
False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm - jseliger
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-07/for-profit-colleges-aren-t-the-only-ones-with-false-advertising
======
topkai22
The real problem with higher education is really how we finance it. Give the
lenders the ability to discriminate based on major and borrowers the ability
to default easier and all of a sudden you’ve got some banks seriously
motivated to ensure students get economic return on their investments.

Besides, it just shouldn’t take a decade or more for someone to discharge a
bad debt. Student debt seems uniquely oppressive within the American system,
and it really needs to look more like other forms of personal debt.

~~~
jedberg
That's how you get nothing but science and engineering majors, because most
other majors don't have the ROI on average. But society is probably better off
with some history and art majors too.

We need to find a way to finance education that isn't based on future income.

~~~
cm2012
Studying things that don't make money has always been the privilege of the
wealthy. Just because college was once only for the elite doesn't mean those
same tedious sayings apply to our current world.

~~~
jimhefferon
But when I went to college, in the 70's and 80's, people did exactly that. I
studies math but lots of folks studied History. You didn't have to be wealthy.

What changed? Or was that time an aberration?

~~~
cm2012
1) Vastly more people enroll in college now, per capita. It used to be a
powerful signal, since only the most intelligent and driven people would go.
Now it is just the minimum you need.

2) Cost of college has skyrocketed, and public funding for colleges has
plummetted.

------
jwally
The U.S. would do itself a huge favour by allowing student debt to be
bankruptable. College prices can rise infinitely because there is an unlimited
supply of AAA+ debt to feed it. Drop that rating to reality and investors
don't buy the debt, loans don't get originated, demand for college at $250k
dries up.

~~~
bedhead
Who is going to lend tens of thousands of dollars to an 18 year old with no
income, no assets, and no credit?

~~~
Goronmon
_Who is going to lend tens of thousands of dollars to an 18 year old with no
income, no assets, and no credit?_

So, just to be clear _18 year olds getting tens of thousands in dischargeable
loans_ is ridiculous, but _18 year olds getting tens of thousands in non-
dischargeable loans_ makes total sense?

I mean, I understand why if you are a person making money off student loans,
the latter is a great situation to have. But for anyone else, I'm not sure I
agree that it's something we should fight for.

~~~
RestlessMind
> I mean, I understand why if you are a person making money off student loans,
> the latter is a great situation to have. But for anyone else, I'm not sure I
> agree that it's something we should fight for.

But when a student needs a loan to pay for their education, the person lending
money is more important than everyone else. If you are not going to
incentivize lending money for college debt and instead going to add risks (of
not getting paid back because discharging loans is now easy), then you will
have less loans in the first place.

~~~
dragonwriter
> But when a student needs a loan to pay for their education

When a student needs money to pay for their education, why are we extending
loans rather than need-based grants?

------
martin_bech
I find it funny that these numbers are not available. In our free education
system (Denmark), almost all of this data is freely available, also as the
government, want students to make an informed choice. So most schools its easy
to get graduation rate, salary estimates and even how many from the last class
are employed, and how many in relevant fields.

~~~
jimhefferon
I work at a college and we are required by the federal government to report
all kinds of numbers. I know grad rate is among them, and I am 99% sure it is
broken down by major. Those reports are public.

~~~
jononor
Where can I find them? Interested in mining the data

~~~
capnrefsmmat
The Department of Education College Scorecard has a great deal of data which
they make openly available:
[https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/data/](https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/data/)

------
CM30
Eh, even most normal colleges are pretty honest in their ads compared to game
design ones:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAFLfx3mvIg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAFLfx3mvIg)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRWvfMLl4ho](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRWvfMLl4ho)

But seriously, the fact of the matter is:

1\. Too many people go to college, so its original value (as a status
indicator) is now virtually non existent

2\. It's too expensive, so unless a good job is a near guaranteed outcome,
people will laden with debt after going.

3\. Most people and most jobs don't need college, and the push to send
everyone to college has led to rampant degree inflation in terms of academic
requirements.

The only solution to fix that would be to somehow get employers to stop caring
about degrees, to make it less 'necessary' for many people, and to encourage
less people to attend for the career 'boost'.

