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The role of For-Profit Universities for Faculty

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Posted by Lawrence Bowdish, community karma 347

Barring some major changes in academia, we will have to consider the role that for-profit universities (both on-line and in "brick and mortar" versions) will play in the future.

While there have been major conversations in places like the Chronicle and the NY Times about the role that for-profits will play in student's education and outcomes, I wonder more about the role it will play amongst faculty and our corner of the academy.

I work as an adjunct for a for-profit university, and when I've attended conferences or colloquia with my school's name on my badge, sometimes I get the rolled eye look or the cold shoulder. I think this is because, in the past, people who exclusively taught at for-profit schools were generally less qualified as academics than the rest of the professoriate.

However, I think that is bound to change. As more people gain PhDs in the Humanities and Social Sciences from top tier Research I institutions and cannot find work, they will be more inclined to take for-profit work as their primary employment, and those institutions I think would want to have them to help shore up some of the negative press they have gotten in the past.

On the other hand, working for a for-profit university has its own problems that academics might balk at. The only thing more bureaucratic than a public university (besides the government) is a for-profit university. Many, though not all, professors will chafe at the more business-like structure. In a profit-seeking model, research is largely ignored (although I have watched that attitude thaw at my own institution), and there might be more control over teaching methods

So, what do you all think? Will academics embrace the opportunities that for-profit teaching might hold? Or will they want to remain embedded in the current system?

A few more recent articles on For-Profits

http://chronicle.com/article/Changeeduthe-Problem/130596/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/us/politics/mitt-romney-offers-praise-for-a-donors-business.html?pagewanted=all

almost 13 years ago
Tags: teaching, for-profit, academy

1 Comment

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Gordon Douglas, community karma 549

This is a really great question Lawrence, and I'm grateful for your own personal insights that you provide here. Working as I do away from my home institution, I've thought about teaching for a couple of for-profit colleges here as well for money and additional teaching experience. On those terms, it seems it may not be the best plan for my current situation - pay is dreadful, sometimes hourly based only on time in front of the classroom, while I've been advised that the experience, at least in terms of c.v.-building, may be a non-starter in some camps due to the afore-mentioned stigma against for-profits. 

But this gets right to the heart of your question really... where are young, fresh-to-market PhDs to go, with greater competition but minimal growth in the traditional higher education sector? I would assume, as you do, that barring major upheaval (and considering the apparent growth in for-profits) more highly-qualified professors will end up working in for-profit colleges. You may be right that this could begin to change the stigma - more importantly, I hope, it would begin to change the actual for-profits themselves, some of which are probably NOT currently working in the best interests of the communities they serve. I have no particular need to work in an R1 institution, and strongly believe in our roles as educators in addition to researchers, but from what I understand, there are for-profits that do not uphold the highest values of higher education. I suspect this is a bigger problem for potential professors than too much bureacracy.

I don't know enough about it honestly, and I know that some for-profits provide a much-needed service for certain students, that some probably live up to the argument that a market-oriented model should increase education quality... but certainly others are probably deservedly earning the 'unethical' or 'exploitative' reputation that scars the whole sector. I think this is what will have to be confronted before academia 'at large' will embrace for-profits as an acceptable part of the system. And even then I'm sure many will continue question the bureaucratic culture and the profit model more generally.

over 12 years ago
Gordon, You're absolutely right, and bring up a point I hadn't really thought about - the scruples of academics. Since I thought about it in a generally economic frame of mind, I just assumed that the equilibrium cost of labor and wages would get to the point where a potential professor would take a job at a for-profit university. I had thought about bureaucracy, but remained silent on salient points about the "highest values of higher education." I could never foresee a system where top tier liberal arts/private/R1 institutions do not get the first pick of faculty members. It just seems with the contraction in some departments and reliance on adjuncts across the board, there are plenty more aspiring faculty members who care about those higher values than there are positions open to them at those institutions. I'd like to think that they take that consideration with them no matter where they teach (at least I'd like to think I did), and there are some for-profits where they can surely do that. I may be wrong, but I think that more professors would question the profit model and bureaucracy (things they have no control over whatsover) more than the higher value argument (which, in some cases, they have some latitude on)
Lawrence Bowdish – over 12 years ago
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