Why Lower-Income Students Are Drawn To For-Profit Schools Summary

People attend college to become successful, independent adults, and for-profit schools draw the attention of many students because of the short amount of time the school claims to give out a degree. In the article, Why Lower-Income Students are Drawn to For-Profit schools, by Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz, real-life examples are provided of the negative effects of for-profit schools. What many students thought was going to better his/her future, actually brought it down. High school graduates are reeled into the advertisements of for-profit schools and in the end are left with major debt and even struggle to start his/her career. Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz reveals the secret behind for-profit schools through the use of ethos. Richard Green, a former DeVry

According to the text, while living on food stamps and struggling with jobs, Mr. Green says, “I shouldn’t have to go through all that trouble just to get to where I need to go”. The author uses this quote as credibility to show that people that have attended for-profit schools are struggling more than necessary, and although the schools claim to be better for one's future they execute the opposite. This persuades the audience because no one will want to attend these kind of schools after witnessing Richard Green’s wasted time and money. Richard Green was expecting to graduate from DeVry as a successful man but because of the debt that Mr. Green was left in, Mr. Green dropped out. Another example of a struggling student is Maria Masso. Maria, like Richard Green was approached by a recruiter and was able to get a degree in only two years. Eventually, Maria wanted to transfer to a four-year school and according to the text, “...she was told they couldn’t accept her credits...but Masso recalls

In the text it states, “ On average, attending a two-year for-profit institution costs a student four times as much as attending a community college, according to the Department of Education”. Alexia compares the cost of the schools to the cheaper form of college, a community college. Although it is already the cheaper kind of school, going to a community college longer is cheaper than attending only two years of a for-profit college. That being the case, students have financial problems and struggle to get his/her life started. The author says in the article, “Six years after enrollment, 23 percent of students who had graduated or otherwise left for-profit colleges were unemployed and seeking work compared with about 15 percent in the other institutions, according to a 2013 paper from Harvard researchers”. This indicates that these schools cause unsuccessful futures and this information shows why people should not support for-profit schools. Alexia supplies these statistics and studies to show the valid sources that have proven the downsides after graduating a for-profit school. High school graduates fall into well displayed advertisements and expect to live his/her’s ideal self and end up the total opposite because of the struggle to find jobs and support themselves. These studies are provided from a non-profit