Wow, I work at a carreer college and I notice some of the same things. Luckily I am only there for another year but from what I have seen it is a total ripoff. 60 minutes has done to exposes on these schools now and one was on last night. It is supposadly the fastest growing industry in the nation right now.
I'l never understand why these people pay over $30,000 to attend a school that is only accredited by a board that was created by the school for the sole purpose of saying they are accredited. Like you said, once you are in you are screwed. You can't transfer anywhere. They make all their money from your signing up for government funded student loans. You get the loan and the government pays the school. Then all they have to do is keep passing you through the school and they keep getting the money.
As far as teachers go, I know for the comptuer side of things, only an A+ or a few years of experience are required to teach. We've gone through so many teachers here in the year I've been here that it is pretty sad. I've even subsituted for weeks at a time while teachers are out and these kids aren't learning much from most of the teachers. I mean I've had students that have gone through 3 or 4 terms already and can't even find the IP address of their own computer when they've already had netowrking classes. Not to mention the teachers are paid a crap salarey too.
My biggest grumble about this though would be how much these poor kids pay. My associates @ my local community college only cost me about $10,000 and I can transfer the credits to any school in Michigan. So why in the world would anyone pay $30,000 for the same thing at a carreer college when they learn less, pay more, and can't even transfer. I know they feel like they have job placement but thats a joke. I mean, all they have to do is find you any job and if you turn it down thats your fault (IE - folding shirts at the GAP).
