“How Predatory Master’s Programs Get Away With It”

[Pats20]

Overwhelmed—or perhaps underwhelmed—prospective students often resort to asking for information from schools directly.

And that’s when the salespeople intervene.  

“I signed up as someone who was interested and wanted more information about the program,” Sofia—who requested that we use only her first name—told me of her experience in the summer of 2019. “And the next day I got a recruitment call.”

According to Sofia, her recruitment agent was relentless, calling her almost daily and remembering every detail he heard. “He name-dropped some of my professors,” she said. “He remembered my pets’ names.” 

She expressed to him that the program [based on context in the article, apparently the online Master of Arts in Counseling from Northwestern University] seemed too expensive, with a tuition (not including housing or any other costs) of between $133,824 and $190,440, depending on the track. But the recruitment agent countered, selling her on the “incredible power of being able to say that you went to Northwestern.” 

This “incredible power,” as Sofia recalls him saying, is not recognized by the market. Northwestern’s median earnings five years after graduation, $56,897, are markedly lower than the median master’s program in this category: $63,675. 

That recruitment agent worked for 2U, a private, for-profit online education program management company which also runs the online infrastructure that Northwestern’s master’s program uses—software that, one alum told me, she felt was constantly having “technological glitches” and felt “clunky and old.” Though 2U’s exact compensation from Northwestern isn’t publicly disclosed, the company’s standard deals with universities in 2019 involved keeping 60 percent or more of tuition revenues. (More recently, 2U has reduced its standard revenue-sharing fee for degree programs to 35 percent.)

The article contrasts high-tuition, low-ROI master's programs like Northwestern's MA in Counseling, which it characterizes as "predatory," with lower-cost programs in similar fields such as those from Aurora University.

Posting to the General forum because the contentious issues here are also seen in undergraduate and vocational programs.

How Predatory Master’s Programs Get Away With It (Marc Novicoff, Washington Monthly, August 25, 2024)

I think the article is junk. I find it hard to believe 
Aurora University grads are making on average $20k more than northwestern grads for equivalent programs. No way if apples to apples are being compared.