Faculty members at for-profit colleges were not surprised by anything revealed last year in the Government Accountability Office’s investigations of the for-profit-college industry. The subsequent Congressional hearings provided a sense of relief and validation to those of us who teach at these colleges: relief that fraudulent recruitment practices and other abuses had finally come to light, and validation of our frequently expressed concerns about such matters.
This leads to two questions on the minds of those who scrutinize the faculty at for-profit colleges: Why on earth would anyone agree to teach at one? And what can faculty do to stop the blatant abuses at these colleges?
Let me be clear: I do not know any academics who willingly work at for-profit colleges. From my experience, educators usually accept positions in the for-profit sector because they really do not have a choice. With the job crunch in academe, with student loans kicking in, families to provide for, and the need for health insurance, any job is better than no job. That certainly was my situation, and I know numerous instructors for whom it was the same. Economic necessity is the primary reason that credentialed educators teach at for-profit colleges.
The other major reason that faculty members accept positions at for-profit colleges is that many traditional colleges no longer hire full-time faculty. Most educators at many for-profit colleges are a desperate group trying to cobble together a living wage by working on multiple campuses, including the for-profits. Faculty members have to take what they can get, where they can get it, in order to pursue their careers and pay their bills.
This situation should be familiar to anyone who has followed the academic job market for the past 10 years. More and more colleges save money in a time of shrinking budgets by cutting tenure-track positions and substituting limited appointments and adjunct-faculty positions for full-time faculty. In a cruel twist, this hiring pattern at colleges that are considered more legitimate than for-profit institutions contributes to the need for faculty members to seek positions at for-profit colleges—but then faculty at the more-legitimate colleges criticize and shun their colleagues at the for-profits.
The fact is, the collapse of the academic job market has led a large group of junior faculty members to take jobs at institutions where they never before would have dreamed of teaching.
Optimistic educators like myself are seduced by deans and department managers at for-profit colleges, who regale potential faculty members with romantic tales of how the colleges have “saved” many a lost soul by accepting poorly prepared students and providing opportunities to those who have fallen through the cracks of the traditional education system. Join us, they proselytize, and you, too, will be able to provide a second chance to someone who was unable to get into college anywhere else.
As trite as it sounds, many of us go into higher education to help people. We want to believe in students, to be generous and optimistic about them. We think that working at a for-profit college, if only for a little while as we search for a “real” job, will help us do that. At least that is how we reconcile our distaste for the for-profit system with our need to put bread on the table.
So we begin teaching at these colleges, hoping for the best, looking forward to helping those students who deserve that second chance. But we are quickly schooled in the reality of the for-profit world, which cares not for legitimate second chances but only for the bottom line. What matters to for-profit colleges is whether federal dollars and private loans keep rolling in. The integrity of the institution, the development of individual scholarship, the implicit promise made to students that college provides meaningful and legitimate learning experiences—all of the things that have historically been of value in higher education—have no place in the world of for-profit colleges.
But by the time new faculty realize this, they are committed to a contract or have selfishly gotten comfortable being able to pay the rent and see a doctor without going broke. And if they speak up against fraud and abuse, they risk losing even those comforts.
My four years of experience as a professor at a for-profit college revealed that the for-profit higher-education industry really is as corrupt as everyone suspects. In my position, I suffered a death threat from a student, was threatened by students and their friends countless times, was publicly denigrated by the administration whenever I raised a question or objected to a corrupt practice, and was continually undermined by a faculty and administration driven by fear and adherence to low standards. My colleagues and I have tolerated drunk and disorderly students in our classes, have been told that students should be allowed to talk on their phones, text, and eat hot meals during class—just to keep those bodies in the seats.
Instructors at my college have even been forced to lie about students’ attendance, because one way the federal government monitors the colleges is through attendance. I have seen how the administration changes final grades to keep students enrolled, and how admissions representatives routinely contact professors to “discuss” specific student grades, in violation of federal student-confidentiality rules—and certainly in violation of the right of a qualified professor to manage his or her class without outside pressure or influence. In one medical program at my college, students with known criminal records are sent to only those externships that do not conduct background checks on employees. Those students then work with patients at clinics, nursing homes, and other medical facilities.
Countless examples from my years at a for-profit college show that these colleges exploit students and faculty alike. Faculty are pressured by the administration and other faculty to pass students, to give higher grades, to “work with” illiterate students who should not have earned high-school diplomas let alone gained admission to college. Some faculty members routinely ignore obvious plagiarism and cheating, and give passing grades to inadequate students, in order to continue bringing home paychecks and avoid conflicts with an administration that itself is pressured to recruit and retain students and to comply with the corrupt policies of the corporate office. Unqualified and illiterate students are provided with work-study jobs (supported by taxes) as tutors, teaching assistants, and administrators. Students with learning disabilities, who have a federal guarantee of support services through the Americans With Disabilities Act, are thereby cheated out of qualified assistance.
In these ways, it is clear that the for-profit model focuses on the most vulnerable in our society. Recruiters promise potential students that if they enroll in a program and borrow thousands of dollars in student loans, they will earn a degree that guarantees a career and an income. As Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, pointed out during the Congressional hearings, it’s “a cruel irony” that for-profit colleges “seek out and enroll large numbers of minority and low-income students, offering them opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have"—but then cheat them out of what they are paying for.
