I am biased against for-profit schools. I have long thought of them as diploma mills, without ever having visited one. I like public charter schools, but only if they are nonprofit. When Kaplan, then the most profitable division of The Washington Post Co., built a chain of for-profit colleges, I never wrote about them, says Jay Mathews for the Washington Post. Teachers I admired saw education as a public trust. They weren’t in it for the money. They wanted to help kids. I noticed that Edison Schools, a management network run by some smart and well-meaning people, failed to win the confidence of many parents and teachers because it, too, was trying to make a profit. Now those of us who think this way have been vindicated. The federal government has tightened regulation of for-profit colleges, including Kaplan’s, in response to criticism that many students were being misled about loans they were likely to need to obtain a degree. This has put the entire industry on the defensive…
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Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.
Community college placement falters
The U.S. community college course-placement system is a mess. That includes the many well-regarded two-year colleges in the Washington area, says Jay Mathews, columnist for the Washington Post. For many people, Harvard is a more intriguing subject than Howard Community College. But keep in mind that at this moment, nearly half of all U.S. undergraduates are attending community colleges. The fact that millions of those students are having trouble getting the courses they want is worthy of attention…
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