~~~
WorkLifeBalance
> "Too many people go to college"

This is complete claptrap, would you also say "Too many people go to secondary
school"? How about "Too many people go to elementary"?

There is vast value in an educated workforce and "too many" is a nonsense
reason for why university level education shouldn't be available for all.

~~~
kazagistar
The second part of the statement clarified intent. It's not a moral judgement,
it's conditional failure to fulfill the purpose of differentiation.

If education was the main motivation for college rather then trying to prove
to employers you are a more competitive employee then your peers, I feel the
system would look a lot different and not have nearly the same balooning cost
problem.

------
rahimnathwani
It would be interesting for someone to perform such a study in the UK, which
already has a near-perfect and near-complete data set of which schools made an
offer to each student.

You wouldn't even need any data from the universities themselves:

\- UCAS has the data for university offers and admissions (including subject
studied)

\- HMRC (UK equivalent of IRS) knows whether you were employed and how much
you earned

If they were somehow allowed to join their data and then release a data set
stripped of PII, which includes offers, acceptances and income over time, that
would be super-useful for those who see choosing a university as primarily or
partially a way to increase their future income.

~~~
vostok
I think this would be an extremely interesting data set, but the obvious and
simple analysis would not address the key problem that I see as mentioned in
the article.

> On job placement, the biggest deception by prestigious colleges and
> universities is to claim credit for the brainpower and work habits that
> students already had when they arrived.

I see this all the time in my workplace. Many of my colleagues went to
prestigious universities, but I am fairly certain that many of them would have
gotten similar jobs even if they had not. There is evidence backing this up in
that we gladly interview and hire candidates with similar pre-university
experience who did not later go to prestigious universities.

It just so happens that prestigious universities admit students with such pre-
university experience at fairly high rates.

My personal opinion is that the pre-university experience that I have in mind
is a stronger and better signal than the university that they attend.

~~~
rahimnathwani
The data from UCAS would help distinguish between:

\- Someone who accepted a place at Oxford

\- Someone who was offered a place at Oxford, but went to Durham instead

It should also help distinguish those two from:

\- Someone admitted to Oxford who decided not to go to university at all

However (and perhaps this is the problem you have in mind) the data set for
this last category is likely to be very very small.

So perhaps the data can help to compare universities, but not whether going to
university at all helps.

------
RobertRoberts
I taught college for about a dozen years (part time on the side), and may get
dragged back into again soon.

I can say emphatically, the quality of the schooling only helps people who
would succeed anyways. Those that won't or can't, no school can help them.
There are just too many lazy, unmotivated or simple defeatist students out
there. To not be too harsh, there are many students over their head in life
(debts, relationship or mental issues, etc...), also which a school can do
little to help with.

Nothing proved this to me more than seeing half the class not turn in the
easiest assignments.

~~~
hmwhy
> Those that won't or can't, no school can help them.

Isn't that the complete opposite to what teaching is about?

Have you considered that maybe this isn't a problem with the students but a
problem with society and the very problem with the education institutions and
teachers like you that are just basically feeding on them?

It's far easier (and economically viable in a shortsighted way) to blame
students for their shortcomings than to make the effort to help them. I hope
you are not thinking that you're doing society a favour by failing them
instead of making the effort to figure out what their strengths are and/or if
the way your teach, or what your employer preaches, may actually terrible.

Maybe you shouldn't go back to teaching the next time you get "dragged back
into" it.

~~~
ppseafield
I don't agree 100% with the OP, but there are some students that are indeed
just net negatives on the class and in general.

My state used to pay 100% of your state college tuition if you maintained a
3.0 GPA. A lot of students in my freshman dorm stayed until the 30 hour re-
evaluation period and then disappeared forever. They partied, never went to
class, never studied, and withdrew from most of their classes. They'd
regularly fall asleep in or oversleep for 11:00 classes.

As a teacher, how do you handle these students? Many of them have not been
raised to be on their own, and college is the first time they're let "off the
leash". They're unprepared to be independent adults.

Additionally some students fail the same class over and over, then keep
retaking the class with no improvement. They keep asking the same questions,
slow down the class, and make it more difficult for everyone else to learn.

As a teacher how do you handle these students? Maybe you've already failed
them twice. Maybe you've had extensive study groups, office hours, extra
credit materials for these people, but they continue to do poorly. Some of
them you suspect have learning disabilities or other mental problems that may
always interfere with their ability to take your class.

(Later the state college system changed it to 80% tuition for 3.5 GPA, and at
least my college mandated a maximum of 5 withdrawls, which cut down on the
problem some.)

