Do you believe that Princeton, Harvard and Yale are fighting for their survival?

[CK_John]

You should, what do you think is behind the free community college proposal?

This proposal has at least two main objectives; first, put the for profit
diploma mills out of business and second, to revive the study of the trades.

IMO, Main line universities have less than a decade to exist unless for
profits are wiped out. It will be a very tough sell with the current Congress but it will put the GOP to a test that I can't see them winning.

The biggest problem will be what to do with the current student loan debt.

Just my read on the proposal.....

[joeglow3]

1. How would they be put out of business?

Last edited Sun Jan 11, 2015, 12:36 AM - Edit history (1)

I can honestly say I do not know a single intelligent person who has gone to a for profit school. I knew a few idiots who did.

[Warpy]

15. No kidding, not only will they retain their extreme prestige

they will also continue to attract the best, the brightest and the richest.

I've known a lot of brilliant people who graduated Harvard and only a few fools. A few of the brilliant ones were also from serious money, so don't hold that against all of them.

A Harvard degree will always mean more than one from Podunk U, if only for the lifetime contacts one develops at Harvard--or any of the Ivies.

The schools that will struggle are the ones like U of Phoenix and ITT Tech. With free 2 year college programs, those schools will have to adapt a great deal.

[madville]

2. How would free community college

Hurt private Ivy League schools? It's not like someone is going decide against attending Harvard to instead get an AA degree at the local CC.

[Recursion]

4. A friend of mine did the CC-to-Stanford jump

She works at NASA now. I don't know... mass community college for the first two years might be a good thing, and provide an easier transition for a lot of students.

[CK_John]

5. It's the for profit that is competing with main line universities.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. Not really. The for-profit schools aggressively recruit

among (or prey upon, if you like) students who don't have the grades or the money to go to a main line university. The for-profit schools persuade students to apply for student loans; those schools couldn't survive and wouldn't even exist if students had to pay out-of-pocket. The education offered is often marginal, and many of the students don't graduate but they are nevertheless stuck with huge student loans and no degree, so they are worse off than they were to start out with. The main line schools have minimum GPA requirements and are expensive, but also offer scholarships - but the students that the for-profit schools are after would never qualify, either with respect to grades or scholarship opportunities. They want an education but can't get into the "good" schools. The for-profit schools, which go after an entirely different market and do not compete in any respect with main line schools, are a sham and a ripoff.

[Nay]

34. I agree 100% with this. The Ivies have a whole different clientele -- the rich, the

intelligent, the very hard workers. Yeah, there are some legacy admissions, but that happens everywhere.

In my experience with coworkers who went to "college" at such places as Bible colleges online, Phoenix U., etc., it was quite obvious that these students didn't even have the English skills (and we're talking about native English speakers here) to understand college texts, write essays and term papers, understand algebra, etc. The actual work they produced (I occasionally helped them with some assignments) would not have been acceptable in my high school's sophomore English class. IMO, the degrees were useless, but the workplace was paying the tuition. When they finally got degrees, they were promoted. Unfortunately, they were promoted over people who had better skills but no or lesser degrees.

Also IMO, the students didn't want an education -- they wanted that piece of paper that said they had gotten an education, and the for-profits AND workplaces have pushed this attitude of just getting the paper. Most of those who went to for-profits did not, and still do not, know what a true education is, nor do they care. This attitude has contributed mightily to the degradation of the English language and rational thought in our society at large. It's just a racket, like everything else; when nothing is untouchable when it comes to money, you have just destroyed the society you live in.

[NewDeal_Dem]

48. +1. Ivies are in no danger; I hope to god for-profits are. But I fear state univerisities would

be too, as most people would take advantage of two free years rather then go the full four -- I think.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

56. It's more likely to help the four-year state schools, I think.

People who probably couldn't have gone to college at all will be able to get their first two years free (or nearly free), and could then transfer to a state school to get their four-year degree. A two-year degree isn't good for much other than to get a certificate for a trade, so those students who want a white-collar job will have to get a bachelor's degree. But with the first two years paid for, those students will probably finish the last two at a state university, to the university's benefit.

[Recursion]

3. Harvard is an investment trust with a curio education sideline. It will do fine

I do hope this brings the diploma mills to a screeching halt, though.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. The Ivy League schools won't be affected by this proposal.

