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Comment by ThrowItAway2Day | Hacker News Reader

There's a reason that the majority of student loan debt in the US is from for profit colleges [1].

They are predatory, ill-regulated, and unstable. ITT Tech, WGU, and those all algorithmicly target audiences that are likely to get approved for Federal student loans: veterans, single-mothers, first-in-family to go to college. They get them approved for these loans and the funds go directly to the school whether they graduate or not. There's a very interesting chapter on this in the book "Weapons of Math Destruction." Don't believe their non-sense ads about being the future of education, the incentives just don't align. Go to local community or state public schools if private is not affordable. Either way, both public and private are not-for-profit.

[1] https://phys.org/news/2019-06-for-profit-america-student-deb...

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Nothing in your cited article provides proof for the claim that majority of student loan debt is from for-profit colleges. Is this even true? 1.5 trillion of student loan debt, and the bulk comes from University of Phoenix and the like?

Doesn't seem plausible, especially after your linked article claims that University of Phoenix spent 400,000 a day on Google in 2012. Their source? A Reuters article that used SpyFu as its source.

This rabbit hole is insane -- is there any true information out there any more?

Here's some real statistics, and there is a relatively small difference between public colleges and private for-profit ones.

80.3% of public college students received aid in 2016-2017, with an average loan amount of $6584.

85.2% of private for-profit college students received aid in 2016-2017, with an average loan amount of $8048.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_331.20.a...

WGU is nonprofit. I also can't find anything suggesting they are predatory, ill-regulated, or unstable. I also can't find anything suggesting that their students have high debt levels.

Also, unlike ITT Tech and similar schools, WGU is regionally accredited. ITT Tech and the like, if accredited, are usually nationally accredited. That can be confusing, because in most fields national accreditation would be the best, but for colleges the regional accreditation is the one that counts. Check the accreditation of nearly any top school (UC, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Caltech, and so on) and it is regional, not national.

A couple years ago, the US Department of Education's Federal Student Aid office did ask WGU to repay a bunch of loans, ruling that WGU's distance learning did not meet interaction requirements between faculty and students to be eligible. That was later reversed, with the government concluding that the rules at the time were unclear in regard to distance learning in WGU has been trying to follow them in good faith. The government clarified the rules, and determined that WGU did in fact meet them, and the loans stood.

I don't see how you can put them in the same category as ITT Tech.

Yeah, I apologize for WGU, meant GCU though they changed last year.

WGU is a regionally accredited non-for-profit institution. I am first in my family to attend and complete college. Started in a state university in 95, and dropped out due to costs then and the ability to start earning in the IT field.

WGU offered me the ability to complete my degree and it was not easy, it was however affordable and accredited. I get you have beef with the current system, I think we all do. Speaking for myself, it worked well.

My apologies on WGU, I meant Grand Canyon University. Though, GCU apparently transitioned to non-profit last year. Wonder how transitioning actually changes things.

A few things to clarify here:

1. The degree is granted by a non-profit institution, Dominican University. The for-profit Public Benefit Corporation Make School, is currently providing services to the non-profit institution to run the program. It's also regionally accredited by WASC (far stricter guidelines) rather than nationally accredited like typical for-profits.

2. In contrast to typical for-profits, our students are predominantly 18-25 years old. They are choosing between Make School and traditional universities.

3. In contrast to typical for-profits, our incentives are directly aligned with students. As you state, existing for-profits targeted students to get approved for federal student loans. Our students don't take federal student loans, and they don't pay tuition unless they make >$60k per year. Their tuition is also scaled with their salary.

It's reasonable to discuss the merits of this vs state schools vs non-profit private colleges. It's hard to claim it's a scam when you're completely protected on the downside.

What's the maximum tuition? Your website claims 20% gross income for 5 years, so if a new grad is making $195k/yr like you claim on the site, the full amount owed will be almost $200k or does this income garnishment end after a certain amount.

There's a 2.5x cap, so max is $175k.

Our site should say $95k average not $195k, which page are you seeing $195k?

Ah, the page that says $190k refers to 2 years worth of income, not $190k/yr. We're fixing that now!

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