Scholars Explore Whether For-Profit Universities Improve Access
In the United States and Mexico, private, for-profit institutions clearly seem to possess an appeal for a growing number of underserved individuals, particularly women, minorities and older students.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Why for-profit schools seem to be more appealing to minority students over public and private non-profit institutions has many variables. First, for-profits have done an incredible job of reaching there target audience. Secondly, many minorities are first generation and are the products of an inferior public educational system that has not equipped them to do college level work. The for-profit provides them with the one on one attention they would not get at a large public or private institution. Finally, and probably the most important variable, there are other students that look like them on campus. It is unreasonable to believe a student who probably recognizes that school is challenging for them, does not want to face the embarrasement of going to a predominately white institution knowing they may not academically measure up to the other students, whether this is real or imagined.
That said, I think many for-profits, particularly those that are colleges, have to do a better job of providing the academic resources to bring there target audience up to academic standards in writing skills and reading comprehension. To market to a largely minority and older population and not offer the remedial coursework to bring these basic skills up to standard gives an appearance of exploitation to the highest degree. While in reality this may not be the case, the appearance to those who oppose for-profit education is one of exploitation and blatant racism.