From the Best to the Worst: For-Profits Are An Ivy-League Created ScamAll Education Matters

From the Best to the Worst: For-Profits Are An Ivy-League Created Scam

Interesting. If you take a look at most of the top folks at Kaplan - their "leadership" squad - almost all of them went to Ivy Leagues or elite schools. I know it's a naive question, but I went to those types of schools, and how is it I have a sense of ethics? Why is it I learned that education is a public good, and they apparently didn't?

Moreover, if the top-notch people at Kaplan have "real" degrees, then what does that say about their "product?" I am loath to use that term, but that's what these folks have done. They've turned education into a consumer product, which is the primary reason why these schools are such scams. (The non-profits have done the same thing, i.e., incorporated language from the market to describe students and so forth).

If these folks truly believed in offering opportunities to lower-income Americans, their company would not be driven by enrollments numbers and profits. (Jesus, how depressing is that?!? It's a company. It's not a school). It screams hypocrisy. That is not to say that people who work and teach in these schools are not doing a good job, and trying to help their students. But the overall structure is corrupt, and it leads people into debt that can't be discharge in bankruptcy, and oftentimes follows them to the grave. There is a high number of them who drop out, too. Those who do finish, are oftentimes humiliated in job interviews when they learn that potential employers look down their noses at their diplomas. Again, that is not to suggest that folks who go to these schools aren't smart, capable, and educated. There is, however, no doubt that their degrees have a stigma attached to them, and many of them find it difficult to find full-time work.

Here's a snapshot of these folks at Kaplan who come from elite schools (this is just a sampling. For the full list of their "leadership" go here):

Andrew S. Rosen
Position: Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Education: A.B. Duke University; J.D. Yale University

Allison Rutledge-Parisi
Position: Chief Administrative Officer
Education: Kaplan Website states, "She is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Law School, where she was named a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar."

Darrell Splithoff

Position: Executive Vice President, Strategy and Innovation

Education: A.B. and M.M. from Northwestern University

Bror Saxberg
Position: Chief Learning Officer
Education: Site states, "Saxberg holds a B.A. in Mathematics and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington. As a Rhodes Scholar, he received an M.A. in Mathematics from Oxford University. He also received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from M.I.T. and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School."