U.S. Can Force For-Profit Colleges Out of Business
US government is taking action against for-profit colleges, including the corporation that controls Art Institutes. Too much debt, not enough jobs.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-07/corinthian-takedown-signals-tougher-education-agency-enforcement.htmlThe agency had demanded documents related to job placement, and Corinthian was late in producing them. Rather than negotiating, the department put a three-week hold on tuition payments that normally take a maximum of three days to fulfill.
Link to EDMC/AI website: http://www.edmc.edu/About/ArtInstituteSchools.aspxWells Fargos Urdan said one company that may be vulnerable to agency action is Pittsburgh-based Education Management, partly owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Providence Equity Partners LLC. As falling enrollments have hurt revenue, the value of the companys debt has dropped, and the operator of the Art Institute, Brown Mackie, Argosy and South University chains cant satisfy the terms of its credit accord.
Replies
-Current college student-
Valid point, but you're stretching things a lonnng way to call the Art Institutes "schools" or "education".
They can disappear without any actual impact on real art education.
16%?? In Denmark we have what's called SU, which is a month payment for students to live for, which doesn't have to be paid back, and also a SU loan, which is an addition to it, which you do have to pay back and is only 4% interest while you are studying, and afterwards I believe its around 6%.
The SU loan is the best, cheapest loan you can get in Denmark last I checked, so 16% is just madness, especially considering the prices I heard they take for those courses in the US.
We have the same in sweden as you guys do in denmark ^ 16% intrest rates + is just downright ridiculous. Until recently we had FREE education for anyone no matter where you were from. Now it's just free for exchange students and swedish citizens afaik. I think Norway still has it though, if anyone is up for some free education.
I'd rather not think about the ball and chain from my University (uk)
If i could visualize it, i could probably see it from my third story window.
3-6% interest rate with about 6 years in a £21,000 job bracket to pay it all off.
Or if you make £0 in 25 years the taxpayers will pay it all off. oh boy.
Bah, If I had to pay that much for school, I would rather learn on my own, than thinking entire school that for better part of my life I will be paying off loans ;s.
Seven years of poverty line living to get your student loan forgiveness in Canada.
Saw an anecdote in a student finance forum.
Should be enough time to build a solid portfolio :thumbup:
On a side not there was something I was interested in finding out. "free" University isn't really free, you're paying it with your taxes, do you see the amount you pay at tax time or does it just get tacked on to things without knowing? Just wondering because it seems like we are always aware of the bite taxes take in the US - when we talk about yearly salary it's before tax and I know it annoys tourists how we don't include sales tax in any prices. I also recall someone outside the US marveling at the fact we have to do our taxes every year, something only businesses have to do in their country (I don't remember who it was :P).
I don't understand how some people can obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt. I think I'm paying a pretty reasonable price ($40k for 4 years) but again, one can self-teach themselves a lot of information.
Admittedly, university is great at preventing knowledge gaps and some of my professors have been great at teaching topics that aren't easy to properly understand through google searches alone.
Everybody attending a college should also make an effort to find their textbooks online for free. I have yet to pay for a single textbook but I see many of my peers spending hundreds of dollars a semester for their books. Alternatively, you should always check your school's library as sometimes you can just borrow the book and just print out any chapters you need.
The "schools" they plan to knock out can't really be considered schools when they're churning out people hardly more educated than they were prior to enrollment with a horrendous job placement percentage.
That's one of the key things the article discussed: the school could not provide job placement papers.
Students currently rack up $100k+ debt at 10%+ interest rates and can't get a job.
Not a smart was to build the future for your nation. It'll only take about 20-30 years and no one will have buying power anymore.
Goodbye economy.
Yeah, this country is well on its way to cannibalizing itself what with the for profit health travesty, and the small fortune it costs to get an education. I'm expecting 'detroitifcation' to become a dictionary word in the next 10 years.