There are enough wealthy alumni, and enough 1%-er offspring of same who can afford to attend those schools, that their survival is not in jeopardy. Community colleges are not competing for those students, who wouldn't be caught dead attending a two-year college with hoi polloi.

I do think the intent is to provide a good alternative for those who can't go to an expensive four-year private college, and to give those students a start on an education that won't put them in debt forever and will keep them away from those parasitic for-profit schools. Current student loan debt is a big problem - there's a potential bubble there that could have almost as disastrous consequences as the real estate crash. 30 years ago you could discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy. That should be made possible again.

[CK_John]

8. This proposal will re-frame the whole university education system.

Free community college, undergraduate 2 yr colleges and smaller elite private college that may or may not work within the new framework.

[Sheldon Cooper]

9. I just hired a woman who went to a local community college for her first two years,

and then The University of Pittsburgh to finish her Bachelors degree. Her diploma say University of Pittsburgh and that's probably about half of what a four-year degree from Pitt would have cost. Maybe not Ivy League, but pretty good for PA. Win for her, win for me.

[CK_John]

16. Pay her 100% instead of the standard 76%.

[Adrahil]

24. I'll be honest... I've had terrible luck with halfsies graduates.

IMO, the CC's are great for vo-tech type training and less good for academic training.

[daredtowork]

7. Here are my Counter Conspiracy Theories for You

1) Sending more students to college stealthily creates a lot of jobs (administrative as well as for all those unemployed academics out there) under the clever cover of "education".

2) Conservatives defunded public education because too many poor (in their minds "uppity black folk&quot were getting an education and competing with white folks for a good job. Obama is giving those people who were excluded from competition (whatever their race is) a chance to compete again.

3) Conservatives have just been talking out of their posteriors for a long time about how "socialist" ideas like public infrastructure don't work. This is Obama's secret plan to actually implement some infrastructure to see whether it works or not.

4) Smaller 4-year colleges will have to lower the tuition burden they've been imposing on students to compete. Who will want to take out all those loans when they can get the first 2 years for free and transfer?

If this all happens to kill those rip-off for-profit colleges and proves to be a great way to invest the next generation with productive skills - BONUS!

Ps. For profit trade schools were a threat to Harvard? WTF have you been smoking...

[CK_John]

10. No conspiracy just my opinion, Harvard accepted 2100 a year while The University of Phoenix

attained a peak enrollment of almost 600,000 students in 2010, but its numbers have declined to 227,000 as of 2015.

[cyberswede]

11. Do employers even take "degrees" from U Phoenix seriously?

[CK_John]

13. Yes, the federal government is one, also teacher graduate degrees are popular.

[tkmorris]

23. Oh nonsense

NO ONE thinks a degree from the U of P is worth the day it's printed on. Because it isn't.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

14. I doubt very much that a degree from a for-profit online school

is at all competitive. Some employers might not care much where you got your degree, but if you have to compete with applicants with degrees from even a respected state university - wouldn't have to be Ivy League - you would probably be at a disadvantage. The biggest problem, though, is that the for-profit schools are really quite expensive, and if a student runs out of loan money they have to drop out and are still stuck paying the loan back. The graduation rate for these schools is quite low; a lot of students wind up horrendously in debt and with no degree at all.

[CK_John]

17. I'm concerned about the success of the proposed free community college not

if for profits goal is profits or education.

[Adrahil]

25. Not at my company. n/t

[Nay]

35. Yes, unfortunately. My former workplace did and it is started to suffer from

that decision.

[lumberjack_jeff]

78. The resume scanner doesn't care. n/t

[erpowers]

18. How Many Kids Applied

Do you realize how many kids apply to Harvard each year? Harvard accepts 1%-5% of the students who apply each year. I think University of Phoenix accepts everyone who wants to attend.

[CK_John]

19. So.

[erpowers]

30. So, Harvard Is Not Struggling for Suurvival

According to Harvard, nearly 35,000 students applied to be a part of Harvard's Class of 2018. That 35,000 number was not just a one time thing. For years Harvard has received nearly 35,000 appliants. The school only accepted 1%-5% of those applicants. That means Harvard turned away more than 30,000 of the students who wanted to attend the school. The point is the school is not at the point where it has to go around begging for students.

[daredtowork]

22. Harvard became more selective

And I believe at the same time they started guaranteeing full need-based scholarships? I don't see how this signals Harvard's decline?

