University of Phoenix is a joke. I work in college recruiting at a tech company and I regularly interview students from University of Phoenix and the vast majority of them are woefully unprepared to enter the job market. They really don't have a chance against their counterparts who attended 4-year programs. It's absolutely insane that these students are taking out loans that are on par with top tier private universities.

THANK GOD! It's about time someone shut these SOBs down.

Having been through the mom and pop trade college some years ago, I can say that I'm suprised they're saying only 90% of their students use Federal money.
That's all they're about is the money.
What you are paying for is a two to four year degree that will not be recognized anywhere by anyone.
These schools aren't accredited and credits earned there don't transfer to other schools.

Fuck the University of Phoenix!

I worked at one of those for-profit career schools for a short time after I graduated from college. It was a medical careers school, and I did financial aid.

The lies the admissions reps told the people who came through their doors were amazing. They were telling people in the medical assistant programs that they'd be making 50-60K a year after they graduated. The told the students in the optician program that within 5 years of graduation they'd be making six figures.

About 85% of the people they enrolled were single mothers receiving public assistance (this was in the early days of welfare-to-work programs). They didn't file tax returns, so we made up the information on the FAFSA. They got full pell grants, full state grants, and typically had to borrow the maximum amount they could - both subsidized and unsubsidized.

In 1994, the admission counselors (salespeople, really) made $50K a year in base salary, and got crazy commissions. I made $6.50 an hour, and the commissions we got in financial aid were miniscule. I left as soon as I found another job, even though it meant working night shift. Ethically, I couldn't be a part of lying to these women, knowing that they wouldn't make as much as they were promised, they wouldn't be able to pay back their loans, and they would just end up back on public assistance because they would be better off.

Amen. For several years I taught at a private tech college similar to Phoenix except it only offered 2 year degrees. Many of the students were unmotivated & to ensure the money kept rolling in we were required to call students who were absent & essentially beg them to come back. We had to submit weekly forms detailing our efforts to contact absent students. Id have students miss half the quarter & then administration would "encourage" me to work with the student & get them caught up. What boss is going to do all that? No show, no call, no job.

I had to threaten to walkout in the middle of a quarter before an administrator agreed to drop a student from my class. This student was highly disruptive & often referred to me as Professor Faggot & once said that faggots deserved to die. As a part time instructor who needs that bullshit? But, administration didn't want to risk losing the student by kicking him out of my class. So I finally didn't show up one night & told them I wasn't coming back until that student was dropped. They finally dropped him.

After three years of being encouraged to pass students who were failing, I quit. I didn't need the job. I enjoyed helping students who were motivated & wanted to learn. But they were simply outnumbered by students who didn't belong there.

The University of Phoenix built their business on a tsunami of spam, trillions of pieces of it. That motherfucker shouldn't just be shut down, he should be drawn and quartered.

They max out the Pell Grant program and they make students max out the Stafford Loan availability...and students still owe most of these for-profit diploma mills a lot of dough. Classic example are the food services schools that are $35,000/yr. graduating unsuspecting students into $8/hr. jobs (if they can find one). All the while telling them that they'll all be $50K a year sous chefs when they graduate and really, all that's guaranteed is crippling debt. So glad the whistle is being blown.

More on this from Frontline here:

http://video.pbs.org/video/1485280975/

I was wondering what those whiny it's-my-money-I-should-be-able-to-spend-it-at-the-school-i-want TV ads were about.

U of P is, as far as I can tell, a truly dreadful school. I am good friends with one of their "MBA" graduates, and he cannot compose a simple sentence, let alone a paragraph. The only thing he seems to have gotten from it is the same about of knowledge of excel that I have, which I got from being a secretary.

This may be an aberration, but I had a friend who graduated from Phoenix U. about five years ago with an MBA in Accounting/Finance and it actually worked out pretty well for her. Of course, it probably didn't hurt that she'd been doing this kind of work for roughly 20 years, had an excellent resume, and work experience up the wazzu. I don't believe she even had to take out any crazy loans either. She almost immediately landed a fairly lucrative job as Controller for a major local non-profit. And even though that particular job eventually didn't work out, it certainly wasn't because of anything having to do with her degree or where it came from.

She may be a very rare exception, but just so people know not everyone has had a negative experience with Phoenix U.

All you need to see on the subject:

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/v…

This places are really helping to balloon the student loan debt bubble. A bubble that supposedly can never burst because federal student loans are immune from any bankruptcy alterations. But fear not, I'm confident with the amount of economic idiocy in DC they'll find a way to make this bubble burst too.

There was a good Frontline episode on these schools and their recruiting practices a while back if anyone's in the mood for an evening of outrage/sadness.

I don't have a problem if they wish to exist and take money from suckers (sadly, defined here as the desperate), but the federal government, or any institution more reputable than say, Money Tree, should not be loaning people money to attend these schools any more than the federal government should be paying me to play Tetris all day (fingers crossed!).

What the hell is wrong with going to the local Voc Tech people, or taking classes online from a community college?

@13,

I don't understand how it's possible to get a Pell Grant (or any federal funds) for a non-accredited school. It's like getting insurance to pay for treatment by an unlicensed physician.

@13, whats "wrong" with going to the local Vov Tech for many people is the schedule, which often conflicts with the ability to work, which most people unfortunately have to do to keep roofs over their head, even while going to school. I think the appearance of flexability around existing life commitments is what appeals to people about these schools. I can't comment on community colleges online programs, and if it is possible for someone to get an actual degree entirely from online classes.

Good! Fuck them. I used to, sadly, work for another for profit school, ITT TECH (don't ever let anyone you like go there) and was appalled by the shit they pulled. It was a total ripoff. I was in financial aid and they brought in so many people who had no chance of passing a class (including more than one person who didn't know English AT ALL) but would count for their bonus's. About a half of their scumbag sales staff (sorry, recruitment professionals) went to school at the University of Phoenix. Not surprising. They should make these shit holes illegal.

For what it's worth: the University of Phoenix is accredited, (by the NCA) but that doesn't mean they're well regarded by employers or other schools. They also are not accredited in some of their specialty schools by some of more recognized Associations - such as their business school not being accredited by the AACSB.

Also FWIW, several culinary "academies" follow the same business model: recruit unsuitable people, get their federally subsidized student loans, teach them squat. Crosscut just reran a story I did on this subject last August: http://crosscut.com/2010/12/29/education…

@8: I second your recommendation. Infuriating, but sadly not surprising stuff to anyone that's attended a for-profit school (like me). The lobbyist in the movie is such a lying weasel. Every method of recruitment that he vehemently denies as being standard was used on me and everyone I met who attended my school.

Good for our government. It's about time taxpayers stopped letting businesses rip off taxpayers with their own tax dollars and equally so with education. The taxpayers are the government. Taxpayers should not be filling businesses pockets and receiving inadequate goods in return.