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rilenerocks · 5 years ago

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You never know what small thing will set off a cascade of memories. I was driving along, running an errand, when I went right by this construction site. The first thing I noticed was that the external rigid insulation wrap on the framing was green instead of pink. It’s the type of thing it would be normal for me to notice, as I spent over thirty years as an assessment official, specializing in commercial properties. I measured and examined them, ultimately determining their market value for the purpose of property taxes. Where I live, those values are critical for generating revenue for local taxing districts like schools, parks and municipalities. This particular location touched a nerve with me. The building that used to be there was once the home of the Prairie Dispatch, an alternative community newspaper I worked on with Michael and some other friends in the early 1970’s. We were legit. We had real press passes. This is how it’s listed in the University of Illinois Library System.

Title: Prairie Dispatch (Urbana, Ill. : 1973)

Alternate Title: City: Champaign-Urbana, Illinois Country: United States ThFrequency: Bi-Weekly Language: English Subject/Audience: Alternative

Here are some photos of Michael and me in the office with another friend. We did everything, wrote columns, took and developed photos, designed and ran ads, and did layout. We even covered Richard Nixon in Pekin, Illinois. I wrote articles and shot and developed photos. Only one year into our relationship in 1973, Michael and I had many a frolic in the darkroom on the second floor. We all ate so many doughnuts from the Mr. Donut across the street. We kept long work hours, this volunteer newspaper being a sideline activity, not our day jobs. Sugar rushes and coffee kept everyone going. This was almost 50 years ago. Soon no one will associate these memories with that street corner.

Here’s another new building going up in another part of town. Like muscle memory, my brain still notices them, along with other building changes that are going on in our community. The countless hours I spent driving through every nook and cranny of my hometown streets was referred to by assessment officials as viewing. I spent most of my time viewing either by myself or more frequently with Joanne.

Joanne and I have quite a story. My apartment in 1970 when I was a junior in college was in the house on the right side of this photo. Joanne rented a house located directly behind me. We were living in the midst of the alternative community, active in the anti-war movement, and trying to live outside “the establishment.” When we met, we became instant friends. She was a year ahead of me in school. She was also a much better student than me. I was always flying by the seat of my pants – Joanne, the fastest typist I knew besides my friend Fern, would invite me to her kitchen where I’d dictate papers straight out of my head and she’d tap away until they were finished. A lifesaver. She told me she just liked hanging out with me. How lovely. In those days, Joanne was, and actually still is, a wonderful cook and baker. In her spare time back then, she prepared food for a hundred or so at Metamorphosis, the community restaurant where we ate soup, rice and vegetables, lentils and the like. I can still see Joanne coming out of the kitchen, with a steaming bowl of something that was tasty and cheap.

In the summer of 1971, I met Michael. What I didn’t know at the time was that Joanne and Michael had attended the same high school in a suburb of Chicago. Although just friendly acquaintances, they got along well. She told me that he was so skinny back then that if he was standing sideways the only way you knew a person there was because he had a nose that marked his spot. She remembered that he played tennis, swam and was generally a really nice person. This little bit of history added a new layer to my friendship with Joanne. Nice. The following April, when Michael and I transitioned from friends to partners, she was one of the people who really believed we were going to be successful together, unlike some others who thought we were a mismatch, a disaster waiting to happen. Around then, Joanne introduced me to her friend Janet, a journalism student who was taking a photography class at the time. It was Janet who took these wonderful black and white photos which thankfully, still hang in my home 47 years later.

In the fall of 1972, Michael and I moved but we always stayed in touch with Joanne. In a matter of a few years, she had a job working for our local county government, while I went from working at a bank to managing several hundred campus apartments for a family firm. We were smart women who didn’t have a specific career path. We had jobs. Her work led her into understanding that our local assessor’s office was badly in need of reform. I was detesting my job, working for people who were sorely lacking a moral compass as they took advantage of their captive university student tenants, by building shoddy apartments with steep rents. In the spring of 1977, Joanne ran for township/city assessor and won. She called me and said she knew absolutely nothing about commercial property. I said I only knew about apartment buildings and she said that was good enough for her. On January 1st, 1978, she took office and immediately appointed me auditor/appraiser which eventually became chief deputy assessor. I hurriedly took 60 hours of classes, several exams and by mid-year, attained my professional designation as certified state assessment official. For all the decades we held office, we took classes every year to increase our knowledge and further the professionalism we felt the positions required. We had two other staff members, a deputy assessor and a secretary/receptionist. The four of us were to bring our township office into the modern world, eliminating backroom deals for taxes and establishing real fairness in the burden of taxation throughout our city. We administered a program for tax relief for senior citizens and made it our business to find them all and take care of them. Our aim was to become the model government unit in our field, in our state. And we did.

