At institutions that train students for careers in areas like health care, computers and food service, enrollments are soaring as people anxious about weak job prospects borrow aggressively to pay tuition that can exceed $30,000 a year.

But the profits have come at substantial taxpayer expense while often delivering dubious benefits to students, according to academics and advocates for greater oversight of financial aid. Critics say many schools exaggerate the value of their degree programs, selling young people on dreams of middle-class wages while setting them up for default on untenable debts, low-wage work and a struggle to avoid poverty. And the schools are harvesting growing federal student aid dollars, including Pell grants awarded to low-income students.

“If these programs keep growing, you’re going to wind up with more and more students who are graduating and can’t find meaningful employment,” said Rafael I. Pardo, a professor at Seattle University School of Law and an expert on educational finance. “They can’t generate income needed to pay back their loans, and they’re going to end up in financial distress.”

via The New Poor – For-Profit Schools Cashing In on Recession and Federal Aid – NYTimes.com.

I went to a two-year private business school and I’m still in debt. I have an Associate’s Degree in Multimedia Development and Management. I went to school at night while I worked in the retail and retail banking wage slave industries in the daytime.

When I finished school in 2002 I was one of the people who thought, finally I could leave the bank I was working at and do something more in line with what I wanted to do. It turns out I did not get anywhere for two more years. I was stuck working as a bank teller. I would apply for jobs all the time but you could not get anywhere. People have forgotten that the economy then was similar to what it is now. Sure the housing bubble had not burst yet, but there were many people hurting, especially in New York. I do feel the aftermath of 9/11 had something to do with the economy then, but it wasn’t the only thing wrong with the economy.

Eventually, I took back up something that had really interested me in high school and that was politics and government. I became a local activist and volunteer in my off time from my job. Eventually I got sick of sales and banking and corporations and I did something that only a 25 year old still living with a parent in 2004 could do — I quit. I had some money saved that would probably last me a few months and I was going to make sure that I did something I wanted to do from now on.

I was lucky to hop on to a couple of local political campaigns as a paid staffer and do some field work. In 2005 I searched for opportunities and did some part time work. Then in 2006 I went to a training in DC for young political people who they were going to teach online organizing. Since I had the tech background from my Associate’s Degree and I had a little political experience this was a welcome turn of events.

Through the connections I made there in 2006 I am where I want to be today. The funny thing is I’m now applying what I learned in school but to help a good cause in the non-profit world. If I had tried to get into the web design/graphic design world on my own I would have probably still been stuck. It was through becoming an activist that I was able to get where I am now working in DC.

In the end the business school I went to still has my diploma and transcript because I owe them money. For the first time ever I’ve started to save money and hopefully I will be able to pay them off. Then with my transcript and diploma in hand I will be in a better position to see what educational opportunities are out there for me. I’d like to take up something in the public policy area.

I could seek scholarships and/or financial aid. I really don’t think highly of student loans anymore. The only good thing about the federal loan I have is that you can pay as little as $50 a month and it can go back into deferment if you go back to school (at least I think it’s still that way). In any case I’d much rather have a federal loan than a private loan.

This article in the NY Times is very informative. It is true that there are now tons of private schools selling themselves as the solution to putting people to work in a trade or etc. They cost way too much to attend and it is the low-income to moderate income people that suffer. In a way it is privatization at its worst. We should be investing more in our community colleges and state universities. We cannot forget that they too can be expensive for people.