Phoenix on the other hand is a Diploma Mill: the more students they rake in, the more US-backed student loan money they can get their claws on.

[AngryAmish]

41. No Harvard wants to stay exclusive.

They have the means to triple enrollment but will not to keep out the scum.

[CK_John]

46. Harvard will be affect also since the states will have pony up about 25 %

and will require that all credits be transferable from community college to full university.

How and if this makes it through Congress will determine the details.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

58. Congress will not determine accreditation or student transfers .

That's handled by regional accreditation authorities and the universities. No private school will be required to accept transfers from a community college, although state schools in the same network normally will accept credits from CCs if the student is in good academic standing. (I know what I'm talking about; I once worked at a state U. and was involved in evaluating student transfers). The Ivies and other private schools will not be required to accept CC transfers and will not be part of this program. The President's proposal makes it very clear that this is to be a state-administered program for the state-run CCs and universities.

[AndreaCG]

68. Your first sentence has grammatical errors

Where exactly did you get your degree from?

[NewDeal_Dem]

50. I have a conspiracy theory too. When I was a kid, my right wing relatives used to laugh at

people who worked in government jobs -- education and the like. That was when a fair amount of working class people got into government work.

Now all their kids do that work, and the kids of the former working class are often working at walmart.

[CK_John]

52. Well 1/2 of graduates are unemployed or underemployed and the rest are

working just to payoff student loans. Returning to live with parents, and can not afford a home or families.

Productivity is not producing the jobs and this bubble is about to bust.

[daredtowork]

55. A rider to your Conspiracy Theory

The savage eagerness to cut down on Big Government to get those kids fired and to reduce public infrastructure so they have nothing to fall back on when they lose their work: a childish "who has the last laugh now"...?

[CK_John]

61. I have no idea what you are trying to say. My opinion is about the reason behind

free community college.

Here are facts:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/09/fact-sheet-white-house-unveils-america-s-college-promise-proposal-tuitio

[Retrograde]

20. How big is Harvard's endowment?

Multimillions, last I checked: they're not hurting for money, and they have more applicants than they can accomodate.

[CK_John]

21. Will Congress pass this proposal for free 2yr college plan?

[Krytan11c]

26. Not multimillions, multi billions

30.7 billion for fiscal year 2012 according to U.S. news

[CTyankee]

44. Probably astronomical.

I was a Major Gifts Officer at a nonprofit organization. My best donor pool was in Greenwich, CT. The very rich there loved my organization but their biggest gifts went to their prep school and their (usually Ivy) undergrad school. These people are all about making sure their kids continue to have the best breaks that money can buy so they perpetuate their wealth by donating huge amounts to the school's endowments.

They are also mindful of their reputations. That is why Naming Opportunities is such a popular item among fundraisers. The ultimate is having a school of something named after you and that comes with a hefty price tag. However, you can get the lesser Naming Opportunities with endowment gifts to libraries, hospitals of course, and museums. Even such items as fountains and parks. Sweet deals...

[CK_John]

47. Think out of box, this is about the whole higher ed system.

[jeff47]

60. The first word is more important than the next three. (nt)

[napi21]

27. The Ivies will be just fine. The diploma mills should and will die. Personally, I think this is a

terrific idea and I HOPE Congress and the States adopt it.

I have a personal reason to love the idea. My granddaughter graduates from HS this year and has already planned to attend a CC for her core classes and then transfer them to a four year college for the final two years. Her parents can't afford to pay for four years at a regular college and they nor she want her to end up with student loans higher than the cost of a house! It will be a big help to her (and her brother who graduates next year) as I'm sure it will be for millions of other students in the US.

[oldandhappy]

28. Ivy folk do not go to community college.

Ivy folk are not interested in trade jobs.
Ivy folk are mostly unaware of the people who will benefit from free community college opportunities.
The Ivies are a separate universe and I fear not for them.

[GeorgeGist]

29. Wrong again ...

How do you do it?

[seabeyond]

39. lmao. i know, laughing some more. i know. i am pondering what it really is about. nt

[SteveG]

31. They aren't for profit

Those three schools are non-profits. Here is a partial listing of for profit colleges and universities

[CK_John]

33. Thanks for that list. It shows what the mainline universities are up against.

I used the Ivy League schools just as an example, if the top tier are threated by the "for profits", just how will UM, MSU, Ohio State, etc survive.