It was a heady business. We computerized all our records and updated every piece of property in town. We went “viewing” which meant driving around, measuring buildings old and new to make sure we had correct records. We learned our city street by street, alley by alley. We went from the office to the car to the office. We’d both gotten married. But basically, we spent more time with each other than anyone else in our lives, including our husbands and ultimately our kids.

This was our little office building. We used one half of it while the other was used by the township supervisor whose primary task was to minister to those people who came upon hard economic times, and who didn’t qualify for other social services. We started out in a small space and eventually built an addition. All four of us shared one room with a side office for Joanne. Later, she moved into the addition and I got her space with a door for privacy.

Joanne was a few years older than me as I’d skipped a year of school early in my life and she, like Michael, had graduated a year ahead of me. In a way, transitioning from a friendship to the additional roles of being coworkers, was similar to what Michael and I had done with our relationship. Again, I was so lucky because the change was basically effortless. We worked really hard in our first few years and we got along well. But we were also getting into our 30’s and tit felt like it was getting to be the time to think about babies, not just work.

We two revolutionary young women were moving along into the next stages of life. Joanne had the first kid. I was with her at the hospital and at her house the day after her son was born. She and I were so different. I knew I’d want a private space around me when my turn came but she had a different attitude and that was fine. Thinking back, it’s remarkable how we approached life in such different ways. She was very relaxed and not one who was constantly plunging around in emotional spaces while I was intense and fiercely probing all the time. Once when we’d taken a number of our continuing education classes together, she told me she couldn’t sit next to me on test day because my vibes were too palpable and distracting. Hah! Our work goals were similar as were our intellects, but we had crazy-different styles. I think it’s magical how we worked together. I handled a lot of the confrontations that work required and almost all the letter-writing. She was the statistician and planner for tackling the mathematical issues. Numbers were never my strong suit although I improved over the years. We complemented each other without knowing that was how things would work before we started.

When I got pregnant, Joanne threw us our baby shower. I think the only real conflict we ever had was that she was eager for me to return to work faster after my baby was born, while I wanted to hunker down and be absorbed by my new little universe. We got past that. Eventually I returned to the office and the viewing and the sharing of our life together.

The years passed quickly. We had more kids. We attended their birthday parties. When she had her kids, I came to the hospital or watched the older ones until she came home. As we drove along, doing our job, we talked about politics, our families and our personal issues. We went through our parents’ aging, failing and eventually dying. The year after my father died, I took my mom and my kids on a trip to Williamsburg, Virginia which had been a lifelong dream of my mother’s. We were also going to see some Civil War sites, which was my dream as I’d spent years reading and studying about what was to me, an unfathomable moment in history. We did the Williamsburg part and then it was on to Richmond. We’d no sooner arrived when my mom attempted the impossible, a walk up three flights of stairs on a bad knee. By the time she descended, she was so crippled she couldn’t walk. I was devastated. The next day, we piled into the car and headed home.

Joanne felt awful for me. The next year she offered to take a Civil War road trip with me. She said I could be in charge of all the planning and that she’d be happy to go along and listen to me talk. Oh, and that she’d pay for all the accommodations and food while I could pick up incidentals and gas. Who does that kind of thing? Joanne does. We took our trip and had a fantastic time. We threw in Monticello and she ate George Washington’s peanut soup recipe at a Williamsburg inn where we stopped for more history. I think that trip was the most selfless thing anyone outside my family has ever done for me. A mere thirty years ago.

