What's the weirdest thing you've heard someone say about college?

[sanantone]

I believe that anyone can get a good education if they are motivated enough.   But I have known people to take UoP classes and I've heard the same feedback.  Basically, you can go and kick ass and take names if you want, or you can skate through it and as long as you pay your tuition on time and make a marginal attempt to turn in assignments, you'll pass.  It may not be with a 4.0, but you'll get your piece of paper.

Of course the same thing can be said for any for-profit education.   My first job was in for-profit education - in another country but it was exactly the same.   In a nutshell, you have revenue goals to meet and if people don't make it, you have to get rid of the absolute worst or you risk losing the decent students.   But other than that, you just pass people through if they can go through the motions.   If someone pays well, you do what it takes to keep them.  

So, not to say that UoP doesn't have good lessons, just like the school I worked for in Mexico had amazing English classes.  (They really did!)  It just means that like any for-profit company, the priority will always be the numbers.

Ummm...hate to point this out, but this is the case for ALL schools, not just for-profits.  Maybe you haven't noticed, but kids these days aren't coming out of college as geniuses with all kinds of knowledge.  Watch any of those "about town" bits on late night TV, especially the ones on college campuses, and you'll be shocked at the stupidity of college students; and it's not getting better, it's getting worse!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-wou...1554936810

I don't know that I totally agree.  I think that there are always kids that are pushed through for whatever reason, but the motivations in a for-profit situation just are different.

When I worked in for-profit education, we had sales goals to meet that included both reinrollment and new enrollment.  So, as the director of a school, I HAD to keep a certain number of repeat customers... I mean students..  coming back month after month or I literally got half a paycheck.     

So I don't know the motivation behind non-profit as I haven't worked in non-profit education, but my personal experiences with sales targets and viewing students as numbers to continually increase did taint my view.    I have worked in the non-profit sector inot directly in education and can attest to the fact that there are similiar pressures when it comes to revenue generation, but they are a lot lower.   You don't feel like your job is riding on the next sale, unlike the for-profit world.

It's just not a healthy enviroment and by default will lead to some cutting corners.  So not to say that non-profit is perfect.  Just to say that for-profit in education definitely fosters an environment which could more easily encourage shady behavior.

There are generally differences between how non-profit and for-profit organizations operate because their goals and stakeholders are different. I taught at a for-profit school and public university. The Director of Education at the for-profit kept reminding us that our "clientele" weren't like the students at the local non-profit universitie. Our students needed to be "entertained."

I also worked for a non-profit organization that operated a therapeutic community within a prison run by a for-profit company that eventually won the therapeutic community contract too. When the for-profit organization took over, most of the counselors jumped ship because priorities changed. I also compare what I saw in that prison to my experience working as a corrections officer at a sheriff's department. A lot of the officers the for-profit organization hired wouldn't have been able to pass pre-employment testing and a background check at a sheriff's department.