastically different between the two types of schools? If not, why do people object to for-profit colleges?

It seems like there is little accountability in either community colleges or for-profit schools when it comes to accepting students. Both are incentivized to have as many students as possible regardless of eventual performance. But I'm not familiar with any fundamental differences between the two when it comes to admission standards or accountability.

EDIT: I see farther down where you comment regarding the non-transferability of credits at for-profit schools which is a huge difference. That seems to be a glaring hole in the for-profit industry that should be closed in order to get federal funding. But that probably opens an entirely different can of worms.

[x0x0]

People object to some for-profit colleges because they're a scam. They (1) generally have very poor placement rates; (2) accept students very unlikely to succeed; and (3) exist largely to channel federal taxpayer subsidized loans to their shareholders in a manner detrimental to both the students and the taxpayers. ITT seems to have taken the further step of lying about job placement rates as the cherry on top.

The difference between community colleges (and I'm sure you can find at least one counterexample, but in general) is massive. First, CCs don't charge anywhere near as much money. eg in CA they charge approx $25-$50/credit hour. So even if the student doesn't succeed, the student isn't burdened with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. Community colleges have better to far better outcomes than bottom-feeders like ITT. CCs are accountable to the state and the credentialing boards.

[dragonwriter]

> Are admissions requirements drastically different between the two types of schools? If not, why do people object to for-profit colleges?

ITT's troubles have nothing to do with admissions requirements, and everything to do with fraud (securities and otherwise). Their accreditation problem stemmed from business-viability problems stemming from the fraud lawsuits, and their problems with DOE stemmed from their accreditation problems.

Corinthian's problems similarly were rooted in fraud.

In both cases, the frauds included misrepresenting placement statistics in the context of both seeking admissions and, more critically in many respects, nontraditional student loan programs operated by the schools.

> It seems like there is little accountability in either community colleges or for-profit schools when it comes to accepting students.

Community Colleges are generally chartered with the purpose of the broadest possible access and low, taxpayer-subsidized tuition. Students aren't wracking up tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt a year at CCs, and CCs aren't conducting massive marketing campaigns directed specifically at drawing in more people who "unable to see and plan well for future" (as internal documents showed Corinthian was doing.)

I don't know why you are focusing on admissions standards, when the difference in attention between for-profit institutions and public community colleges isn't focused around admissions stanadards.