Thoughts on Thursday

Thursday here in Boone, NC is partially cloudy with intermittent sun.  As I was looking the online editions of The Chronicle discussing for-profit schools, a couple of things struck me.

One of these is that there are some truly bad folks out there who seem to be gaming the system.  It looks like the reports from the  Senate hearing have focused mainly on the career colleges - cosmetology, barber, etc.  I have not really read/seen much on those schools that are degree granting like my school and others. The author of the Chronicle article seemed to intimate that from the committee's perspective that it is the accrediting bodies that are at fault and the article ended with a sidebar that maybe all of higher education should be looked at in this regard.

A second thought is that no one at any institution that I have ever attended (and none of them were for-profit schools) promised that the education I paid to receive was going to give me a job.  Now my expectation was that when I completed my various degrees I would be more employable with a better range of skills with which to impress an employer.

Perhaps some of the enrollment advisors do promise potential students that they can get a better  job.  While the promise would be wrong, the idea of more education leading to better employability is normal, I would opine.

BTW - my degrees are BS - Appalachian State University - a member institution of the greater University of NC system; MS- Michigan State University the first land grant college; and EdD- Duke University a school that is private but consistently ranks in the top 10 in numerous fields of study.

I am contented with what Walden University does in recruiting students and providing education to them - I can only speak directly to those in the Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership, but assume the same holds true for the other schools and colleges.