The Mystery of the For Profit College

It all started when I accepted that job at the technical college in Manhattan in September, 2010. They called me at the last minute to come for an interview at their main midtown campus. The Dean of Instruction was very cordial. He told me the history of the school (it was founded in 1909 to train radio and television technicians for the burgeoning communication’s industry.) He wanted to hire me to teach a communication course for students who hadn’t yet passed the reading and writing requirement to take regular college English classes at the school.

The class met every Thursday for 15 sessions. The only bad news was that it began at 8:00 AM. However the pay was good and there didn’t seem to be any requirements to teach the class. I was given a textbook which seemed too detailed and expensive. I also imagined that I would have to give the students written assignments since the midterm and final would probably require that the students complete a coherent essay. Nobody told me this, but I just assumed it would be a good idea after I looked at the textbook.

Nobody gave me a class list so on the first day of class I allowed the students to sign an attendance sheet, which I left in the mailbox of the assistant site administrator who I never met until the second week of classes. (She didn’t have to be there until after 9:00 AM and there was no one else in the building when I arrived except the security officer at the door, who always greeted me with a smile.)

The first day of classes, there were seven students present, although I later found out there were 22 people officially scheduled for the session. I didn’t discover this until I had internet access to the class roster, which was about four weeks into the term. Until that time I had to access the school website at the school computer with a temporary password which I obtained from the assistant school administrator. I also didn’t get paid until the second month of teaching because I wasn’t officially on their electronic payroll system until that time.

All this is par for the course for most large community colleges so I was used to it. (I also work for a large state community college teaching Reading to similar students.) However I wasn’t prepared for what was going to happen in my class when the weeks progressed. The next best attended day was the third session when there were 13 students present. After that it varied from week to week, from 14 students on the day of the midterm to 0 students on the official make-up day to replace Thanksgiving. As for lateness, there were only two students who were always present that were usually never late. The others came any time from 8:30 AM until as late as 15 minutes before the end of the class – 10:45 AM.

Needless to say there wasn’t much continuity to the class. I soon found out that most of them hadn’t bought the textbook so we all decided that the class work, quizzes, tests, and homework assignments would be based on whatever reading material I provided for the class each week. We started with a poem by Langston Hughes, and continued with articles I reproduced from my previous teaching materials, and what was relevant or interesting from the New York Times.

When the students started writing in class, I realized that their communication skills were anywhere from barely literate to better than the average four year college student. However all were assigned to the class because they had failed the placement test or had never graduated from a New York State high school. Some were hoping to get GED credit for the class, since they couldn’t get credit for their regular college classes unless they had a high school diploma. Some were immigrants (mostly from the Caribbean or Latin American) who couldn’t supply official school records from their birth country.

I was amazed one day when a beautiful articulate young lady showed up for the first time on the day of the midterm, finished the essay in a half hour, (she scored 95% ) and explained to me that she probably wouldn’t appear on the register because she couldn’t get financial aid to pay her tuition. She claimed she was living in a homeless shelter in the Bronx with her baby because she had been abused by the baby’s father. I asked if the school had provided her with some counseling to help her. She said, “Not yet,” so I gave her my personal email address so she could get in touch with me in case she needed help. I never heard from her again and her name was removed from my class roster.

Other students also showed up and never reappeared; some resurfaced after my not seeing them for weeks and explained they had “personal problems” (everything from being arrested for subway fare infractions, to “my kids being sick,” to “my girlfriend giving birth,” to not being able to afford the transportation from Connecticut and Staten Island.) Why they were going to this college when they lived so far from Manhattan I never really found out.

During the last few weeks of the term in December we were down to about seven students who showed up on a regular basis (most of them late.) I tried assigning a research report after the midterm and we visited the computer room next door for two sessions. The same seven students completed it, plus one who emailed it to me on the day after the final. (I hadn’t seen him for four weeks after I assigned the report.)

Eventually half of the students officially disappeared from the original electronic class list. I never found out what happened to them as I was never able to access any information about students on the school website (even though I was able to record absences and grades using my password.) Right before the midterm I gave out index cards to the regular students to record personal information like phone numbers and email addresses. On the back I asked students to tell me what their educational goals were as students at the college. I discovered that some of them were there for the vocational programs, like automotive mechanic or refrigeration and air conditioning repair and installation. But I was surprised to discover that at least half of them had majors in business or computer programming. I tried to explain to them that the city and state community colleges all had excellent degree granting programs in those fields. Some of them could actually qualify for admission and financial aid and I urged them to apply. Of course this college had never made them aware of this information since most of them received very little counseling.

At the end of the term, eight students showed up to take the final exam and all of them received a passing grade - anywhere from HPR (high passing grade) to LPR (low passing grade.) This was school policy on grades for non-credit courses.

When I handed in my final exams the week before the winter break I had more or less decided that I wouldn’t teach the class again, especially not at 8 o’clock in morning. However nobody contacted me (I found out that I was scheduled to teach the class again by going to the same website I had used to record attendance and grades.) I tried calling the school several times after the New Year and left messages but no one got back to me until the day before the class was scheduled to begin. I told the placement director exactly how I felt about the experience teaching that particular class (see above.)

I think I understand now why the government wants to investigate for profit colleges. I have no idea whether this particular college is collecting financial aid from unsuspecting students and misleading them into thinking that they could get well-paying jobs when they graduate. What I do know is that my students didn’t know much more about how to communicate better in English than they did when they registered for the class in the fall. If I were in their place I would be looking for another way to obtain an Associate college degree.

Gerri Gewirtz (1/17/10)