Synthesis response essay on for-profit colleges

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Synthesis Response Essay on For-Profit Colleges
Introduction
It is clear that the twenty-first century economy requires workers to seek more education to be competitive in the global marketplace. However, most workers without a college diploma don’t have the time or money to pursue a higher education at a traditional college. For-profit colleges are attempting to fill this niche by offering online classes and accelerated degree programs that appeal to the working adult. There are various basic positions that have been taken on the issue of for-profit colleges and universities. However, many people would ask, ‘are these for-profit colleges adequately preparing their students to succeed in the global marketplace? This paper seeks to explore the arguments cited by different education stakeholders on the issue of for-profit colleges.
The establishment of for-profit colleges is on the increase. Many people have commented on this trend in the various parts of the world, especially in the USA. For-profit colleges are said to offer low quality education in U.S, and they are characterized by exceedingly low graduation rates (Dillon, 2007). The Phoenix University, one of the major for-profit academic institutions in the U.S, has an average of 16 percent graduation rate, which is lower than the federal recommendable rate of 55 percent (Dillon, 2007). Most of the former students in this university have cited this rate to be shaming for such a large for-profit institution. According to Dillon, the low quality of education in the for-profit colleges has resulted from the use of majority part-time lecturers and congested course work strategies (Dillon, 2007). Most of the online students in for-profit colleges suffer from poor instructional methods.
For-profit colleges are serving as role models for the public colleges and universities. These academic institutions, according to the Department of Education (DOE) in the USA, are committed to establish new educational models which are reliable to the learning environment (Scott-Clayton, 2011). In addition, a significant percentage of the for-profit colleges offer adequate help to the students in obtaining federal financial aids. According to Scott-Clayton of Columbia University, for-profit academic institutions are in a better position to offer innovative learning methods for online learning (Scott-Clayton, 2011). This is because the institutions allocate adequate academic resources to the students, as compared to t...