College Bait and Switch

                     

Over 4,000 colleges and universities enroll over 17 million students. College has obviously become a huge growth industry. The industry has also mutated negatively, with far too little oversight of quality.

                       

As an example: Colleges appear to be primarily in the business of acquiring students, differing to a degree, only in their approach to marketing.

                       

Some do so as research centers. They may boast professors with science awards and Nobel Prizes which are very appealing marketing devices. Such esteemed faculty also attract more grants and endowments.

                                           

But few undergraduate students have these celebrity professors. They often are taught by graduate students.

                       

Parents and taxpayers pay billions of dollars to colleges and universities. Schools make money whether students learn or not, whether students graduate or not, or are prepared to get good jobs after leaving school, or not.

                       

Colleges and universities thus engage in "bait and switch;" conferring what are actually deficient degrees, and engage in other practices that would bring legal sanctions in any other business. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)