Corporate U: Higher ed the Bain Way, part 2

Pork U, now with 86% taxpayer filling

Mr. Romney offered another unsolicited endorsement for "a place in Florida called Full Sail University." By increasing competition, for-profit institutions like Full Sail, which focuses on the entertainment field, "hold down the cost of education" and help students get jobs without saddling them with excessive debt, he said.
~NY Times                  [emphasis added]

Last week, part 1 of this diary concluded by pointing out a few problems with Mr. Romney's endorsement of Full Sail University, a for-profit enterprise whose majority investor is the international private-equity firm TA Associates. Just look at the three bolded statements above:

1) hold down the cost of education: A 21-month degree from Full Sail in video game art costs $81,000, double most public institutions. On average for-profit colleges cost nearly twice as much as state schools, and two-year trade schools are three to five times more expensive than community colleges.

2) help students get jobs: The for-profit college industry has at best a murky track record in the job placement department, because they sometimes don't make the information public, inflate their numbers, and bend the definitions. The administration is attempting to crack down on their job placement shenanigans.

3) without saddling them with excessive debt: Students leave Full Sail University with an average debt of $59,000, five times public-school graduates. Nationally, students who attend for-profit schools incur a $29,900 debt, while public college students leave $10,500 in the red. About 96 percent of students at for-profit schools take out government loans, while the figure is 48 percent at four-year public and nonprofit private schools, and only 13 percent at community colleges. In last week's diary, softserve's comment described how a $50,000 loan ballooned to a $105,000 debt'an all-too-common complaint on student websites.

I'm done thinking my situation will get any better. But I do NOT want this to happen to other people. There is nothing fair, just or right about it at all. There is NO reason a place like Sallie Mae should be able to give someone essentially government-guaranteed private loans at 15%+ interest while getting that money from the government at 1%. None...

I'm so tired of being told just to deal with it, that I took out the money and have to repay it. Fine. I took out $50,000. Explain to me why I've been paying $16,000+ a year to one loan and still owe $105,000 on it. Explain to me why that should be allowed to happen.

How do they do it?
One of Full Sail's competitors is nearby Valencia College, which Romney didn't mention during his 30-second commercial for Full Sail. Valencia also offers an associate degree in video game art, which will run you $6,400, a tad bit less than $81,000, but Romney didn't recognized them for "hold[ing] down the cost of education." He also neglected to point out that Full Sail's CEO Bill Heavener, who is co-chair of Mitt's Florida fundraising team, donated $85,000 to his campaign, and Kevin Landry at TA Associates chipped in another $125,000.

For more about Full Sail University, check out this blog of testimonials from former students; I doubt many of them donate to the school's alumni association. Full Sail is just one example of the dismal track record shared by too many for-profit colleges: high tuitions, low graduation rates, poor instruction, countless legal battles and terrible job placement statistics'leaving students with mountains of debt, all the while the schools' CEOs earn on average seven times more than the presidents of America's finest universities. Oh, and these goobers who "did build that" receive 86 percent of their profit from Washington. So it's interesting that they're supporting Mitt Romney, the so-called small government guy. Sure, he'll "reduce government" for programs that protect and serve the middle class and poor, but then channel those "savings" toward Wall Street.

The for-profit college industry is the perfect conduit for Romney's warped privatization vision: more for corporations and the 1 percenters who run them, while they deceive, exploit, trample and ultimately indenture the 99 percent. Romney and the private equity firms that own colleges, universities and trade schools share one goal: to further privatize education, which begins by undercutting the competition, public institutions, and steering students and federal resources to Stock Market State. Mitt Romney is among their most jubilant drum majors, and they're following, with wheelbarrows full of CorpEd cash.

With their dreadful reputation and track record, documented in Sen. Tom Harkin's investigations and hearings, how do the national behemoths, most of which are owned by private-equity firms, harvest the huge numbers they need just to sustain current levels, let alone grow? The granddaddy of them all, the University of Phoenix (UP), which boasts around 400,000 students and is owned by the gargantuan Apollo Group, has to recruit the equivalent of Ohio State University's student population every year, just to keep Apollo's stock price ticking upward. To reach and hopefully surpass those crazy numbers, the for-profits rely on convenience, shady marketing and recruitment tactics, government loopholes, and heavy-handed political pressure.

(Continue reading below the fold.)