Tag: tuition

Tri-State University Scandal, Small Story In The United States

On By southwerkIn business ethics6 Comments

There are two aspects of this story that I would like to talk about. The first that in the American media, this story is not front page news. It’s buried in the middle of the newspaper. The big coverage is in India.

The second thing I want to talk about is here – today, I read this. From DNA Daily News and Analysis based in Mumbai, India. –

The large-scale mushrooming of fake Indian agents working on behalf of lesser-known foreign universities are to blame (my emphasis) for students falling prey to fraudulent institutions like Tri-Valley University (TVU) in the US, say experts.

“This is sad but true. In India, we have no regulatory mechanism to monitor agents working for foreign universities. These agents work for lesser-known or fraud universities abroad and dupe Indian students. They mislead students into joining fake universities abroad like TVU in the US,” says Manjula Raman, a career counsellor and principal of Army Public School, Bangalore.

It required a great deal of effort for this scandal to happen. Yes, there were agents in India exploiting these students but the American tolerance for sham universities and colleges is the other half of the equation. One make the other possible.

I personally know of some sham schools. Most people here do. Colleges spring up with signs in store front windows and four room buildings. Usually some religious education designed to train you as a minister or get you a certificate for office work.

My suspicion is that overseas, one American college looks very much like another.

Agents in India are taking advantage of how the American educational works (or doesn’t work). But there were a good number of Americans involved as well.

Fraud

I want the people responsible in India for these students’ plight to go to jail.

I also want the Americans defrauding these students to go to jail.

James Pilant

Student loans leave crushing debt burden (via MSNBC)

On By southwerkIn Government Failure

When will student loans reach such a size and ferocity in collection that a majority of American students no longer believe it is financially worthwhile to go to college?

Has the American dream simply disappeared for millions of Americans to whom a college education was the gateway to some form of economic security?

James Pilant

The cost of a college education is rising faster than the cost of medical care and as much as three times as fast as consumer prices in general. But that’s just the beginning of the price of admission.

This is the story of a debt crisis few are talking about.

Americans now owe more on their student loans than they do on their credit cards — a debt fast approaching $1 trillion with no end in sight.

Students borrow because they see little choice. A college education, after all, is a key to success. That, it seems, is an article of faith.

…Read More…

Student Borrowing Increases Dramatically

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics

Here are the key findings from the Pew Research Center Analysis.

* One-quarter (24%) of 2008 bachelor’s degree graduates at for-profit schools borrowed more than $40,000, compared with 5% of graduates at public institutions and 14% at not-for-profit schools.
* Roughly one-in-four recipients of an associate’s degree or certificate borrowed more than $20,000 at both private for-profit and private not-for-profit schools, compared with 5% of graduates of public schools.
* Graduates of private for-profit schools are demographically different from graduates in other sectors. Generally, private for-profit school graduates have lower incomes, and are older, more likely to be from minority groups, more likely to be female, more likely to be independent of their parents and more likely to have their own dependents.
* Although private for-profit schools specialize in different fields of study than do public and private not-for-profit schools, the differences in borrowing patterns persist within fields of study. For almost every field of study at every level, students at private for-profit schools are more likely to borrow and tend to borrow larger amounts than students at public and private not-for-profit schools.

Here’s some more from the report –

Undergraduate college student borrowing has risen dramatically in recent years. Graduates who received a bachelor’s degree in 2008 borrowed 50% more (in inflation-adjusted dollars) than their counterparts who graduated in 1996, while graduates who earned an associate’s degree or undergraduate certificate in 2008 borrowed more than twice what their counterparts in 1996 had borrowed, according to a new analysis of National Center for Education Statistics data by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project.

I’m sure there are people who look at this and say these young people are borrowing too much money and that may often be true. But if you follow the costs of going to college, tuition, books, etc., you come to a different conclusion. Since students can borrow money to a guarenteed level, tuition and fees will rise toward that level each year. When the level is raised, the college and university costs start their inexorable increase to get all the loan money possible. When the top borrowing amount no longer works for a number of institutions, the borrowing cap is raised and it starts all over again.

Tuition costs have increased at twice the level of medical costs increases over the last decade. That’s right. Even the insurance companies couldn’t keep up with the colleges and universities of the United States.

James Pilant