Online learning advocates have worried for years that the legal and ethical problems surrounding for-profit online colleges would be conflated with more traditional nonprofit university online course offerings.
A popular parody mocking for-profit schools and their web-based education might not help that cause.
A viral video that recently appeared on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim in the wee morning hours, created by a group of former writers from The Onion, takes aim at for-profit colleges for well-documented exploitative tactics that have drawn the ire of former students, professors, lawmakers, and attorneys general alike.
The parody advertisement for “For-Profit Online University” spends much of its 11 minutes poking fun at students who finish online classes in minutes — or even seconds — on their way to a degree.
The mock university, which deems its students “educustomers,” is said to have innovated the college experience by getting rid of buildings, full-time employees, and degree accreditation.
The video charges that For-Profit Online University has “stripped away” the trappings of traditional education and replaced it with “an efficient web 4.0 structure based on you.”
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