Howard Tullman, President of for-profit college, calls for realism in education
Call me crazy, but I thought making a profit was one of the
most important things a business should do.
But when you have a perfect storm of a continued bad
economy, collapsing employment opportunities for millions of people (especially
new college grads) and a do-nothing Congress stuck in an election year, people
need to find someone to blame.
For the last couple of years, the easiest whipping boys
(even though they represent only a tiny fraction of overall college enrollments)
have been for-profit education companies.
Of course, some of these guys are to quality education what
the Olive Garden is to Italian cuisine.
But, there are people doing for-profit education really
right. I think our small (but growing) college is a perfect example: Tribeca
Flashpoint Academy is a for-profit, digital media arts college where — in an
intense, hands-on, cross-disciplinary two-year program — we’re training hundreds
of passionate and talented creative kids to get ready for real jobs in the
rapidly expanding digital economy. And, frankly, we don’t think our work ends
until their jobs begin.
I’m tired of all of the “for-profits” getting painted with
the same brush. I don’t want to see the baby (and the right-time, right-place
idea of high-end, high-tech vocational training) tossed out with the
bathwater.
If we’re going to hold for-profit colleges accountable for
real education value and real employment prospects, then we should be demanding
the exact same standards and results from the 90 percent of the college
marketplace represented by the non-profit schools. Many of those are doing a
horrible job of equipping our graduates with the skills, work ethic and training
they need today to succeed tomorrow and in the future.
I think we’re finally over the fantasy that everyone in
America should (or can afford to) own a home. And, in the same way, it’s pretty
clear now — as the rest of the world has known for decades — that not every high
school graduate should (or needs to or can afford to) go to an expensive
four-year college.
Borrowing tens of thousands of dollars each year from Uncle
Sam to finance an “education” with no real connection to or commitment to real
employment is an especially nasty way that we’ve let millions of
well-intentioned kids and their families mortgage their futures and hitch their
wagons to a false dream of future success.
There are plenty of faster, less expensive and more
productive ways to prepare our graduates for today’s highly competitive global
economy.
Howard Tullman donated his fee for
writing this column to PAWS Chicago.
Copyright © 2012 — Sun-Times Media, LLC