Posted on behalf of DMI Fellow Maureen Lane.
Tuesday,the New York Times reportedthat the University of Phoenix has become the nation's largest private university with over 300,000 students, and that it has done so "by delivering high profits to investors and a solid, albeit low-overhead, education to mid-career workers seeking college degrees."
Clearly, the University of Phoenix is a turning a profit. What's problematic about this is that the marketing of degrees and certificates can snare students into costly loans and subsume the mission of higher learning to commercial interests.
When I came to Hunter College 10 years ago, I was over forty years old. I did not know about college or financing it. I was fortunate to attend Hunter College of the City University of New York and pursue a liberal arts bachelors' degree. A good many other low-income students like me were enticed by advertising from for-profit universities that pushed many of my friends to borrow to the limit the government is willing to subsidize in order to finance their degrees.
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