We were getting older. Our different styles were beneficial in our personal lives. I was good at the emotional stuff. If her kid was driving her crazy and she was at the end of her rope, I could step in and help by taking on some of those conversations. When my sister had an accident out of state, and was coming home temporarily disabled, Joanne, a better money manager than me, had her house cleaned from top to bottom. When Joanne and her husband needed a getaway, her five year old daughter came to live with me. When my washing machine broke, she bought me a new one. Joanne hosted multiple fundraisers for political candidates. I always made my special and popular chicken liver pate as a contribution for the buffet. I remember bringing my daughter to one of those where we met Barack Obama when he was running for the Senate. I made him a plate of food after he spoke. Joanne always sent me home with a fair share of leftovers. We traded recipes. Her family liked my sausage-potato-broccoli bake with cheese. Mine was partial to her blueberry spice cake. I also remember a wild New Year’s Eve when Michael and I stopped by her house before heading to Chicago. I tasted her fabulous chicken drumettes in plum sauce which were unforgettably delicious. Decades later, I prepared them for my daughter’s law school graduation party. And by the way, you haven’t lived until you’ve tasted a slice of her cheesecake.

Joanne’s had more surgeries than me and I’ve been with her through all of them. After back surgery, she called me way too quickly from the recovery room. I dashed to her hospital room to join her and asked how she felt. She replied, “ I’m just sitting here being totally catatonic.” We both roared. After a particularly rough knee surgery she was hooked to a machine that promoted circulation in the wounded leg. It was driving her crazy and she was in significant discomfort. I sat there, pushing her pain button for the morphine drip every ten minutes because she just couldn’t do it.

Our kids were growing up. When my daughter got married, Joanne was there, as she’d always been from the beginning. When my kid was laid up by knee surgery and Michael’s cancer required me to be with him, Joanne helped out by driving my girl around town. Her generosity to my family was unending. Here’s a lovely photo of the two of them at my daughter’s wedding. And of course there’s one of us as well.

I attended her son’s wedding, too. We loved giving each other’s kids presents. Eventually they started having their own babies. Because her house was bigger, Joanne hosted my daughter’s baby shower. When her grandchildren were born, I sent them gifts as if they were mine. The truth is, all of our kids and their partners and their children belong to both of us. Sounds strange but it feels that way – an emotional investment that extends to all of them.

Somehow or other, over thirty years went by. Because I was a few years younger than everyone else in the office, I had a longer time to go before I could finish up. What a traumatic experience when everyone’s retirement time arrived. We’d spent a lifetime together. So much had happened between us, especially between Joanne and me. The final day came, we had the requisite party and cake and then I went back to work.

It was awful. I lasted 10 months. My daughter was pregnant and I offered to provide day care if they could pay my health insurance. They agreed and I took early retirement. That was a decade ago. In the ensuing years, Joanne and I have seen less of each other. How could it be otherwise as we’d gone from essentially being together for 40 hours a week to now being in our own spaces? Still, we were viewing in a different way. I’d do my driving and she’d do hers, but we’d call each other to compare notes on anything interesting that we’d noticed. We remain fast friends. Seeing each other or not doesn’t matter. She’s still thoughtful and generous, dropping off treats from her trips to Chicago that remind of the tastes and smells of my childhood. There’s some inexplicable, ropey, psychic connection between us that’s hard to describe. It’s unbreakable intimacy which is steady and reliable whether I see her or not. When I start feeling her or hearing her in my head I reach out and invariably she’s feeling me too. Neither one of us is religious but it is a powerful force. I think it’ll last forever. One of life’s gifts to me.

Viewing with Joanne You never know what small thing will set off a cascade of memories. I was driving along, running an errand, when I went right by this construction site.

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katieeatstheworld · 5 years ago

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a short trip to Bristol

My trip to Bristol was definitely not like the movies. No sunshine, no fancy dinners, and so much rain. But I did still manage to have a good time, even if I was only there for two nights. So, this is how I did Bristol, and how you can make the most of your trip there.

Coming from Stuttgart meant that the cheapest flights were through Amsterdam with KLM. I wasn’t complaining. Even though KLM is a little more expensive than, say, easyJet, the service is far better. Plus, you get a snack on the plane.

A two-hour layover in Amsterdam and one airport snack later, I was boarding my flight to Bristol. The whole six hours in transit meant that I arrived in Bristol at around 10 pm. My wonderful boyfriend, who was the whole reason I came to Bristol in the first place, came to pick me up from the airport and from there, we caught the Bristol Airport Flyer to his student accommodation. (Amazing tip btw, if you know anyone from your destination, even just vaguely, don’t be afraid to ask for a couch to crash on - it could save you hundreds).