~~~
stealthmodeclan
> As a teacher, how do you handle these students?

Many people don't believe in working hard today for having a better life
tomorrow.

They think they might as well get stuck by lightening and die. Should we blame
them for this kind of thinking?

This why the idea of a weflare state seems to saddle the ones who work with
more work at the expense of those who are not willing to do anything.

Today, the ones who get most benefit from the social system act indifferent to
the soceity's need and refuse to contribute.

Maybe best system is one where everyone is left to fend for themselves and
receive no help from government or society?

~~~
ppseafield
> Today, the ones who get most benefit from the social system act indifferent
> to the soceity need and refuse to contribute.

Look at the Panama Papers and all of the off shore banks, the Double Irish
with a Dutch Sandwich, etc. As a percentage of income per individual, these
are the the folks that benefit the most and contribute the least to society by
several orders of magnitude. Subsidies, bailouts, elaborate tax evasion
schemes, government guaranteed student loans. This is the real "welfare
state". People on food stamps don't even scratch the surface in comparison.

~~~
stealthmodeclan
> these are the the folks that benefit the most and contribute the least to
> society by several orders of magnitude

Let's not assume there are only 2 groups, one rich/evil and other
poor/victims.

There are also rich who contribute positively to the soceity at large.

I've no problem with with poor people who contribute their share.

There are also poor people who negatively contribute to the soceity.

Money is not the only way people contribute. Social
interactions/behaviour/attitude also matter.

Are rich people shitting on BART escalator?

~~~
ppseafield
I absolutely did not classify all rich people. I specifically called out the
extra wealthy that go out of their way to avoid taxes via loopholes or
accounting tricks. Do you think Apple's billions of dollars in avoided tax is
the same as someone shitting on the BART escalator? Do you think it's the same
as McDonald's Corp not paying a living wage and as a result its employees
being poor enough to need food stamps? (Which means tax payers are effectively
subsiding McDonald's.)

~~~
jessaustin
It sounds like you're drawing the "extra wealthy" line at "can afford to spend
$300 with a CPA"? Nobody wants to pay more taxes than they have to pay.

~~~
ppseafield
Of course nobody wants to pay more taxes then they have to pay. I'm not
talking about paying extra taxes because you're nice. I'm saying per
individual, those that actively avoid taxes by "technically being an Irish
company which is actually a shell company and a bank in the Cayman Islands",
those people that make immense amounts of money and pay next to no tax on it,
per individual they contribute the least to our society. And they use their
immense wealth to keep the system that way. And they rarely suffer any
meaningful consequences for any of their actions.

Just because a CPA can do it for $300 doesn't change that.

------
cptskippy
It's odd that no one has addressed the issues of the rising cost of higher
education. Once upon a time you could work a full-time job during the summer
and part-time during the school year to pay for your education and graduate
debt free. This wasn't that long ago either, I paid for my college education
in the late 90s in cash I earned.

~~~
pmiller2
If you paid for school yourself with money earned through employment in the
late 90s, my guess is you either majored in STEM, had a lot of AP or other
credits going in, or did your first 2 years at a community college (or,
possibly more than one of these). I’d also wager you went to an in-state
public school. Am I right? If so, that probably makes you the exception rather
than the rule.

~~~
cptskippy
I attended an in-state public university and paid the full in-state tuition
from 1998-2001. I worked a retail position at an office supply store for 2
years before taking a help desk position at a small company. With both jobs I
worked part-time during fall and spring semesters and full-time during the
summer to pay for tuition.

> If so, that probably makes you the exception rather than the rule.

So you're saying the majority of people seeking higher education are going out
of state or to private schools?

Enrollment in public/state colleges and universities outpaces private schools
three to one.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-
enroll...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enrollment-
and-projections-in-public-and-private-institutions/)
[https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cha.asp](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cha.asp)

------
sigfubar
I think that most people shouldn't aspire to go to college. They should learn
a trade instead in order to become a plumber, carpenter, electrician, or car
mechanic. There are lots of occupations that don't require a college degree,
yet provide a solid paycheck without the crushing mass of student debt accrued
in the pursuit of a useless degree.

Michael Bloomberg himself said it best:
[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/19/pipe-dream-
skip-c...](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/19/pipe-dream-skip-college-
become-plumber-nyc-mayor-bloomberg-says.html) I'm personally surprised that
this isn't conventional wisdom already.

