Opinions about online education changing

[sanantone]

I NEED this article. I hope you're able to find it. I've been trying to spread the word since I discovered this forum. But now that word has gotten out that I'm getting my degree with no student loans, people in my circle are listening to me a little bit more.

Here is the abstract. I thought about paying $5 for the full article to examine their methodology, but decided not to.

Gainfully Employed? Assessing the Employment and Earnings of For-Profit College Students Using Administrative Data

[sanantone]

Here is the abstract. I thought about paying $5 for the full article to examine their methodology, but decided not to.

Gainfully Employed? Assessing the Employment and Earnings of For-Profit College Students Using Administrative Data

I was able to download a free copy using my Texas State email address. Here are some quotes from the results.

In the first row, note that public community college certificate students see no effect
on employment, but sizable positive annual earnings effects of about $3,900. Among
individuals who are working, the results for public sector log earnings suggest a
meaningful increase of about 18 log points (20 percent). Weighting the community college
students to account for differences in fields of study and demographics, these effects are
24
reduced to around $1,500 in earnings levels, and about 11 log points conditional on
working. These estimates fall in the mid-range of estimates of the returns to certificates for
non-health fields reported by Stevens, Kurlaender, and Grosz (2015, Table 2).
In the second row, we assess our outcome of interest, the differential returns
experienced by for-profit certificate students. In the case of earnings outcomes in Columns
(3)-(6) we find that for-profit students have unambiguously lower earnings effects relative
to community college students. In the unweighted sample, these differential effects are
large and statistically significant. The estimated differential effect on earnings is about -
$5,500 and is nearly -21 log points (-23 percent) conditional on working. In the weighted
sample, the point estimates on annual earnings suggest that earnings effects from
attendance are about -$2,500 lower for for-profit students relative to community college
students and at least 11 log points lower, conditional on employment in the log
specifications. Our estimates suggest students who attend for-profit certificate programs
see an average total earnings effect of about -$920 per year (or -7 percent on a base of
$12,500 in Table 5) in the 6 (or so) years after attendance, relative to their own earnings in
the years before attending.

It is possible that the low earnings effects that we find for the full sample could be
driven by very low completion rates. About 40 percent of for-profit students fail to
complete their certification, as noted above in Table 5, and about 60 percent of students
drop out of public certificate programs. If anything, these patterns suggest that our results
thus far, not conditioning on program completion, should be biased in favor of for-profit
students. In Table 10, we disaggregate our sample into those who complete degrees and
those who do not.

To explore heterogeneity in returns by field, we report the relative and total
earnings effects for the top ten most popular for-profit certificate programs in Figures 6A
and 6B, respectively. In seven of the ten fields (including all health-related fields), forprofit
students fare significantly worse than their public sector counterparts. Two fields
(culinary arts and vehicle maintenance) have similar returns across sectors. Only
cosmetology programs appear to generate higher returns in the for-profit sector. The most
likely explanation may be that several for-profit schools are directly linked to high-end
salons and enjoy name-brand recognition (e.g., The Aveda Institute and Paul Mitchell: The
School).

[Prloko]

One of the appeals of the for-profit route for welfare/underemployed/receiving unemployment folks is/was the speed. For instance you mentioned medical assisting. For programs like medical assisting/nursing/dental hygiene or most anything medical the community colleges require prerequisites and a wait list. You take a year or so worth of pre reqs and then wait for a slot to open. And the community college I went to required you to be state licensed nurse assistant with a number of hours practicing before you enter the RN or LPN program. That is a lot of hoops for nontraditional students. But honestly I see the state's point too- more hoops to jump through will equal higher sucess rates and better health care workers.

I ended up doing both nurse assistant and phlebotomy at the cc. There are a few hoops to jump through- entrance exam, interview, and mandatory orientation classes to attend. But no wait lists or reqs. My phlebotomy training led to a job that started out at $14.50. I realized that is what medical assistants start out as in this area. I'm glad to took a one semester pbt class instead an associate degree program. :/

What I don't understand is why you would go to ITT or something similar and do like a Criminal Justice or Business Admin. associate degree. The same program, no wait list, is offered at the cc. I had a close friend go to ITT and I still don't understand. Other than they did seem to be more helpful streamlining her grants and everything. She came out of foster care so she was entitled to college at the state's expense, but ITT costs exceeded those grants (and she had previously used some on art school). So still, the community college would have been the better choice.

And I agree about community colleges and job placement. The job placement center in my cc was a room with computers, a board with ads and fax machine you could use at no cost to you. If you are a current student. It was geared towards finding students part time work at places like UPS. Not towards helping recent grads.

Someone on here said Kaplan was charging nearly $800 per credit hour. If that is true, I don't know how that is not greed.

All valid truisms in today's environment with easy college loans. I am more speaking to the "old" tech school environment of the 70s and 80s. Back then, one could take a paralegal's course in a year or two. This was a nice way out of poverty ad into a professional environment for the lower class. I knew a few who started in the field this way. Nowadays, law schools are churning out so many JDs that firm are hiring JDs as paralegals. Also, a network admin was making 6 figures easy in the early 90s with a DeVry or TCI certificate (again, I knew a few). That changed also. Once society stopped valuing votech, these schools switched to competing with CCs for higher ed (and made a ton initially). I think we need to change that. A marginal student shouldn't be going to Kaplan for that rate. A tech school and a living wage should be what's needed.

[Prloko]

Let me search for the article. I remember a study that found that CC graduates make more than for-profit graduates of comparable programs.

You're rebutting a point I didn't make. I stated that votech programs at one time, pre 2000s, were a viable option. No one here is arguing the sheer rip-off that many of these schools have become.

[jsd]

honestly, it feels like you're pining for a time that never really existed in modern culture. these schools have been a joke since the late 80s at least.