Kids Paying Real Money to Attend Fake Colleges
"Math," one of the subjects Americans do not learn in high school, tells us that the value of a college degree is now negative. Nevertheless, kids are now rushing to pay more to attend colleges. Fake colleges.
Schools like the University of Phoenix or Devry University are technically known as "for-profit colleges," but let's be more accurate and call them "Fake colleges that prey on the hopes and dreams of math-unsavvy youngsters, using subway advertisements." Since community colleges are now too hard to get into, the 97% of American teenagers who want to go to college because they can't even get a Taco Bell job these days are turning to these "for-profit" institutions, which, by the way, charge a shitload of money. The Washington Post reports that new federal regulations are on the way, because the government took a look and they were like, whoa, we owe how much, to schools located on the internet/ in an office park?
Federal aid to for-profit colleges jumped to $26.5 billion in 2009, from $4.6 billion in 2000. Two-thirds of for-profit students receive federal Pell grants, which target low-income students and don't have to be repaid. Even so, more than half of bachelor-degree recipients in 2007 at for-profit schools fell into a "high debt" range of at least $30,000 in loans, a recent College Board study found.
Kids, here is free advice with incalculable value: go to a college that has an actual campus, where you can get out of your god damn parents' house and go hang out with other kids for four years and maybe even meet a nice gal or guy, naked, while intoxicated. Doing this costs the same as going to the "University of Phoenix," and is equally worthless but much more fun.