Saturday was my one full day in Bristol, and of course, it was raining. That didn’t stop us from trying to see the sights (all 5 of them). We bundled up and braved the freezing cold and the rain, starting first at the Christmas street steps. This little alleyway is in the heart of Bristol and is one of the top things to do there. Dotted with tiny cafes and specialty shops, it’s very easy to spend a few hours and a few pounds there. Unfortunately for us, it was just a passing glance as we continued towards the University of Bristol.

UofB is one of the red brick universities of the UK, the second generation of universities after Cambridge and Oxford. It’s fine buildings and extensive campus runs all throughout Bristol, with its crown jewel being the Wills Memorial Building, where the Law School is housed.

Up the road and up a hill from there, you can find Cabot Tower. This is the highest point in the city and the place where you can get the best view of the city. Climb it’s narrow and slippery stairs and you’ll be treated to a panoramic view of Bristol. It was raining when we went through, so our view was a bit foggier and wetter than normal.

Faced with the thought of walking for another hour to get to the Bristol Suspension Bridge, we elected to find a cafe for a hot chocolate instead and to try and thaw our frozen extremities. We walked down the Main Street, passing by multiple cafes, and one particularly delicious smelling pizzeria, before stumbling across Cowbee, a small cafe with a sunny attitude and ice cream and waffles all year round. My boyfriend got himself an ice cream cone (in the freezing cold???) and I warmed up with a hot chocolate.

Our sightseeing wasn’t over yet. After we left the café, we wandered over to the town hall. Built in the 1930s, it stands next to the local library and the Bristol cathedral. This cathedral was absolutely gorgeous; if you’re a fan of churches or just of brilliant architecture then I recommend you give it a visit.

It was at this point that hunger started to overtake my thoughts, and I insisted we find food and find it fast. On the walk back to my boyfriend’s accommodation, we passed through a small food market in the city centre. They had pizza and dumplings and potato fritters and, well, how could I resist? I opted for potato fritters with a spicy chicken stew on top, which was absolutely the right choice. The stew warmed me up from the inside and managed to also unclog my cold ridden sinuses with the chilli. Win win win I say.

Fast forward through to about dinner time (because truth be told we didn’t do much after we had lunch, just went home). I was on dinner choice duty. After scrolling through TripAdvisor and Instagram, I eventually decided that our best bet would be to return to the delicious smelling pizzeria on Main Street.

They did not disappoint. Pizzarova specialises in sourdough pizza with simple and fresh toppings. We ordered ours to go but the hole in the wall pizzeria has some seating in the back, making a romantic pizza date also possible. The pizzas took less than 10 minutes from ordering to when they placed them in our hungry hands. And once we arrived back, we were taken aback by how good it actually was. The base was by far the best part of the pizza; it was tangy, dense, and chewy, but also crispy and had great char throughout the bottom.

Of course, the pizza complimented our chosen entertainment for the night, a rewatch of Hamish and Andy’s Asian Gap Year.

The next morning, I had made a booking for breakfast at the diner across the street, because I was craving a proper fry up (One of the biggest things I’ve missed since coming to Stuttgart is a proper Australian cafe breakfast – an English fry up is the next best thing). I’d made the booking for 8:30 am on their online booking system, but when we arrived at the diner, we found that it didn’t actually open until 10.

Devastated and desperate for any sort of breakfast before I left, my very understanding boyfriend led me through the nearby mall until we found a Greggs (a British bakery chain). For the very reasonable price of around £5 each, we both end up with a breakfast sandwich and a hot chocolate. I also ordered a sausage roll because I hadn’t had one since I’d left Australia almost three months ago.

Something that both my boyfriend and I had forgotten, was that that particular Sunday was Remembrance Day, meaning that most of the main streets would be closed off for the services and parade. This threw a spanner in the works, as our plan was to go back to his room to chill before I caught the Bristol Flyer back to the airport from the stop across the road, but thanks to the road closures, we ended up having to walk a good ten minutes to the next stop where the road wasn’t closed.

Somehow, though we managed to miss the stop. After another five minutes of walking, we eventually realised our mistake and turned around. By the time we reached the bus stop though, the bus had just arrived, making our goodbye rushed and jarring. Teary-eyed I boarded the bus and headed back to the airport, ready to make my journey home.

