I've just published a new 100-page e-book, Stealing America's Future: How For-Profit Colleges Scam Taxpayers and Ruin Students' Lives .
. (You can find it on Amazon . )I hope you'll read it, because it is a critical moment for Americans to examine and speak out on the issue of for-profit colleges, the trade schools that bombard us with advertising promising students a better future through careers in fields like medical assisting, auto repair, and information technology.
Some of these schools do a good job training students for careers. But many of them, through a toxic mix of high prices and low-quality programs, systematically wreck the financial futures of many students. Students like Massachusetts's Mike DiGiacomo, an Army veteran who was misled into enrolling by two for-profit colleges in a row and now is unemployed and more than $80,000 in debt; California's Amber Morgan, who was promised by her for-profit college recruiter a fast track into the fashion industry but ended up back at her old retail job at Macy's and starting over at community college; and Missouri's Jennifer Kerr, a single mother whose school (with investors including Mitt Romney) told her she would be on her way to a nursing career but instead left her with heavy student loans and worthless credits.
Predatory for-profit colleges use deceptive and coercive tactics to pressure students into signing up. More than half of for-profit college students drop out within about four months. Although the for-profits promise that their programs are affordable, the real costof some schools can be nearly double that of Harvard. And graduates often struggle to find jobs beyond shifts at Office Depot. The U.S. Department of Education just reported that 72 percent of the for-profit college programs it analyzed produced graduates who on average earned less than high school dropouts . As a result, today, 13 percent of all college students attend for-profit colleges, on campuses and online -- but these institutions account for 47 percent of student loan defaults.