Most schools that do post-graduate surveys call you 6 months after graduation, and start asking you all these questions. they ask if you have a job, and usually, that's that. they dont care if you`re in the field you trained for. As long as you have any job, they mark that as a yup! We did our job!
Lets not forget that lenders- like Sallie Mae for instance -are set up to profit more from student debtors defaulting on their loans than paying them.
The problem is not just shitty schools.
Shit's fucked, Yo
I don't think full forgiveness of loans is fair. That means tax payers would have to pay for other peoples' life choices that drove them into debt.
People made a decision to go to school and they knew the debt came with it.
The issue is the absurd debt should not be there in the first place.
Requiring all existing loans to drop their interest rates to no higher than 6% would be a better starting point.
Yep, that's how it worked when i got my call after graduating. I was on unemployment at the time and they still counted it as having an income, so that's another +1 for their employment record!
Some of these schools prey on poor people though. The folks who can pull in maximum student loans for the school. Once the schools have ownership of the funds they reneged on their promises and fancy tv commercial claims by trying to dump them and not giving them support to finish their program. Why? Cuz it would save them more money.
It's a lot of shocking bullshit.
This is a good series to explain the issues:
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As a society, you should want everyone to got into higher education, whether they're going to use it or not. A better educated society is a healthier, better performing one. This doesn't mean everyone should get a degree, there's also vocational higher education too.
The trouble with the US system is that education isn't the aim - there's always someone at the top who stands to make a substantial profit. The UK has now gone the exact same way
I actually got a call from Full Sail (back when I was in HS) and the same day they wanted to enroll me, all I had to do was send a deposit. Crazy shit, although already knew what they were like.
Currently enrolled in community college (good opportunity) and they have a really solid art and game design program there. Probably one of the best choices I could have made. Especially in this field, where you have to work hard and build up a solid portfolio to get a decent job, I'd rather not be stuck in debt going to some fancy private school.
The Art Institutes seem to vary widely from one branch to another. Some are accredited, some aren't. I knew an animator from DC who graduated with a pretty strong portfolio. It was a three year program but they had class year round so she still earned her bachelor's and to my knowledge she's doing just fine.
i got the exact same call, and i was still in high school. happened like four months ago.
scary.
This should also be illegal - it's basically unsolicited predatory behaviour, much like those door to door sellers who target the elderly / vulnerable and pressure-sell them shit they never needed.
Yea, the one near me (located in a medium sized game city) seems to have some good 3d professors (from what I've heard, I don't actually go there). I've also met two of them at a monthly local meetup in my area. Both seem to have good connections within the industry (although one is more indie focused) and are always willing to help out as much as they can IF a student puts in the work. Now, they aren't like crazy good professors that you'd get at Gnomon or Futurepoly unfortunately, but they can still be useful.
With that all said..
In the end, it always comes down to how much a student will sacrifice to make good work. Most of the students I'm in classes with drop all 3d work unless they're taking classes for it. "Oh it's summer vacation for a few months, NO WORK!".. During internships, they won't work on self-projects at home/on the weekends. They go out way too much, etc.
And at the end, they've put in very few hours and their work is lackluster compared to someone who lives 3d.
They are going to pay anyway. that's the beauty of the guaranteed loan. Privatize the gains, socialize the losses. A student defaults on their loan, the government (the taxpayers) have to cover it.
And let's see, what happens when someone if forced to pay an absorbent student loan that they can't afford on their minimum wage service job(s). They go on assistance. So now the taxpayers have a double whammy of having to flip the bill for the guaranteed loan, and also take care of the Student Debtor because their masters in Basket weaving didn't get them that high paying job their school told them they would get..and the Loansters walk away counting their money.....
Maybe a tad hyperbolic, worst case scenario...but why is it so bad to help people pay for their education, you are actually helping to create people who can fend for themselves, and bolster your economy.
Not with private loans. If you default on a private loan, they sue you.