Although this was an incredibly short trip, I don’t regret a second of it. Being in a long-distance relationship can be tough, but its trips like this that tide us over. Bristol, even in the rain, is a lovely city, and I would’ve loved to stay a few more days to really get to know the city my boyfriend chose for his exchange. I suppose it just means I’ll have to go back 😊

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samanthasroberts · 7 years ago

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I Teach At A For-Profit College: 5 Ridiculous Realities

For-profit colleges, aka colleges that operate for a profit, aka the only schools that buy pop-up ads, are a $30 billion industry, with millions of students nationwide. But much like that guy in high school with the bitchin’ mullet and radical IROC, just because they’re popular doesn’t mean they have the best reputation. We wanted to know how accurate that rep really is, so we sat down with “Stephen,” a former professor at one such college in Ohio. He told us …

There Is Zero Teaching Experience Required To Be A “Professor”

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Most teachers come equipped with a boxful of degrees, permits, certifications, and other fancy framed papers to confirm they’re trained educators and not, say, urine-soaked knife-wielding hobos. Not so with Steve’s school: “At my campus, I’d say that nine out of every ten professors don’t have an educational background.”

AndreyPopov/iStock/Getty Images “Hey Dave, drop what you’re doing. We need someone for Marketing 401.”

He was sure to point out that sometimes this led to great teachers, like the former hotel manager who became a professor of Hospitality Management: “He was honest about complaints, nipping lice infestations in the bud, and tons of other terrible things normal HM classes barely cover.” But that’s not a universal truth.

“Like, they may be an accountant during the day, but they moonlight teaching that at schools like mine … those teachers could be really good … But most had no idea how to teach. I sat in on a class going through economics, and … the ‘professor’s’ laptop gave the blue screen of death. He was a nice guy in his late 20s, and he immediately panicked.” Since the students were paying dearly for that professor’s time, they kept right on asking questions, like “What’s the difference between macro and micro economics?” Steve recalled, “He had a deer in the headlights look and he froze for 15 seconds. Finally, he said ‘Macro is big economies and Micro is individual economies. Like Bill Gates’ economy.’”

kasto80/iStock/Getty Images “Hold on, Wikipedia’s gone down.”

Those of you who know a little bit about economics might recognize that as complete fucking gibberish. Eventually, Steve and another teacher listening in had to call him out on his bullshit and give the class some proper answers, but, “When we gave the right definitions and answers to everything, he defended his answers as being correct. He was fired the next day.”

Jonathan Ross/Hemera/Getty Images Those who teach, can’t.

Once he’d started telling shitty teacher stories, Steve couldn’t stop. He told us about an accounting teacher in his 70s who told students “any math you couldn’t do by hand wasn’t worth teaching.” Another particularly enterprising educator gave out a two-week assignment to “have his students do his and his family’s taxes, giving bonus points to the ones who had found the way to have them owe the least.” Steve added, “He lasted three semesters.”

They Target Poor Minority Students And Con Them Into Taking Loans

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For-profit colleges promise students who didn’t do well in high school a chance at a real college degree for far less than fancy university prices. And since everyone gets in, your past doesn’t matter. ITT Tech will take any breathing human being who applies. It’s like the Little League of higher education, minus the Capri Sun at the end of every session.

These colleges sell themselves as a “way out” of poverty and desperation to people who are poor and directionless. Ninety-six percent of ALL for-profit students take out loans, compared to 57 percent of those at normal public college. And while the average college student only has an 8 percent chance of defaulting on their loan in the first few years, for-profit students have a 25 percent chance.

It should come as no surprise that investigations have shown that many for-profits do in fact target low-income people who can’t pay. These people are often minorities. One investigation turned up the training manual for recruiters at the for-profit college Vatterott, including a list of ideal types of people to recruit:

Leadership Conference on Human Rights – Has To Use Library’s Internet To Fill Out Application – Thought They Saw A Ghost One Time – Can’t Find Phoenix On A Map

Steve noticed the same thing at his school: “Most of my students made minimum wage, and over half were black. Every one of my students had a loan, and it’s all they ever talked about. Some felt strong-armed into them, but some wanted them. They lived off of them. They wanted the loans as another source of income because they couldn’t make ends meet with their regular jobs. They took a few classes to keep up appearances, but I would always know why they were really there. Every college has these students, but at my college, I had several in every class I taught. I never knew what happened to them after the semester and they were 20 or 40 grand in debt. Many struggled to make ends meet, and the college offered an easy way to get loans. What did you think was going to happen?”

AndreyPopov/iStock/Getty Images “Thanks for the mortgage payment.”