[SteveG]

36. They'll survive

because they offer a superior product to the for profit schools, most of which are diploma mills, and are generally less expensive than the for profit schools and offer much higher quality programs.

[CK_John]

37. When just 1 of those for profits has 227,000 enrolled you have to be alarmed

by the numbers. They are also paying professors 2 to 3 times what the mainline are paying to mentor their online students.

In NY SUNY just announced and online college to fight the "for profits".

[irisblue]

67. U Of Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State University & so on

and all the big name state universities are Land Grant Universities, from Wikipedia..."The purpose of the land-grant colleges was:
without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactic, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life."....With a few exceptions (including Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), nearly all of the Land-Grant Colleges are public." Those universities are not going anywhere, ever. They operate from a federal law base, they are waaaayyyy too enmeshed in their local states, they will only close when that state does.
What is this about , really?

[tammywammy]

32. No. n/t

[seabeyond]

38. you put out the most outrageous statements ignoring so much of an issue, to arrive at an extreme.

[CK_John]

40. Your opinion, which I think is head in the sand thinking.

[seabeyond]

42. mmm hmm

[TBF]

43. Do you have any clue what

kind of an endowment Harvard has? It will be around a lot longer than any of us.

[DrDan]

45. with Harvard rejecting 96% of applicants, Yale and Princeton 93%, I doubt

they consider this proposal a threat.

To suggest they have less than a decade to exist is just silly.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

49. Not quite

IMO, Main line universities have less than a decade to exist unless for profits are wiped out.

The Ivies are private, not for profit entities, but nice try.

This proposal has at least two main objectives; first, put the for profit diploma mills out of business and second, to revive the study of the trades.

I'll agree with that, in part. However, the schools you're thinking of are not Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. You would be referring to schools like University of Phoenix, DeVry, and ITT Tech.

E.T.A.: this is a link to the financial aid of Brown University, a member off the Ivy League, and hence a very expensive and very prestigious school. A high percentage of students receive aid packages of over $40K per year with no expectation of repayment.

[CK_John]

51. Yes, as posted in the OP.

[Exultant Democracy]

53. The Ivies are picking up even more steam right now if anything.

Knowledge economics are using these institutions and the cities that host them as development hubs. Even without their absurd endowments these institutions have become major organs in every city that hosts them and with the way the knowledge economy is growing the feedback cycle between these Universities, major corporations and the municipalities and states in which they reside has long been self sufficient.

Even without their massive endowments and with no federal monies these institutions would be just fine.

[notadmblnd]

54. People who attend Yale, Harvard and Princeton are not paying for the education

They are paying for the label. No, they will never be put out of business.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

63. That's largely true.

Those schools can be as choosy as they want, and most of the students they admit have high GPAs and SAT scores, so (with the occasional exception of legacy admissions like George Bush the Dumber) those kids are generally pretty smart. However, you can probably get just as good an education at any number of state universities and less well-known private colleges (some of which are just about as expensive as Harvard). The difference is the label, as well as the connections with other elite types that can get you the plum job on Wall Street.

[tabasco]

57. George W. AWOL Bush, a high-functioning imbecile, has a degree from Yale

Many graduates of community college have learned much, much more than the Chimp from Yale.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

62. W was a legacy admission. All colleges are stuck with a few of those.

The loser offspring of big shot or big donor alumni will be admitted as long as they are not actually in prison. This is a situation the colleges accept in exchange for the cachet and/or donations from their important alumni.

[jeff47]

59. Um....no.

First and most superficial, none of the ivy league schools are for-profit. They're all non-profit.

Second, the ivy league schools are not threatened by free community college. Their student body is made of up an entirely different class of people who would never attend a community college. Too many tongues would wag at the next dinner party.

In addition, each of the schools you list has a massive endowment. Harvard has more than $30 billion. They could afford to charge $0 tuition for decades.

Free community college is a slight threat to for-profit 4-year schools. But a 2-year degree is not a 4-year degree. There are plenty of fields where an associates degree would not be considered enough.

Plus, for-profits are paid per student. It doesn't particularly matter if they're freshmen or juniors. So if a free 2-year with transfer becomes the norm, they'll accept 1/2 as many freshmen and twice as many juniors. Resulting in the same size student body and the same income.

OTOH, we need a lot more people working in the trades. Free community college would be an excellent way to help more people enter those fields.

[spyker29]

64. Free Communitty College wont even hurt for profits.

Even if Congress would pass it, no way they would leave out the for-profit schools.

