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INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION

The Gray Zones of Higher Education in the United States

Joshua Woods
Joshua Woods is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology, Michigan State University. Address: Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, 316 Berkey Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824 USA. E-mail: woodsjos@msu.edu.

In any society, there are many types of morally questionable behavior that are not prohibited by law. At the margins of almost all major institutions lie "gray zones"—that is, areas where the moral quality of certain behaviors and practices are ambiguous. There is an important interaction between the individual stakeholders in gray zones, the quality of the given institution and all those who come into contact with it. The stakeholders of gray zones usually try to avoid confrontations with opposing parties but are always interested in normalizing or legitimizing their values, operations and individual actions. Gray zones often change when they become contested. In some cases, the ambiguous behavior becomes legalized and, in other cases, outlawed. In almost all cases, the outcomes of these contests have an important impact on the broader society.

Investigations Into For-Profit Education
One gray zone in the United States that has been increasingly contested by students, politicians, and journalists in recent years can be found in the for-profit education industry. Since the late 1990s, several postsecondary education companies have enjoyed enormous growth. With riches, however, came scrutiny. In the last few years, many of the schools owned by these companies have faced lawsuits and federal investigations. In September 2004, the Apollo group, which runs the University of Phoenix, paid out $9.8 million to the Department of Education to settle claims of recruitment violations. In a recent 60 Minutes exposé, graduates of a college owned by the Career Education Corporation offered a laundry list of complaints and criminal allegations against the institution. Former admissions advisers from the school detailed their aggressive sales tactics and talked about the pressures put on them to enroll students, "regardless of their ability to complete the coursework." It is likely that some nonprofit schools across the country, as well as in the international arena, use similar marketing techniques to increase enrollment.

Although legal investigations should certainly continue, adequately regulating the for-profit education industry will be difficult. The regulators of for-profit higher education companies should bear in mind that sophisticated sales strategies can be just as misleading as fraud or outright lies. If a college wishes to mislead potential students, it does not need to falsify its job-placement rates. All a college must do to boost enrollments is tap into a student's personal aspirations and cultivate overconfidence with a little encouragement and persuasion. Why resort to fraud when high hopes are so easy to manipulate?

A Closer Look at the Push for Rising Enrollments
To better understand the recruiting techniques used by for-profit education companies in the United States, I recently conducted a minor investigation of my own as part of a broader research program that aims to document examples of corruption and duplicity across the gamut of American higher education institutions. I assumed the identity of a 31-year-old high school graduate who dreams of receiving an MBA and becoming a corporate executive. The premise of the experiment was simple: how would the colleges respond to a student like me? Would they discuss the considerable amount of time, energy, and money necessary for pursuing such a goal? Would they speak frankly about the need for professional experience? How would they assess my prospects for success? What kind of advice or aid would they offer me?

I began the experiment by sending a single electronic query to four for-profit higher education companies. For the sake of comparison, I also queried Michigan State University. I used the following biographical details in all of my contacts with the schools: age 31, high school education, 2.0 grade point average, and previous work experience as a construction worker and parking lot attendant.

After sending the initial contacts on July 19, 2005, I chronicled the colleges' responses for one month. Based on the number of e-mails, postal mailings, and messages left on my answering machine, the Olympia Career Training Institute, which is owned by Corinthian Institutes, and ITT Technical tied for first place in terms of their determination to contact me. Each college delivered eight separate communications without a single reply on my part. I received seven responses from the University of Phoenix; five messages came in from the American Graduate School of Management. Michigan State University sent only one response.

Perhaps more interesting than the number of responses I received were the style and persuasive techniques used in the messages. The "guidance counselors" gushed with personal words of encouragement and painted a promising picture of financial security. They described the opportunities as not only excellent but also easy to achieve. "Basically," read an e-mail from the Olympia Career Training Institute, "no matter how complicated your life is, we’ll do everything we can to help you fulfill your dreams."

The advisers were eager to offer me assistance when it came to securing federal financial aid. Incentives to get started were also common. The University of Phoenix, for instance, offered to waive the $110 application fee if I registered for classes at one of its local informational meetings.

In a few cases, the advisers used shame tactics. One of the e-mails from the Olympia Institute read, "When someone asks where you work, are you embarrassed to answer? Do you dream of more? Take the next step: Enroll."

None of these techniques, however, was used by Michigan State University. The university's representative responded to my initial query with a polite, two-sentence reply, informing me that it "requires that applicants have a bachelor's degree to apply for an MBA program," that she would help me contact an undergraduate program if I wished and that it might be helpful for me to review the program on the MSU Web site. There were no flowery words of encouragement, no alluring job placement figures, no promises of a brighter future, and besides the one e-mail I received from her, I was not contacted by anyone else at MSU.

Conclusion
Anyone interested in pursuing a professional career needs a realistic picture of the financial risks involved, as well as the time, patience, and hard work required for success. Today, some for-profit colleges are offering just the opposite. Students need more protection from the misleading sales pitches of for-profit schools. Providing this protection should be a top priority of the Department of Education.

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