Riled up at the NY Times

This weekend, a Berkeley grad with a heavy deadline spruced up a tired recessionomics trend piece by taking aim at the poors in trade schools.

These people are victims

It’s true that for-profit schools like ITT Tech and University of Phoenix draw big benefits from people returning to school. However, the article rests on the trifecta of incorrect assumptions on not-for-profit schools: namely, that they 1) aren’t gunning for people’s money, 2) don’t profit off federal funding, and 3) aren’t a huge beneficiary of the rise in recession education.

And yes, for-profit schools draw much of their profit from Pell Grants, which are awarded to students with the highest levels of financial need. Ignoring the fact that 89 percent of all independent students receive some form of financial aid and 58 percent receive federal grants specifically, why do the poorest students choose trade schools over four-year colleges and two-year not-for-profit community colleges? Some ideas:

1. Students might not live near the 1,195 public, independent, or tribal community colleges in the country
2. Students working full-time may not have access to education resources with online, hybrid, weekend, or night courses
3. Students may not meet minimum educational requirements for admission
4. Courses/materials available at not-for-profit schools may not meet student requirements

Holding up culinary arts as a symbol of the failure of for-profit education is a weak choice.  Culinary arts is the slow-moving target of the for-profit educational world, whether or not the training is coming from a for-profit or not-for-profit source. Every one of those quotes (“When they graduate and come in the kitchen, I tell them, ‘I’m going to treat you like you don’t know anything”) could have as easily referred to a culinary arts degree from a community college.

The facts as I see them:

1. People can train for about a third of the careers on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Fastest-Growing Occupations list at for-profit trade schools
2. In a recession, graduates of any school may have trouble finding work
3. Accreditation is key: if a for-profit school is unaccredited, it doesn’t stand up to the same standards the third-party accrediting agency holds for all schools, for-profit and not-for-profit alike. Side-note, you can’t get federal funding at an unaccredited school
4. A reporter soliciting his sources from the Career Education Corporation has probably never met anyone who has graduated from a trade school, excepting the girls at the salon where he gets his sustainable organic facials

When I read articles like this, I wonder what the point is. I’m all for fairness in marketing or regulations lowering some for-profit tuition. I’m against increased education standards for trade schools; with an accreditation process recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, standards at trade schools are set at the same level as public schools.

But it always seems that the point of these pieces is the classist sentiment that trade and for-profit students should have reduced access to financial aid or fewer options for accredited training, freeing up cash and resources for those lucky enough to have the means and ability to attend the sunny California school of their choice. In response, I’ll sum up the reaction I imagine from trade school students and graduates across the country: screw you, guy.