pull down to refresh
28 sats \ 11 replies \ @Undisciplined 9h \ on: English Unis Are Overpriced Trash (Financial Times, Philip Augar) econ
I think there's a strong case to be made that many non-elite universities are committing fraud on behalf of their institutions.
They intentionally withhold from students what their odds of success are, even though they have that information available, while lying to them about how much they'll benefit from attending. I also know that many faculty members fudge grades to maintain financial aid eligibility for students (literally financial aid fraud).
I know these behaviors are not unique to universities, but I'd be perfectly happy to see them held accountable for knowingly scamming students.
Apparently there's also a HUGE amount of fraud with financial aid grants. Fake students, who are collecting Pell grants (I think that's the name of the grant), who enroll and then all drop out as of a certain day.
I know this from a friend who's teaches at a nearby university. She lost almost half of the students in her class because of ths.
reply
And when I say lost, what I should have said is "they all drop out on the same date, which apparently is exactly the date for the grant to not need to be paid back".
Which is how she knew why it was happening. All fake students, fake IDs.
reply
That's probably the minimum attendance to qualify for an "incomplete", because those don't hurt your gpa.
reply
Interesting. I know one unsavory practice is to enroll mentally ill homeless people and load them up with student loans, then give them whatever grades are required to maintain financial aid eligibility.
This doesn't have to involve passing grades, but selectively choosing amongst "incomplete", "failing", "did not attend", etc. can keep the gravy train rolling.
reply
I suspect something like this happens in my classes too, but it may only be 1 or 2 students per semester.
Basically, I have students who never show up for anything and don't turn in any assignments, but they still show up for the final exam and inevitably fail. I always wondered what they could possibly be thinking, but the thing is: I have to report a student's last day of attendance. I think if they literally don't show up at all, they may lose some kind of status or eligibility for financial aid (just a guess for now). Thus, if they show up for the final exam, it'll look like they were in attendance, even though there was never any intention to actually take the class or pass it.
reply
I should ask her a little bit more about it. I do remember that she's said she's talked to the college administrators about it.
BUT I wonder if they're in any way incentivized to actually follow up. Because they benefit from increased enrollment.
reply
It is probably a look-the-other-way situation.
reply
I don't remember all the ins and outs of these eligibility issues, but there are different scenarios where failing, incomplete, and n/a are all preferable to each other.
reply
Imposing an artificial market upon education has these precisely perverse results.
Education is and will always be an investment by a community in its members.
Education is not a crude commodity that can be successfully traded in a free market manner isolated from the community within which it is developed.
reply
I think some of the majors would be quite happy to reveal what the employment outcomes are. We can all guess which majors are stopping us from doing so.
reply
I'm not even thinking about specific majors. A lot of this abuse happens to students who are very unlikely to even get as far as declaring a major. They burn through all of their financial aid on low-level (often pre-college level) courses, because they're so underprepared.
reply