For-profit colleges: where most students default on their loans

Low Loan Repayment Is Seen at For-Profit Schools (New York Times)

     Adding new fuel to the growing controversy over regulating for-profit colleges, the Department of Education on Friday released data on student-loan repayment rates at the nation’s colleges and universities, listing the institutions by name.
     Although the department issued no analysis or comparison of repayment rates by sector, outside advocacy groups that analyzed the data found that in 2009, repayment rates were 54 percent at public colleges and universities, 56 percent at private nonprofit institutions, and 36 percent at for-profit colleges.
     “I think it’s notable that the for-profits are the only type of school where the majority of students are unable to repay their loans,” said Debbie Frankle Cochrane, program director at the Institute for College Access and Success, which has called for tighter regulation of for-profit institutions.
     At some for-profit colleges, the repayment rates were startlingly low. For example, 33 of the 86 Corinthian Colleges’ Everest locations had repayment rates of less than 20 percent — and at several, the rates were less than 10 percent.
     At the headquarters of the University of Phoenix, the nation’s largest for-profit education company, the repayment rate was 44 percent, compared with 38 percent at DeVry and 27 percent at Kaplan University, a unit of the Washington Post Company.
     “I think this data could have a powerful effect on institutions and students,” said Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education. “No reasonable person will want to go to a school where only one in five students can pay back their student loans.”
. . .
     For-profit colleges enroll less than 10 percent of the nation’s students, but get almost a quarter of the $24 billion the government provides in Pell grants and Stafford loans. And students at for-profit institutions have a higher default rate than those who attend public or nonprofit colleges….

POW camp: 1944-1947

These were among my grandfather's photographs. On the back of this first one was written, "POW camp. April '45 Camp 37g cage 4."

Grandpa is the second from left, front row.

He was captured (in Italy, I believe) by the British in 1944. He was kept as a POW (mostly in Egypt) until June of 1947, as were many thousands of other German POWs. I'm told that many of his colleagues at the camp died there or at other camps.

I don't know if these other photos were taken at about the same time or years later.

At some point, grandpa was judged to be gravely ill. That's when it was decided that he should be sent home. He was forty years old.

He lived another fifty-one years.

He was a tough old buzzard.

Don't know anything about these fountains.

Evidently, inside the tents, the floors were dug down several feet. That kept the interior cooler, but it often created a problem at night, when temperatures could dip near freezing.

I wish I knew what happened to all these men.

My father tells me that, when Opa came back from the camp, he was never himself again.

"Was that because of his experiences at the camp or during the war?" I asked.

Dad says he just doesn't know.

"Grandpa wouldn't talk about any of that."

In 1946 the UK had more than 400,000 German prisoners, many had been transferred from POW camps in the US and Canada. Many of these were for over three years after the German surrender used as forced labour, as a form of "reparations". "The POWs referred to themselves as 'slave labour', with some justice." Their emotional state was worsened "from the anxiety and hope of the first half of 1946 to the depression and nihilism of 1948." A public debate ensued in the UK, where words such as "forced labour", "slaves", "slave labour" were increasingly used in the media and in the House of Commons. In 1947 the Ministry of agriculture argued against rapid repatriation of working German prisoners, since by then they made up 25 percent of the land workforce, and they wanted to use them also in 1948. (Wikipedia)