For-profit universities vastly prefer loans — and the long-term, interest-bearing income they generate — to straight cash payments. So much so that they often don’t take cash: “One student in particular told me that she had $20,000 from an inheritance in cash, but ran into roadblocks everywhere. My college wouldn’t accept cash, so she tried a check. They told her they couldn’t, since they had too many issues with bounced checks. She then tried paying online in full, but she was told she shouldn’t because ‘What if you decide to drop a class? Would you still want to pay for it?’ She then tried monthly payments, but she was informed she was too late to sign up. She could only take a loan.”

Digital Vision./DigitalVision/Getty It’s usually a red flag when a business won’t let you purchase their one product.

Schools like the University of Phoenix depend on student loans to survive. In fact, the latter actively instructs their “Phoenixes” to borrow the max amount. And how could that possibly backfire? For-profit universities are one of the major causes of the current student loan debt crisis. So if you’re a New Yorker who had your daily commute fucked up by Occupy Wall Street, you can blame like half of that on the Participation Trophy of colleges.

They Cost More To Attend Than Conventional Universities

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For-profit colleges advertise themselves as much more affordable than traditional universities. According to the ads, a for-profit college is the Costco of higher education: great quality without any unnecessary frills, for the budget-conscious consumer.

“‘Scholarship?’ It’s just a discount.”

Why, you save so much money on these programs that it’d be almost insane to get your degree anywhere else.

“Our scam is cheaper than their scam!”

Surprise! That’s all crap. These schools are filled with more hidden fees than a bank run by ninjas. Here’s Steve: “A close family member was deciding on a cheap starter college. She was looking at my college and Cincinnati State. Honestly, I just started at my school and I didn’t know what the full cost was. I asked and got a quote for $9,000 a semester … When I gave her the written quote, she looked right back up and said, ‘I could get a degree from Cincinnati State for that much.’ I was floored.”

Two years at a community college costs, on average, $8,300. Four years at a state college? $52,000. But at a for-profit, that Associate’s Degree is now $35,000. The Bachelors? $63,000. It’s like deciding to eat out at Olive Garden instead of that fancy French restaurant, only to discover that the bread sticks are the price of a used Toyota.

bhofack2/iStock/Getty Images “Considering they are unlimited, you can’t afford not to.”

Steve explained: “All normal colleges show how much a semester is, or give a price by class. At ours, they made it look cheap by giving price for each credit hour. [Note: They still do.] So many of my students were suckered in this way. They saw the $550 cost per hour … and they assumed that meant $550 per credit.”

Oops! Silly desperate students seeking to better their lives. You assumed “for-profit college” meant something besides “a shell game in which you gamble your paycheck for decades to come.”

Michael Blann/DigitalVision/Getty As least Vegas gives you drink and food comps when you do it.

A Degree All But Guarantees You WON’T Get A Job

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All for-profit colleges essentially promise you your dream job, falling just short of issuing IOUs for personal oral sex bots upon graduation. The word of the day, kids, is “bullshit.” It was revealed last year that the $75,000 three-year criminal justice degree offered by Westwood College comes with a 3.8 percent job placement rate. And most of those “jobs” are as some sort of security guard, aka the job literally any breathing human can get.

A school like the recently shut down Heald College, or DeVry, can famously claim 90-percent-plus job placement rates, which sounds super impressive … if you don’t know that the FTC is currently suing them for classifying a business major getting hired as a waiter to be an “in-field” placement. Or counting a job at Taco Bell as successful placement. Steve gave a shit about his students and did his best to prepare them for careers as accountants, “but most didn’t become accountants. We had to go off of curriculum, and while many of us got through that as fast as we could with our students to tell them what they really needed to know, we often didn’t have time.”

Rawpixel Ltd/iStock/Getty Images “Welcome to Money Management 101. Lesson 1: You shouldn’t have taken this class.”

Steve explained how his college practically went out of its way to make their courses useless: “Normal colleges give you a mix of course work, field work, and other assignments, slowly making it more and more real world. Once you get the basics, you learn the programs, you see what employers want, and you expand your knowledge. For-profits are like standardized tests. You get the basics, but almost none of it can be applied once in the real world.”

Pinkypills/iStock/Getty Images “And that about covers the basics of being a barista.”

