Atlantic - University Of Illinois

[Pages:3]Liqian (Louis) Lu LLU13

Student Loans and For-Profit Education: An Annotated Bibliography

Thesis: For-profit higher education has gained much traction over the last decade, and their intents appear to come from greed instead of offering high quality education. For-profit schools need to be limited to prevent business owners from ripping apart already poor students.

Belfield, Clive. "Student Loans and Repayment Rates: The Role of For-profit Colleges." Research in Higher Education 54.1 (2013): 1-29. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

The article argues that for-profit schools have a higher loan repayment rates, roughly 5 percent higher than an "average" college. The article also claims that repa1yment rates are also lower for colleges with higher proportions of minority students and with lower graduation rates.

In this scholarly and peer reviewed journal, Belfield takes a standpoint that leans towards for-profit colleges somewhat (my opposite source). Belfield is a credible researcher as he is associate professor at Queens University and received his PhD from University of Exeter in England.

Campos, Paul. "The Law-School Scam." Atlantic Sept. 2014: 62-69. Web.

In this detailed article, Campos illustrates that for-profit colleges like Florida Coastal, a law school, actively admit underqualified students. And these students in turn are forced to take out hundreds of millions of loans which they will most likely never repay. And much the debts are afterwards burdened on the taxpayers. For-profit schools indirectly take money from the taxpayers to maximize their capitalistic dream. For-profit schools are usually owned by some other private-equity firms that exploit the system by taking advantage of government loan programs. Moreover, for-profit colleges do not focus mainly on education, which already defies what the word "college" means. Just like any other capital firms, for-profits spend a large proportion of their budget on marketing and advertising, and even lobbying, instead of on other vital parts like faculty. Campos also points out that recognizing issues is important, but the government needs to realize that for-profit schools are not improving American education at all, it only makes the weak weaker.

This is a detailed popular source. The depth of investigation makes the article credible. It provides in-depth point of views. Paul Campos is a law professor from University of Colorado, which makes this source more credible.

Edwards, Halley S. "But Can America Afford This Approach to Solving Student Debt?" Time 30 Nov. 2015: 92-99. Web.

Halley Edwards in this detailed article expresses her concerns towards new proposed plans to solve student load issue in America. American students collectively $1.3 trillion, and as much as 71% of students graduate with student debts. She says that some proposed plans from front-runner candidates like Hilary Clinton ignore many facts and will not help the student load situation as they will not decrease tuition rates. She also claims that the student debt issue is very

Liqian (Louis) Lu LLU13

well solved as people can pay them off later in their lives. Plans like Income Driven Repayment (IDR) and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) help greatly with people trying to pay off loans. She emphasizes that the loan issue is a direct result from high tuition rates. She does have a point that student debt is a symptom, not a disease. The crux of the problem lies within the colleges and how they charge students with high tuitions. She also reveals that many students do not even know about key plans that could help them pay off their debts. It just emphasizes more that the problem is caused by many other factors, and they collectively lead to on problem we recognize today. It also has detailed graphs and numbers illustrating effects of different loan programs

Though this is from a popular source with minimal citations, Time magazine has a reputable authority and the article itself is quite detailed with data and graphical support. The author Halley Edwards also has many articles published by Time.

"FORGIVE AND FORGET: BANKRUPTCY REFORM IN THE CONTEXT OF FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES." Harvard Law Review 128.7 (2015): 2018-039. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

The article starts with a story about Rosalyn Harris, who was told she was guaranteed 75% job placement rate, but she spent months looking for jobs unsuccessfully and ended up working manual labor at Victoria Secret. The article also examines American policies on forprofit education and debt forgiveness. The article points out that for-profit education gain attention because help from the Internet, quick spreading and marketing.

This scholarly and peer reviewed source is trustworthy to some degree. It is published in the Harvard Law Review, but it lacks credit to authors. The article has detailed citations and credits, which may make up for the lack of author names.

Gladwell, Malcolm. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. Back Bay, 2015. Print.

In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell illustrates how small entities can still fight giants in an industry with just as much ease, as long as the "weak" hide their weakness and find the giants' disadvantages. The book points out with numerous examples how the relatively weak can beat the strong with thoughts and careful planning.

Although this source seems oblique to my topic, I find it quite relevant that the students are like David and those for-profit colleges are like Goliath. I think that by taking from Gladwell's advice, the poor students could make better judgments about what colleges to choose and see through what's going on within those colleges' administrations and true intents. This book is considered a popular source, as there are not many citations and the languages are quite simple. This book, along with three other Malcolm Gladwell's books, are all #1 national bestsellers. The author, Gladwell, used to write for various journals, magazines, and newspaper. He is a credible author and this book and be trusted.

Gonz?lez Canch?, Manuel S. "Is the Community College a Less Expensive Path Toward a Bachelor's Degree? Public 2- and 4-year Colleges' Impact on Loan Debt." Journal of Higher Education 85.5 (2014): 723-59. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.

Liqian (Louis) Lu LLU13

In this journal, the author questions the claim that 2-year community college education generates less debt than a similar 4-year college education. He conducts experiments on numerous students and compares results. While a 2-year education is not significantly cheaper than a four year education, the policy makers should shift their focus to training more qualified students and alleviate their debt issues from the root. I agree with his point of view. The author disagrees with some superficial arguments about which alternative is better. He delves in deeper than just arguing which options the students could take; he argues that the politicians should instead concentrate on providing "social inclusion" for the students with debts and sincerely prepare them with the needs to apply their learnings and pay off their debts.

The source is scholarly and peer reviewed with citations and credits. The author is a professor at University of Georgia. And he has a website at the university's website with his contact information and credentials. He is a trustworthy author.

Kreitner, Richard. "The Beginning of the End for Student Debt?" Nation 6 July 2015: 6. Web.

The short popular article reports that the U.S. government will forgive large sum of student loans from Corinthian colleges, a for profit college. The enterprise targeted "isolated" students who were "unable to plan for the future." Some students caught attention while refusing to pay off huge amount of loans to expose the corrupt financial structure of Corinthian colleges. For-profit colleges prey on students who may be less prepared for formal higher education, and lure them to pay large sums of money to obtain degrees that do not prepare them any further.

This is a popular source from the magazine Nation. The author has his credentials and other works of his on the magazine's website. Although this is a short article, from Richard Kreitner's past experience, his articles has credibility and is trustworthy.

Ryan, Brenna. "Learners and a Teacher, For Profit." Radical Teacher 93 (2012): 29-34. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

The article argues that for-profit colleges are greedy and the Obama administration has been trying to limit their influences. But the government did not make the policy updates vastly available to the students and the students may have taken it as that the government is trying to reduce the number of higher education institutions. She argues that the government needs to inform the students what they are doing and that they are trying to help the poor students.

This is a popular source. It doesn't have any citations or notes. The author could not be searched on the Internet. But any credits could give this source much more credibility.

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download