PrintUSC is neck-deep in the federal government's educational takeover
In the past decade, the University of Southern California, USC, has been running a pure scam. They pay commissions to a for-profit corporation to recruit gullible children, including many low-income minorities, to get a two-year undergraduate degree for social work for a cost that is now $115,000. The students borrow most of this money, and the feds front a large chunk of it. Now we are seeing stories like this:
USC Pushed a $115,000 Online Degree. Graduates Got Low Salaries, Huge Debts
Over the past decade, the University of Southern California has used a for-profit company to help enroll thousands of students in its online social-work master's program.
The nonprofit school used its status-symbol image to attract students across the country, including low-income minority students it targeted for recruitment, often with aggressive tactics. Most students piled on debt to afford the tuition, which last year reached $115,000 for the two-year degree. The majority never set foot on the posh Los Angeles campus but paid the same rate for online classes as in-person students.
USC and the commission-sucking for-profit company knew that the students wouldn't get a salary that was very high once they graduated — as in, enough to pay the debt — but they don't care.
Students can no longer discharge bad debt as they can other debt in a bankruptcy, and the schools knew that the government would loan the students whatever they asked for before they eventually write off the loan, if not saddle current or future generations to pay for it.
This looks like pure fraud. So why aren't colleges that pull stunts like this prosecuted?
After all, the Obama, Biden administration bankrupted for-profit college operators for a similar reason.
Those Democrats helped not-for-profit and public institutions by intentionally destroying competition such as these entities. Democrats always hate the word "profit."
Democrats also oppose charter schools and vouchers for poor children because results don't matter, only their special interest groups.
Why aren't rich entities like Harvard and USC held to the same standards? Is it because they promote leftist policies and indoctrinate their students?
The Industry That Was Crushed By The Obama Administration
In early 2009, the seven largest publicly traded college operators were worth a combined $51 billion. Today, they've been all but wiped out.
"When angry voters refer to a 'lawless' government, this is what they mean," the Wall Street Journal opinion page wrote in one piece. "The sheer brazen viciousness of the Democratic campaign against for-profits is something to behold," said another.
Obama administration alumni are unapologetic. Early on, as accusations of fraud began to emerge against for-profit schools, they were often accused of standing by idly as a spigot of taxpayer money flowed to troubled schools in the form of federal financial aid.
In the 1960s, the government started making student loans readily available to pay for college. Since then, colleges have raised their tuition and other costs faster than inflation. The student loans were meant to make colleges more affordable, but colleges knew that no matter the heights to which they raised their costs, the government would just increase the loans. Therefore, debt and college costs exploded. There was no incentive for colleges to control costs, so they were very generous to themselves with someone else's money.
Why do so many people try to push all kids to go to college, no matter what they want to do or what their aptitude is?
Why do so many businesses require four-year or graduate degrees for jobs that clearly don't need? That also increases college costs and debts. It gives the colleges a captive audience.
The solution to scams like USC's is simple. Just have the colleges guarantee the debt since they are the beneficiary of the debt. If a student drops out, flunks out, doesn't make enough to pay the debt, or just refuses to pay the debt, just make the colleges pay it. There is no reason that taxpayers and future generations should pay these debts when colleges raised their costs so high.
I went to college from 1971 to 1974. My first year at the University of Illinois cost $1,100 for room and board and around $400 for tuition. I borrowed $1,000 and earned enough money at $1- to $2-per-hour jobs to pay the rest. My parents both worked at this time and made less than $15,000 combined, which didn't allow them to pay for my brother's and my own college educations. My second year was at Western Illinois University, and the cost was similar, and again I borrowed $1,000. I got a summer job in 1972 driving a Charles Chips Truck and decided I was too much in debt at $2,000. Therefore, I went to a local two-year college, Sangamon State University, and my total cost for tuition was $200 per semester, and I stayed at home to save money. I also got a $150-per-semester Illinois State Scholarship for a high ACT score and because of my parents' low income. I was needy. My net cost was $50 per semester. I graduated in three and a half years with a business management degree. I started working for $845 per month in January 1975.
I went back for some additional accounting hours so I could become a CPA and passed the exam in 1978, and I made $1,000 per month for 46 hours per week.
My parents never went to college, and I am one of those people described in CRT as white privileged. I was privileged. My parents taught us to work and study hard so we could go to college. I also never heard them complain about rich people or tell us the government owed us anything. My loan payment for the $2,000 debt was $39.60 per month for five years. Not once did I believe that the government or anyone else should pay my debt.
In the 1990s, the AICPA decided to make CPAs more elite by requiring an extra year of college. I called that the Welfare for Colleges Act. A year of practical experience is worth much more than that additional year of college, and instead of wasting money for another year, the young adults could start earning money.
Today, the United States is run by a lot of highly educated people, who are supported by highly educated journalists and are seeking to destroy the country as fast as they can by moving closer to socialism. We would be better off if we were run by anyone with common sense, like oil workers, coal miners, maintenance workers, or anyone else.
I know people with common sense, no matter what education level, could show highly educated people how to lower gasoline prices to the highly educated Joe Biden and his energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm.
Hint for them: It isn't by begging Russia or OPEC to produce more.
People with no education could advise the highly educated Jeffrey Toobin, who pleasured himself in a Zoom meeting, to never refer to anyone else as an idiot. I am sure the highly educated people at CNN would fire him if he ever offended anyone.
William Buckley was very insightful when he said, "I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty."
Image: USC Athletics via Wikimedia Commons, on black background, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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