Returning to this dormant thread, I recently learned that three local for-profit educational institutions are in trouble. First up is ITT Tech, shutting down last September, according to NPR, because…
… ITT shut down all of its 137 locations. The federal government cut off student aid because the school’s accreditor found it had lied about its graduation and job-placement figures.
This leaves the students with debt and credits which may be worthless, the story says. MPR News more detail on recruiting tactics:
When he first moved to Miami, Waltter Teruel says, working as a recruiter for ITT Technical Institute was a welcome change from his life in New York where he had been selling antiques and life insurance.
As a recruiter, Teruel says, ITT Tech took care of the pitch to potential students for you. Recruiters used scripts set out in detailed PowerPoint presentations and got long lists of prospective students to call. But soon the welcome change faded. “Most of these students, they were looking for a job,” not more school, says Teruel.
When ITT Technical Institute closed, employees began to share tightly designed sales tools, like those PowerPoints, that offered a glimpse into the strategy that helped the company grow to more than 130 campuses across the country.
But those same tactics ultimately contributed to the company’s downfall, when the Department of Education ruled, in part because of its aggressive recruiting, ITT could no longer enroll new students using federal loans.
Those tactics?
[Tereul] says if you filled in your information, you’d get a call from one, or maybe 10, recruiters. The rule set out in the ITT training materials instructs recruiters to call “a minimum of three times a day for the first three days.” This was known as the 3×3 rule.
The goal was to reach people as soon as possible after a lead was generated, and then get them to come in for a meeting. Teruel says recruiters were supposed to frame the meeting in person as a “coming attraction” and avoid answering too many questions on the phone. “Maybe if you give them too much information, they won’t want to come in.”
He says recruiters would try to appear as if they were swamped with meetings, “How about today at 2 o’clock, or tomorrow at 11 o’clock in the morning?”
And it got personal. On-campus visits began with a questionnaire, the WITY, or “what’s important to you.” Teruel says that served as a backbone for the interview. If an applicant said “I’m tired of making minimum wage,” or “I want to better support my family,” recruiters would remind them what brought them there in the first place.
Next up, Globe University and the Minnesota School of Business, having common ownership, as noted in this press release by the US Department of Education:
The U.S. Department of Education announced today that participation in the federal student aid programs will end this month for Globe University (Globe) and Minnesota School of Business (MSB), two for-profit colleges under common ownership. This enforcement action is in keeping with the Department’s ongoing efforts to protect students, safeguard taxpayer dollars and increase accountability among postsecondary institutions.
The Program Compliance and Enforcement Units within Federal Student Aid determined that Globe and MSB are ineligible to participate in federal student aid programs because Globe and MSB have been judicially determined to have committed fraud involving Title IV program funds. Additionally, both institutions knowingly misrepresented the nature of their criminal justice programs and the transferability of credits earned to other institutions. These callous acts of misrepresentation left many students without the credentials necessary for their chosen careers and no options to continue their studies at other postsecondary institutions. Many graduates incurred thousands of dollars of debt but had limited options for successful job placement in their chosen fields.
“Globe and MSB preyed upon potential public servants – targeting those with a sincere desire to help their communities.” said U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell. “These institutions misrepresented their programs, potentially misleading students, and abused taxpayer funds, and so violated federal law, which is why we removed them from the federal student aid program. This is a sober reminder that not all institutions deliver on their advertised promises.”
Local NBC affiliate KARE11 notes Globe’s reaction:
We continue to fight hard for and alongside our nursing students, and those in every other program who are working so diligently to earn a degree to better their lives and the lives of their families. We believe the Office of Higher Education’s Order reaches far beyond what was necessary, penalizing students in every program for findings related to a single program that is no longer offered. Our nursing students routinely have a high first-time pass rate on the NCLEX, are successful in their careers, are passionate about their profession and are in great demand in their industry. It is imperative they be allowed to complete their program. Not allowing those students to complete not only has a devastating impact on them, it threatens the quality of health care for all Minnesotans. We appreciate how strongly and passionately many of our students have advocated for our Schools and we will continue to do the same for them.
Source: Piero Amadeo Infante
Notice how Globe University has become critical for the very survival of the healthcare industry of Minnesota – at least in their minds. To the mature citizen, it’s a mindset that says, We can say anything we want because honesty is not our paramount value. I wouldn’t trust that company with taking care of a cinder block, much less my education.
STUDENT, student, customer. This is true for traditional schools as well – I recall an interesting story out of Iowa some 35 – 40 years ago, where private Drake University was facing falling enrollment. They had been reducing tuition, to no avail. A new president came in and boosted tuition – and enrollment began growing. It appears students were using tuition as a proxy for education quality. [I have no idea if that story is online anywhere.]
So it’s not only a for-profit problem, but the real problem is that a private-sector originated school will, in all probability, bring private-sector methods to bear on the problem – and education is a fundamentally different sector, so the methodology can be glaringly wrong, not only resulting in the failure of the venture, but in people getting hurt as well.
Which is just as true within authentic private-sector transactions.
But the takeaway is to realize that the age-old educational institutions have developed appropriate methodologies for student recruitment, not to mention the rest of the student life cycle, from housing to the actual incidence of education. The message that education must change, must be replaced by private entities, is becoming an increasingly dubious message as we see these crash and burn amidst charges of fraud. Perhaps this is a case where the societal knowledge of previous generations is superior to today’s assertions – the realization that different sectors of society have different methods for good reason.
