Exploring the For-Profit Experience

The Labor Market Returns to a For-Profit College Education

Previous studies have shown that emotion is crucial in student learning. However, most studies in the e-learning environment have yet to consider emotion as part of learning that could lead to successful learning. Thus, this study explored the relationship between student emotion state, emotion sequences, and student learning experience. A preliminary data collection was conducted to explore the relationship between emotional experience and student learning experience, which involved 16 students. Students were asked to learn a programming subject in an e-learning environment. E-learning is designed to store the students' emotional experience and activity during learning. The sequential pattern mining technique was used to extract the data, exploratory data analysis was conducted to visualize the emotional trajectory during the learning process, and regression analysis was used to explain the relationship between students' emotional learning experiences. The results showed that emotional experience might affect student experience in learning. In one-sequence emotion, all emotion states contributed to the learning experience with p-values < 0.01 except for neutral and disgust with p-values < 0.05. The one-sequence emotion model shows R-squared = 0.585; Adj. R-squared = 0.734; F-statistic = 6.920; Prob (F-statistic) = 0.00702. Meanwhile, in two-sequence emotion, none of the emotion sequences contributed to the student learning experience. Lastly, three-sequence emotion models also showed that most sequences did not influence student learning experience. The only sequence of emotions that influenced the student learning experience was surprise-neutral-surprise. These results suggest that emotion should be considered in learning design as it can influence student experience.

Assess Your Adjuncts to Improve Student Learning

This paper examines how financial aid reform based on postsecondary institutional performance impacts student choice. Federal and state regulations often reflect concerns about the private, for-profit sector’s poor employment outcomes and high loan defaults, despite the sector’s possible theoretical advantages. We use student-level data to examine how eliminating public subsidies to attend low-performing for-profit institutions impacts students’ college enrollment and completion behavior. Beginning in 2011, California tightened eligibility standards for their state aid program, effectively eliminating most for-profit eligibility. Linking data on aid application to administrative payment and postsecondary enrollment records, this paper utilizes a difference-in differences strategy to investigate students’ enrollment and degree completion responses to changes in subsidies. We find that restricting the use of the Cal Grant at for-profit institutions resulted in significant state savings but led to relatively small changes in students’ postsecondary trajectories. For older, nontraditional students we find no impact on enrollment or degree completion outcomes. Similarly, for high school graduates, we find that for-profit enrollment remains strong. Unlike the older, nontraditional students, however, there is some evidence of declines in for-profit degree completion and increased enrollment at community colleges among the high school graduates, but these results are fairly small and sensitive to empirical specification. Overall, our results suggest that both traditional and nontraditional students have relatively inelastic preferences for for-profit colleges under aid-restricting policies.

In recent years, many have noted shadow of business cast on world of higher education. Conversations linger on fears of tighter funding and emergent corporate-style accountability. People talk of information economy, distance education, and for-profit colleges working change on landscape of traditional colleges and universities (Duderstadt; Levine; Selingo). Dread and anticipation mix in halls of academy, and one onlooker writing for Technology Review evokes potential for friction when he remarks, the convergence of technology and entrepreneurship is what ignites creative destruction. That convergence is to set eco nomics of tomorrow's higher aflame (Shrage 91). Amid consid erations of transforming academy, sensational images of for-profit crop up. Gordon C. Winston characterizes mood as one that wonders whether for-profit evokes Godzilla about to trample higher education or just triggers the overwrought voice of Chicken Lit de (12). In this context where some fear, resist, or deny change, we need a discourse that makes for-profit sector more concrete and visible to aca demics. What, for example, is range and quality of professional oppor tunities for English PhDs in for-profit sector, and what are implications of for-profit for English studies?

Unbundling is the process through which products previously sold together are separated into their constituent parts. In higher education, this dynamic has been driven primarily by financial motivations, and spearheaded by the for-profit sector, but also has pedagogical motivations through its emphasis on personalization and employability. This article presents a theoretical analysis of the trend, proposing new conceptual tools with which to map the normative implications. While appearing to offer the prospect of financial viability and increased relevance, unbundling presents some worrying signs for universities: frst, the removal of possible synergies between teaching and research, and between different modes of learning; second, the undermining of the ability of institutions to promote the public good and ensure equality of opportunity; and third, the threat of hyperporosity to the conducting of basic research with long-term benefits.
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\nA desagregação é o processo pelo qual os produtos anteriormente vendidos em conjunto são separados em suas partes constituintes. No ensino superior, esta dinâmica tem sido impulsionada principalmente por motivações financeiras e liderada pelo setor com fins lucrativos, mas também tem motivações pedagógicas através da ênfase na personalização e na empregabilidade. Este artigo apresenta uma análise teórica da tendência, propondo novas ferramentas conceituais para mapear as implicações normativas. Embora pareça oferecer perspectivas de viabilidade financeira e maior relevância, a desagregação apresenta alguns sinais preocupantes para as universidades: primeiro, a remoção de possíveis sinergias entre ensino e pesquisa, e entre diferentes modos de aprendizagem; em segundo lugar, o enfraquecimento da capacidade das instituições de promover o bem público e garantir a igualdade de oportunidades; e, em terceiro lugar, a ameaça de hiperporosidade na realização de pesquisas básicas com benefícios no longo prazo.

