I love muckraking journalism.
I have a strong contempt for biased muckraking jounalism. The kind like Michael Moore, Greg Palast or David Brancaccio does in which they identify the guilty first and then go after the story to fill in the details. I've even pointed out in the past about their tendency to go soft on "the least of these" who fail to live up to a standard that they themselves would ever accept. (The example of Brancccio going to Rwanda and lauding their health care system. If the USA had a hospital of that quality he would film first and then join the picket line later)
Anyone who has read this blog over time knows that I have pointed out my observation that despite the fact that both health care costs and college tuition costs have greatly exceeded the pace of inflation - only the health care system has been assaulted by those who view the spiraling costs as a discriminator for access to care. When it comes to the educational system, however, these same people demand that the GOVERNMENT place more money into the till in order to allow more people to obtain their education.
This episode of PBS Frontline educated me on why there has not been the sustained attack upon education that has been the case with health care. Simple answer: Most university level institutions are NON-PROFIT.
The progressive establishment forces in the media and activism community have a problem with "for-profit" institutions more than they have a problem with increasing costs. If anyone can find a news magazine that has ripped apart the tuition bill from a public university and demanded to know where the money is going - please let me know. Instead they have gone after the banks that provide the student loans with the government underwriting the loans in the event of a default by the students.
The Frontline reporter Martin Smith does a poor job in hiding his contempt for "for-profit" educational institutions. These are "Devry", "University of Phoenix" and many of the professional assistant training schools that are advertised during the day. Smith goes after the high student loan default rates associated with these schools. Not once did I hear Smith index the default rates of these schools against those of a traditional not-for-profit school.
The main charge that Frontline sought to establish was that these for profit schools have the incentive to pack students in, get them a student loan and receive money from the government. With this profit motive in mind they target unqualified students with the goal of getting their money rather than providing them with a competent educational experience which will benefit them.
As Frontline told it - the students were being victimized by being allowed into a higher educational institution that they did not belong in. They were sold false dreams about their future potential and how education was the gateway to this future.
I would be far more impressed with Frontline if they dared to do a report approximately 25 years ago regarding the high drop out rates and lingering indebtedness that derived from "Affirmative Action" admissions to large public colleges over the past 40 years. As I listen to my frat brothers who are 15 years or more older than me they told of how in our school the Black freshman class would be pared in half after the first semester ending in December. Then the remaining half would be again pared in half after the first year. As the class matriculated through the four or five year stint, even more would fall away. What are the chances that Frontline would do a hard hitting expose' on the rate of non-payment of these loans as they waged an assault on the admissions of unqualified students? Answer- It ain't gonna happen.
The point is clear - in the case of providing educational opportunities to "non-traditional students" one man's assistance in providing educational opportunities to the student is another man's institutional profiteering.
PBS Frontline could not seem to get past its leftist bias which held "for profit" institutions in contempt. The only "good school" was a not for profit, government school.
When the executives from these for profit schools were asked by Smith "Do you think that education is a BUSINESS?" their answer in the affirmative no doubt "fried his innards". I image that he expected them to run away from the question, showing a bit of shame. I was happy to see them fully defend their efforts to expand the access to educational services to more students, through the use of Internet based communications.
In closing - the most frustrating point of all is that the same people who market the benefits of technology in spanning the "digital divide" are the very same people who are attacking innovative new learning models by which this resource is leveraged to extend education. If the claim is that certain students don't have access to the best professors, the video learning capabilities allow this professor to speak to them via the computer. It seems that the real interest of Martin Smith and Frontline was to protect the traditional non-profit brick and mortar school establishment form competition by the far more nimble "for-profit" schools. In their minds "education is a carefully guarded rare commodity" that must be distributed only by those who they approve of.
Put this down as yet another example of left-wing bias and bigotry that works counter to the interests of educating America as they defend their parochial interests.
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