[spanone]

65. no.

[WinkyDink]

66. Are you kidding? Harvard. e.g., has a $36-BILLION-dollar endowment!

Harvard University’s largest-in-the-country endowment saw returns of 15.4 percent in the last year, and now stands at $36.4 billion. That’s a lot of money.
http://www.boston.com/business/news/2014/09/25/harvard-endowment-bigger-than-half-the-world-economies/UAOY9V4lg6fcjArrSyCgWJ/story.html

[bigwillq]

69. Yale owes and runs New Haven.

I don't believe this. Yale will be just fine.

[jmowreader]

70. I think the four-year schools will be better off under a universal CC regime

If EVERYONE shows up at university with fourteen years of schooling under his or her belt, two things will happen: class sizes will be able to be increased without adding more dorm rooms or seats in the mess hall, and you can convince more people to go for their Master's degrees..."Joe, you were already going to pay for a four-year education here, why not get your MA and really set yourself apart from the crowd?"

[salin]

71. not to mention the decrease in the number of sections of remedial skills classes.

[salin]

72. Are you nuts?

For third and fourth tier colleges this could be a concern. However, for the top elite? Where the prestige and networks open doors for its students even before they are alum? For the HUGE endowments set aside for scholarships? Top students are going to forgo the prestige and opened doors to spend two years at a community college - in such droves that the top schools will close within ten years?

Be serious.

Your final point per a main challenge being current student debt - is salient and huge. Start an OP on that - and let's have a real conversation - rather than an absurd "thought provoker" (and it was weak on that) lead in to the main point. And if the main point was top tier - extremely wealthy institutions going out of commission in ten years - well then there isn't even a real conversation to be had around that.

[MFrohike]

73. What?

I like bullet points, so I'll use them.

1. The named schools are not in danger of going out of business. More's the pity, since their increasingly incompetent alums continue to dominate this country. If those schools were worth a damn, the world would be in better shape.

2. If the idea is to get rid of for-profit schools, it's an odd way to do it. Community colleges don't offer bachelor's degrees.

3. The trades are not in danger of extinction. The much-decried skills gap is a myth. The sector with the greatest need to fill positions is retail. If a degree is ever required for a retail job, that will be the final, unassailable sign that our society has incurably ossified and is in imminent danger of decline.*

4. I have no idea how you think universities are in any danger whatsoever. As long as the federal loan and corporate donation teats are flowing, they will be fine. It makes no sense to claim they're in danger when their primary funding sources are intact.

5. Student loan debt is simply not taken seriously by those in power because they haven't seen a tuition bill in decades, nor had to make payments while making squat. Anyone who hasn't seen one in the last ten years is completely unqualified to speak on the issue.

*Required means that a checklist item needs to be marked. It doesn't mean it's actually needed, it just means the employer decided to add another hurdle to the pool of job seekers. It's like the vast majority of degrees today that require, without needing, a degree of some sort.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

74. But this proposal is DOA

[FSogol]

75. They are all quaking in their boots because of competition from the University of Phoenix!

x 100

[DonCoquixote]

76. The Ivy League is in trouble

but for a different reason.

namely, thanks to folks like W., people realize that these places do NOT produce the smart people anymore. They are more a social function where Biff and Buffy can hook up with Brad and Tiffany to maximize the social connections they had, or in the case of minorties, where Carlos or Jing-Wei or Sadaf can cash in their years being the best test taker to sell themselve to Brad and Tiffany, in the hopes of getting that tech job in San Francisco and that apartment with the high rent. People realize that the Ivies have charge people arms and legs, and for WHAT? A love of learning?, please.

The only thing floating the Ivies is that a lot of foriegn people go there to get that cred that will enable them to get hired in the "Global economy", but one the shareholders of the world realzie that they can outsource CEO's as well, then an American education will not have the Imperial value it does. Indeed, wait until American students start to realize they might get a better education in Europe or Asia, and one that will help them get a job, because they learned to speak Chinese or Urdu or even Russian.

[lumberjack_jeff]

77. Harvard had 30 billion dollars in their endowment.

No... not fighting for their survival.

[BainsBane]

79. Those schools have enormous endowments

and benefit from financial support from the nation's wealthiest Americans. They most certainly are not fighting for survival. State universities, however, are in a constant struggle with legislatures for adequate funding.