This paper provides stochastic frontier cost and (in)efficiency estimates for private for-profit colleges with comparisons to public and private non-private colleges. The focus is on the two-year U.S. higher education sector where there exists the largest and fastest growing entry of for-profit colleges. Unbalanced panel data is employed for four academic years, 2005-2009. Translog cost frontiers are estimated with an inefficiency component that depends upon environmental factors defined by college specific characteristics. More experienced public and private non-profit colleges are found to be more cost efficient relative to the newer entrants. In addition, the newer for-profits exhibit greater efficiency variability but also show some evidence of efficiency gains over the academic years. There is some cursory evidence that for-profit entry is positively correlated, albeit weakly, with greater public college sector inefficiency.

Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has received significant attention in the educational context, and one of the prominent forms of AI is ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer). This study aims to conduct a literature review on the role of ChatGPT AI in student learning experiences. This literature review research focuses on the use of ChatGPT in supporting the learning process of students at various levels of education. The literature review method is used to collect, evaluate, and synthesize the latest literature that is relevant to the research topic. The results of the literature review show that the use of ChatGPT AI in education has grown rapidly in recent years. ChatGPT has been applied in a variety of educational contexts, including as a learning assistant, virtual tutor, assignment corrector, and interactive learning aid. Some of the benefits of using ChatGPT AI in education include increasing the accessibility of learning materials, providing fast and personalized feedback, and encouraging student engagement and learning motivation. However, some challenges need to be addressed, such as ethical concerns, data privacy concerns, and technology limitations. This study concludes that AI ChatGPT has great potential to change the way students learn by providing adaptive and personal assistance in the learning process. To support more effective learning experiences, practitioners and decision-makers in the education sector need to understand the potential and limitations of using ChatGPT.

Students’ experiences and learning skills are key performance indicators for an institution’s performance. A questionnaire survey was conducted between university business students for a period of one semester to ascertain the role of improved learning strategies which are central to strategic planning. A survey on nearly 400 students was conducted and 95 respondents conformed to the guidelines and were analysed using SPSS. Results showed that the types of learning activities employed are on average okay and less stressful with quiz having the highest percentage. The poorer the student learning experiences and satisfaction, the more vulnerable these institutions are to having sustainable growth and the higher the student satisfaction and satisfactory learning experiences, the more preferable and competitive these institutions become. Students also gain more of knowledge and creative and innovative skills from the learning activities. Therefore, the current learning strategies are largely useful and dependable in building institutional capacity.

The digital age together with the political and economic agenda to make higher education more accessible and cost effective are challenging teaching academics worldwide to rethink and redesign their pedagogical practices. The challenges include how to respond to increasingly diverse twenty first century learners who demand flexibility, and the requirements of a more service driven economy. For a program to be successful in higher education's current learnscape, teaching and learning need to optimise students' experiences and learning outcomes. The exploratory study discussed in this chapter investigates seventy-three postgraduate students' experiences with blended learning in guidance and counselling programs in one Australian university with an offshore branch campus in Singapore. The study aims to inform the future design and delivery of teaching and learning within blended learning spaces with a focus on pedagogical practices for student engagement. As such, it contributes to the body of knowledge about learning design that enhances student learning experiences.

The first article in this issue raises some fascinating issues that relate to my own background in research into student learning and experience of courses in conventional higher education. Richardson, Long and Woodley have administered the Academic Engagement Form', used widely in colleges in the USA, and the 'Course Experience Questionnaire', used widely in universities in Australia, to distance learning students. John Richardson and various colleagues have previously shown that these questionnaires, separately, work as well in distance learning contexts as they do in conventional contexts: that is, they identify the same factors as components of students' experience, and the same factors relating to overall perceptions of quality of experience, as in conventional contexts. Of the many findings reported in the study reported in this issue of Open Learning, two stand out for me. First, academic engagement is shown to play a key role in students' perceptions of academic quality: engaged students perceive their course to be of higher quality. This does not tell us if students who are happy with their courses become more engaged or if those who are engaged become happier with their courses, however, merely that they are related. 'Engagement' here encompasses both social and academic engagement as defined in Tinto's model of student retention. Second, students' overall perceptions of academic quality are mediated by their perceptions of their tutors. The authors conclude: '... the attitudes and behaviours of tutors are crucial to students' perceptions of the academic quality of courses in distance education'. In conventional contexts the item on the Course Experience Questionnaire that relates most closely to student performance concerns the quality of teacher feedback, not teaching, and this is easy to understand in a distance context. The methodology of this paper (relying on factor analysis of questionnaires and multivariate analysis of the relationship between questionnaire scale scores and background variables such as age, gender, educational qualifications, workload and hearing status) may be relatively unfamiliar to readers of Open Learning. What is perhaps more familiar is that such an analysis adds to similar conclusions about the centrality of the tutorial role in ODL students' learning from very different kinds of study (such as of the relationship between tutorial attendance and student performance). There is a growing body of evidence that the same variables are involved in student perceptions of courses and of academic quality in distance learning contexts as in conventional contexts.