~~~
lsiebert
That implies that college is only important for skill transfer towards an
occupation. Historically, part of college was to help an individual grow
personally and intellectually, to learn not just what to think, but how to
think clearly, in order to better engage with civil society as an active
participant.

It's always a little off-putting when I see people suggest that higher
education is just for a job, and discount the importance of the above.
Education that teaches you how to work but not how to think is part of how you
get people believing things like vaccines are bad.

Trade schools are awesome, not arguing that, but so is critical thinking.

~~~
toomanybeersies
The viewpoint that college is a place for vocational education seems to be a
very common viewpoint here on HN, a similar viewpoint seems to be that it's
normal and easy to pack your life up and relocate so XYZ city because cost of
living is low and wages are high, or some other reason. I guess being a tech-
centred community this is to be expected.

I don't know about others, but for me university was an important experience
as a place where I could grow as a person. It's a time where you get a few
years to figure it all out before you spend the next 45 years working. Even if
I could've done a 1 year course and then jumped straight into working full
time, I wouldn't want to do that, and I don't think people should necessarily
do that. There's more to life than getting a good qualification and getting a
job that pays well.

I earn more than practically everybody in my friend group, yet I'm no happier
than they are. I'm not more fulfilled in my life because I have a piece of
paper that says I'm good with computers.

~~~
sadamznintern
The idea that college is a place to find yourself is mostly a statement of
immense privilege. I grew up upper middle class (professional parents with
masters) and I didn’t spend a moment in college finding myself, I spent most
of it working or networking or sleeping. My folks paid for my CS degree from a
state school, but even looking at the opportunity cost I’m not sure if anybody
but the already wealthy or those at elite institutions can use 4 years to do
anything but try to make $180k out of college - and despite all my efforts I
failed at that.

> no happier

The other side isn’t better. I make less than most of my friends and they, by
virtue of independent wealth or higher income or elite status, are
significantly happier than me.

~~~
projektir
Something is wrong with your analysis. Lots of below upper middle class folks
report "finding themselves" in college, and most people don't earn $180k out
of college regardless.

> I make less than most of my friends and they, by virtue of independent
> wealth or higher income or elite status, are significantly happier than me.

I'm not really in the "money is irrelevant" bucket but this doesn't look like
a monetary problem you're facing here.

Seems like you overtuned things and hit a lot of _diminishing returns_ , where
you worked hard but didn't see much for it, but now you assume people who work
less hard have seen even less, but that's not actually always the case because
well we are told the world is unfair quite often, yet in cases like work we
for some reason decide not to believe it.

~~~
sadamznintern
> Seems like you overtuned things and hit a lot of diminishing returns, where
> you worked hard but didn't see much for it, but now you assume people who
> work less hard have seen even less

I know for a fact people who have worked less hard have more...but again,
mostly at better schools, or have wealthier backgrounds or are just plain
luckier than me.

I guess the real problem is I'm still a failure no matter how much effort I
put in.

~~~
toomanybeersies
I don't want to sound like some bullshit life coach, but are you really a
failure, or are you just measuring success wrong?

~~~
sadamznintern
Probably both. I"m just angry that I had to work hard for [relatively] little
when I could have just done nothing for 4 years and been in the same spot or
better.

------
HelloFellowDevs
"Just because you got in doesn't mean that you should go". With the amount of
high school students being prepared nearly around the clock to gain admission
into college, there looks to be a great deal of FOMO. From parents to students
to possibly school administrations. Not many stop to question is the student
themselves ready for College or will they wash out with tons of debt?