The evidence shows that graduates from for-profits make less and are less happy about their prospects than those from larger colleges. This jives with Steve’s experiences: “I’ve met several graduates, and nearly all didn’t get the jobs they wanted. A few thought they were going to be teachers in a few years, and I found them working as subs. One student who said he wanted to run a hotel I met by chance at a hotel in Columbus, where he was only a part-time assistant manager at a Microtel [and] taking classes for ANOTHER degree at the University of Phoenix at night.”

BananaStock/BananaStock/Getty Images “Unfortunately, two fake degrees cannot combine like Megazord into one real degree.”

So uh … clearly, that guy doesn’t learn lessons easily.

The conventional logic is that any degree is better than no degree. But that may not be true with for-profit colleges. A Harvard study found that such students are 22 percent less likely to get a callback from a job than an otherwise-identical resume that named a public university. And it’s even worse with an online degree. Even if these students do find work, high school dropouts tend to earn more than for-profit degreers in the same field.

For-Profit Colleges Are In Big Trouble

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Over the last year or so, the hammer has started coming down on for-profit schools. Steve explained: “Obama had been threatening for years to do something about for-profit colleges, but no one believed he would go through with it. In early 2015, it was apparent he was trying to do something, and we got emails everyday. Most were telling us not to worry, but we also had emails that said ‘We’re as strong as ever!’ I worked there for three years, and the only emails they had sent me was pay stub receipts, password expiration reminders, and the odd departmental email … these emails really showed how worried they were.”

Devonyu/iStock/Getty Images They were a step away from emails asking their employees, “Are you a cop? If we ask, you have to tell us if you are.”

This finally prompted Steve to make a career change of his own. He found another job and gave his resignation to his department head, who “begged me to stay. He didn’t try to flatter me or say how much they needed me or anything you would expect to hear. It was, ‘I know you’re worried about this Obama law (I wasn’t), and we’re worried too, but it will all be OK.’ Everyone was acting like the apocalypse was coming.”

And what terrifying new law change had everybody soiling their chinos? To quote CNN:

“The new set of rules, called the gainful employment regulations, require colleges to track their graduates’ debt and employment to prove that their programs don’t fall short of federal guidelines. Institutions now have to provide information on program costs, how much students earn after they graduate and how much debt they could accumulate.”

Alex Wong/Getty Images News/Getty Images “We’re moving forward on a new controversial anti-lying law.”

The new law also set limits on how much the schools could charge for loan payments (no more than 20 percent of a student’s income). Despite how reasonable those restrictions sound, it was essentially the apocalypse for educational conmen. Roughly 1,400 programs serving 840,000 students were estimated to fall below those minimal standards. The University of Phoenix lost half its students. DeVry is currently being sued by the FTC for false advertising.

Steve was not bummed out at all by this. He still feels some guilt for being involved in the whole thing to start with: “One student I had told me that he knew he was being had. I started to say he wasn’t, but he told me to shut up. He told me he went $25,000 into debt for a degree no one took seriously. He had a family, and I got the sense he was doing this for them … He told me to go fuck myself and proceeded to tell a few other professors too. We never saw him again after that. I’m hoping, really hoping, that the new laws will make degrees for people like him from for-profits actually worth it.”

Kondor83/iStock/Getty Images “Congrats on getting hired! Here’s your desk.”

We hope so too, for the students’ sake, but we can’t imagine a future in which a prospective employer looks at your resume and says, “Whoa, University of Phoenix, huh? Don’t you think you might be overqualified?” Well, not with a straight face, anyway.

If you were misled by a for-profit college, please protect other students by letting the authorities know. If you decided to attend a school because of a misleading ad or deceptive recruiting, contact the Federal Trade Commission.

If you took out a private loan (not including federal student loans) to finance your education, you can also complain to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

If you are a veteran or service member who was deceived by a college, and you used the GI Bill or other VA programs to fund your education, please report it to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ new complaint system. The folks at Veterans Education Success would also like to hear from you, and can connect you with pro-bono attorneys, state and federal law enforcement agencies, and generally advocate on your behalf to the VA.

Evan V. Symon is an interviewer, writer, and interview-finder guy for the personal experience team at Cracked. Have an awesome experience/job you would like to share? Hit us up at [email protected] today!

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Source: http://allofbeer.com/i-teach-at-a-for-profit-college-5-ridiculous-realities/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/02/17/i-teach-at-a-for-profit-college-5-ridiculous-realities/

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adambstingus · 7 years ago