There has been ongoing research into qualitative differentiation of university student learning outcomes but limited attempts to explain the extent to which material elements such as learning technologies contribute to these differences. A theory of materiality for the university student experience is essential if teachers are to design and teach courses to help students achieve their learning outcomes and university leaders are to identify evidence about the extent to which the university should depend on material objects like learning technologies for educational outcomes. To develop an emerging theory of materiality, this paper begins with a brief review of prior studies into a seminal model of learning and teaching, the 3P (Presage/Process/Product) model and key research into materiality in learning. It then reviews case studies of self‐report and trace data sources along with complementary research methods and discusses insightful evidence of the extent to which material objects like learning technologies can explain the qualitative variation of the student learning experience. The case studies involve a triangulated approach to the evidence, by using both qualitative and quantitative methods of the self‐reported and trace data. The review of the case studies reveals the insights and importance for teachers and university leaders of; understanding the functional affordances of the technologies being used; constructively aligning them to learning outcomes, and helping students understand how and why they should use these technologies. The findings of this study confirm the value of a theory of materiality in understanding the role of material objects, like technologies, in university students' learning. The findings also offer insights for teachers, university leadership and researchers looking into implications of understanding materiality in learning. Context and implications The rationale for this study There are limited attempts to explain the extent to which material elements such as learning technologies contribute to qualitatively different university student learning outcomes. Why the new findings matter The findings confirm the educational and strategic value of a theory of materiality in understanding the role of material objects, like technologies, in university students' learning. Implications for university teachers and education leaders Teachers are likely to improve their outcomes if they design their learning activities with the affordances of the learning technologies in mind so that they are constructively aligned to students' learning outcomes; and leaders require evidence of the affordances of learning technologies to support the learning outcomes of programmes and the student experience if they seek to provide effective learning environments.

Postsecondary education for inmates is championed as an important path to rehabilitation and a factor minimizing recidivism. Over the past four decades, several for-profit colleges and universities have offered degree-based programs to inmates at American correctional facilities. This article reviews the history of these educational institutions, the typical inmates who enroll in these kinds of courses, the appeals that these businesses make to convicts, the channels for their advertisements, and the experiences of inmates who have enrolled and (sometimes) graduated from these courses. This study takes both an historical and an autoethnographic approach to its subject matter. The authors conclude by speculating on appropriate policy responses to for-profit postsecondary education institutions that provide this kind of service to inmates, and alternatives that may be better methods for college degree instruction and delivery in jails and prisons.

As J. C. Miner points out in her Editorial “America's community colleges” (23 March, p. [1409][1]), community colleges offer outstanding training opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for underrepresented populations. They also provide an important STEM training opportunity for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, a population that unfortunately has been preyed upon by for-profit universities. The Post-9/11 G.I. Bill provides veterans and their families generous educational benefits but, as the U.S. Senate's HELP Committee's ongoing investigation reported ([ 1 ][2]), 37% of the $4.4 billion spent between 2009 and 2011 went to for-profit educational institutions, which trained only 25% of the veterans. In these schools, the cost per veteran averaged $10,875, compared with $4,874 in public colleges. Moreover, the withdrawal rate for bachelor's students in the eight most generously funded for-profit schools averaged a disappointing 53.3%, compared with 19.8% in public schools. The investigation reported that “[t]he majority of students enrolling in for-profit schools emerge with debt but without a diploma.” President Obama sought to end these abuses through an Executive Order signed at Fort Stewart on 27 April ([ 2 ][3]). ![Figure][1] Supporting the troops. President Obama signs an Executive Order to protect veterans from deceptive marketing by for-profit schools. CREDIT: DAVID GOLDMAN/ AP PHOTO Community colleges offer broad-based curricula, quality teaching, flexible class schedules, and (unlike many for-profit schools) college credits transferable to 4-year institutions, all at an affordable price. Yet cuts in state funding are diminishing our community colleges. For example, California's outstanding system will endure a 5% budget cut in 2013, forcing a 20% decrease in course offerings ([ 3 ][4]); California's state college system is planning to freeze admissions, which will clog community colleges and curtail opportunities for new students, including veterans. Many young people opt for military service specifically to qualify for educational benefits, and some are primed for STEM training because of the positions they filled in the service. We owe these students quality STEM educational opportunities. Community colleges offer a superior product and value; they are veterans' best bet. 1. [↵][5]U.S. Senate, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, “Benefitting whom? For-profit education companies and the growth of military educational benefits” (2010); . 2. [↵][6]1. T. Lewin , The New York Times (28 April 2012), p. A11; [www.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/education/obama-signs-order-to-protect-veterans-from-college-recruiters.html][7]. 3. [↵][8]1. C. Rivera , The Los Angeles Times (25 March 2012); . [1]: pending:yes [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #ref-3 [5]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [6]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text [7]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/education/obama-signs-order-to-protect-veterans-from-college-recruiters.html [8]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3 in text