Some of these students will never finish their degrees, whether because they are functionally illiterate, or have failed their courses throughout high school because of learning difficulties, or have generally low levels of intelligence and ability, or, perhaps, exhibit signs of untreated psychological problems. Those are among the reasons some students fail their way through public schools and cannot achieve admission to any other college. Such students are always accepted at for-profit colleges, where they fail semester after semester, continually encouraged to re-enroll by the admissions and advising offices that urge them to take out more student loans, thereby lining the pockets of investors.
As a result, some faculty have little knowledge of what actually constitutes college-level work. This means that attempts at course review and student assessment are flawed at the outset, because the faculty doing the assessments get so used to the low standards around them that those standards become the norm by which everything is judged. Faculty then routinely rate as “passing” or even “excellent” work that would not have passed muster when I taught high school.
The first time I attended a presentation of student work, I was horrified by the papers that professors told students to submit to academic journals. Littered with misspellings, incomplete sentences, and poorly cited sources, these papers contained neither cohesive arguments nor comprehensible language—and the faculty who promoted these students seemed unaware of these problems. When I suggested that the papers be reviewed and proofed before being sent to journals, my suggestion was rebuffed.
In this system, anyone who protests the dumbing down of student-achievement standards is regarded as a troublemaker or at least as “unrealistic.” For example, I was offered a bribe by another professor if I would “let” one of his students pass my course. I was harangued and physically chased by a faculty colleague because I would not let her favorite student violate my classroom policies.
Mostly, though, what I heard was discussions about specific assignments or textbooks and whether or not they are appropriate for “our” students. Assignments and books that are standard in introductory college courses across the country are routinely dismissed as too difficult, and expectations of what is appropriate college work sink further. Faculty who try to bring innovative, challenging material to the classroom or maintain appropriate college-level performance standards receive poor student evaluations. They are criticized, hounded, and harassed by the administration, and then finally fired, regardless of their actual skills, credentials, or commitment to providing students with legitimate educational experiences.
The most usual scenario, though, is that weary and economically desperate faculty members simply abandon their standards and try to hang on. They are worn down by criticism from the administration and other faculty members to the point that they fear for their jobs and are trying to hold onto them in this competitive market. Frequent firings of difficult (read: ethical) faculty reinforce this fear.
There is also that continual desire to help save students, to provide for them that second chance. It should come as no surprise that instructors interpret this internal mandate differently. Some find it unfair to fail students who have paid tuition or have “tried hard,” and assign a passing grade whether or not the student can demonstrate competence in the course.
Yet while assigning passing grades to students who do not master the material may seem altruistic and supportive, it is an extreme disservice to those students. They will have earned a degree, but that degree will not represent actual learned skills. Those students will not be able to make it through a job interview or fill out job applications, nor will they be able to fulfill their job responsibilities if they are hired. I once sat in the audience at graduation, watching as a student who had been unable to complete a basic sentence proudly walked across the stage and accepted his associate degree, probably unaware that his lack of ability meant that he would never be hired in his chosen field.
All of these problems are only underscored by the end result: I have been stricken by the sight of graduates of my college working at jobs around town that have nothing to do with the degrees they paid for—and I know it is not because of the current state of the economy. One is a custodian, one works as a cashier, and countless others are unemployed, edged out of the job market by graduates of other colleges who can demonstrate competence in their fields. Like faculty members who were told that the for-profit colleges offered a “last chance” for some people, students were sold a lie and told that their degrees would get them jobs.
If the for-profit model is to actually benefit students, faculty members at these colleges need to stand up and expose the lie about opportunity that is at the heart of the for-profit model. They need to remind the parent corporations just exactly what education is supposed to be and who is qualified to assess student work—and it is not the young sales executive with a bachelor’s degree in marketing who sits in the corner office half a continent away. Students should leave their colleges with gained knowledge and an ability to demonstrate that they have mastered the skills that will allow them to get and keep a job. Faculty need to take back the classroom at for-profit colleges—or abandon those colleges altogether.
But first they need to see through the lies of the hiring agents. I wish I had done so sooner. If I had, I would not have had to suffer through several years of hard work and near-constant intimidation from administrators, fellow faculty, and students. As it is, I will have to console myself with my ethical values while trying to figure out how to pay my student loans, cover my health expenses, and resurrect my career. But at least I have my education: Students whom for-profit colleges exploit will not even have the consolation of learned skills. They will instead be in a worse place than they were before. They will still be stuck in low-paying, low-skilled jobs, but now with the added burden of student-loan debt.
The companies that run these colleges, however, will not blink an eye at my departure, or at the plight of the thousands of students left holding the bag. Nor will they give a thought to the taxpayers who provide the means by which they make their fortunes. They will keep putting profits before students, selling shares in their companies, and proclaiming that they are “helping” Americans improve their lives. And millions of Americans will keep falling for their lies. That is why many instructors at for-profit colleges have been jubilant over the Congressional investigation and its revelations.
The flip side of this relief, however, is fear: fear that we will be criticized and scorned by our peers at other colleges and universities, fear that all the work we have done to legitimize our courses will be discounted as the whole system is indicted. As I embark on the job market once again, my greatest fear is that I am now tainted by my association with a for-profit college. I worry that I will be unmarketable and unable to get another job now that I have extricated myself from what might have been a unique opportunity to help students who were shut out of the traditional path to higher education.
But I can, I hope, get another job. In the end, the worst part of the for-profit higher-education industry is that it exploits the very group it purports to serve. Every day, more and more money pours into the coffers of those who exploit the poor and vulnerable—who are the ones really being cheated.