Comparing nonprofit vs. for profit colleges
About this video
The video contrasts not-for-profit colleges, which include most national universities, with for-profit schools, which have grown in the last 10 to 15 years and exist to make money. It urges students to research carefully, checking graduation rates, average loan debt, job placement and starting salaries.
You'll be able to
- explain the difference between not-for-profit and for-profit colleges.
- list questions to research before choosing a for-profit school.
Key words
- not-for-profit school
- A college that does not exist to make money for owners; most national universities are this type.
- for-profit school
- A school run as a business whose job is to make money.
- business model
- The way an organization plans to make or use its money.
- loan debt
- Money a student borrows to pay for school and must pay back later.
Transcript
- In your research process you may also come across terms that are not-for-profit schools and for-profit schools. They're very different types of institutions, so you want to be careful to make sure you really do good research. Not-for-profit schools are the ones you probably readily recognize, most of the national universities are all nonprofit schools.
For-profit schools have really shown up in the last 10 to 15 years and have become a bigger player in this market, but they have a very different business model. Their job is to make money, so they're making different decisions, it's not to say that you can't get a good education from them.
Again, maybe they be teaching things like jobs for an x-ray technician, or crime scene investigator, or maybe cosmetology, those sorts of things. But you want to be careful and do your homework, you want to make sure that you go and see are students graduating in four years?
What's the average loan debt they have to take out at that school? Upon graduation, are they getting jobs in the field they've studied in? And maybe what's the average salary for those starting students coming right out of school?
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