------
_hardwaregeek
It's extremely hard to get good, unbiased information on colleges. Almost
every news source is either based on metrics that students don't care about
(number of papers published by the department, NSF grants, etc), or basically
advertising done by the school itself. If there was a way to get information
about schools, stuff like "oh XYZ college has really great campus life" or
"ABC college has an amazing hackathon community" or even "oh this school's
food sucks", then I think it would be immensely popular. The only (but main)
problem is convincing college students to contribute.

~~~
dan-robertson
A problem with this is that it’s harder to do useful comparisons when most
people have experience of only one of the things being compared. Eg if
students say they are happy, does that mean the College is good or that they
just bring in students who were happier than average in the first place.

------
russfink
The author's position is that the only reason to go to college is to learn
academic subjects and obtain a job when graduating. If the same logic were
applied to automobiles, there'd be no reason to choose a Lexus over a Nissan.
College is about the whole experience: friends, contacts, travel,
opportunities, and yeah, for some, it just comes down to wanting to to go to a
place that "doesn't suck." As for innate ability - well, students were
selected based on the college wanting specific types of students, largely
because they want to create an unsuckish experience for the students. (There
are unmotivated, immature, and/or improperly-backgrounded people in every
class, but is it just a couple, or a majority?)

As for the focused universities, the ones that bill themselves solely as get-
smart-get-job/promotion/whatever, and that fail to deliver, those must be held
accountable. If I bought a "Cheaperson S Hatchback" and it consistently failed
to take me to work, and a significant portion of other Cheaperson owners
reported the same thing, then the problem is in the car, not me, and
Cheaperson should be held accountable.

~~~
scarface74
_College is about the whole experience: friends, contacts, travel,
opportunities, and yeah, for some, it just comes down to wanting to to go to a
place that "doesn't suck." _

And that’s a luxury that only a few have. I’m sure most parents wouldn’t get
into thousands of dollars of student loan debt for that reason.

I can’t imagine a world where it makes sense to get a luxury car and get in
thousands of debt _before_ you have a good job either.

------
jstewartmobile
False advertising for _everything_ is pretty much the norm. I get fatigued
just navigating through all of the rackets out there.

I do not know how people who skip the fine print manage to survive these days.

~~~
koin0r
*advertising IS pretty much the norm for everything these days. we are being flooded with ads, but we're often selling ourselves as well... ad-based world this is..

------
jseliger
This is at least congruent with my own experience on the provider side of the
college equation; perhaps most interesting to me is the extent to which the
grad school side is amiss: [https://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-
should-know-befo...](https://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-
before-you-start-grad-school-in-english-literature-the-economic-financial-and-
opportunity-costs).

It does seem like the current system cannot go on forever.

~~~
thundergolfer
Wait. 10 years is seriously the MEDIAN time to graduate an english lit. PhD?

That's awfully long.

------
RestlessMind
How about:

\- allowing discharging of student debt after 10 years

\- allowing someone to pay only up to 10% of adjusted gross income per year
(lenders cannot ask for more; voluntary prepayment is okay)

What will happen, probably, is that:

\- lenders will start looking at earning potential of various degrees and loan
amounts will be tied to degrees being pursued

\- tuitions for degrees with low earning potential will be lowered

\- universities who cannot afford to lower tuitions will shut down some
departments. That slack will be picked up by community colleges.

\- some of the majors will only be pursued by rich (as happened for hundreds
of years)

------
justsomedude43
"The administration of President Donald Trump just made it easier for for-
profit colleges to get away with making fake promises about things like
graduation rates and job placements."

This is where I stopped reading. Pretty much the first sentence. False
advertising has been a problem for at least two decades now, mostly in Law and
nothing has been done about it. People started talking about it only recently
after the rich kids got affected by the false advertising; their parents spend
$200k-$300k on a Law degree with a Bar test only to find out that their kids
can't get a job that pays more than $50k because there's been an abundance of
lawyers for about twenty years now.

Same goes for IT and all sorts of BS degrees ala marketing, communications,
david beckham studies etc... besides you don't need somebody to tell you:

"Hey, save your money you don't yet have, that degree is useless! You can do
that without having one."

You only need half a brain cell to figure this for yourself. It's not brain
surgery and if you do need someone to tell you that, then you really do need a
hard lesson.

