Saturday, February 4, 2012

Online Universities, High-Pressure Enrollment and High Debt

Considering Going to an Online College, Watch this First

So this isn't my typical kind of post, but a recent recommendation to follow the sponsored University of Phoenix Twitter feed reminded me of this Frontline video should be a must-see for anyone thinking of attending an online university:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/?autoplay

I've spoken with students who've been contacted by these universities who pressure college-age people who hadn't been thinking of going to college, and hadn't tried affordable alternatives like community colleges, and the university salespeople "help" students enroll, take out thousands and thousands of dollars from the government and other loans. As the video explains, many students never graduate and are left thousands of dollars in debt that's leading to the next housing-loan type of economic downturn.


Once again, I'm not trying to talk anyone out of going to college, but I recommend community colleges as a much more affordable alternative to online classes ($100s/community college vs. $10,000s online).
A popular, updated slideshow in the Huffington Post's College Section is their "Majoring in Debt: College Students Struggle Under Weight of Loans" showing students from schools with higher graduation rates than online colleges who are unable to find jobs.

No comments:

Post a Comment