Thread regarding DeVry Inc. layoffs

Composition instructors have it rough--it's not like, "oh they left out a semicolon, take off 5 points". It's more like, "none of these sentences are even sentences, nor do they make any sense". Also, at least half of the words are completely misspelled. Better take off 10 points. This would apply to many papers received. They should offer more free remediation courses before allowing actual enrollment & make that a requirement for federal aid.

I sometimes would help with placement testing for students wanting to come to DeVry. Some of the things they would write.....I'm surprised they could even spell their names. I wondered how they would even make it through one class. But if you had a pulse and a way they could make money off of you, you pretty much were in. That's not a school, that's a diploma mill.

Oh, I had to go beyond 'dumb down' to somehow pass the blush test of an entire class getting mostly As and Bs. Mind you, none of these people could do basic math. 1/4 = head scratching. Not kidding. We did the whole curriculum using the 4-6th grade math books from my kids for content. This was a junior level math class. For IT/Tech students. I quit right after. I come here to see if things still s0ck. They do. So sad.

Has anyone been asked or told to dumb down their coursework because students weren't bright enough to pass the class?

To someone living in a box or under a bridge who can barely add 34+128, the arm-twisting of "you know you qualify for $30000 in financial aid, why not become a computer programmer--we'll teach you, start tonight". "Yeah, $30000 is really waiting for you, just sign here", probably sounds pretty good.

menny syn the dawtad line think it gonna be a pees of cayk (sadly, not kidding!!)

@6wgc I felt bad that it was implied here that the homeless shouldn't be part of an educational program but your examples made me reconsider. Sounds like these students don't care and these schools definitely don't.

For the poster below -- vagabonds move around so maybe they're better being in your online division.

I've taught for UoP campus, CTU online, Kaplan online, Strayer online, and Everest campus. Every single one of these schools enrolls homeless people. How, I don't know. But I had to field emails from students from all of these institutions who were struggling to get their 3 sentence discussion board posts in because they had no electricity in their tent or car or the shelter had no computers and they couldn't get a library card. I had a student for UoP who would take an entire bath in the men's room over the course of an hour and use up all the paper towels and flood the floor. He washed his laundry in the sinks. He used his loan money for food, gas, and it turns out heroin. He got kicked out of our program after he OD in the stair well.

I had two students who were in and out of prison and used their loan money to buy and sell drugs. We had another student who donated her old textbooks to these two students only to find out they were selling them to other students for $$. Con-men. Yes.

For profits attract the pond scum of society. I stopped teaching for them. It was too depressing.

Maybe the con man at the school wasn't the student! Too many enroll for something they don't even have an interest in--why?

Sadly, previous poster--you are incorrect. I taught at Keller and Devry in Atlanta and both schools had homeless students. Most campuses had to lock their computer labs at night because homeless students were sleeping there. I'm not assuming this, these students discussed their plights with me. Some were using their student loans to pay for a place to sleep. This was happening in 2012.

"Enrolling the homeless, the vagabond, the con man, etc does not make it a "college"."

That was Corinthian Colleges, not DeVry. For enrolling the homeless, that is. I can't find any references to schools enrolling 'con men', unfortunately. And It's a pretty fine line between vagabonds and the homeless. Where does one draw the line? And distinguishes a vagrant from a vagabond? Seems like you had one point but wanted three different accusations. DeVry was accused of misrepresenting employment stats, not brazenly trying to educate card sharps and carpetbaggers. Do you picture students showing up like Charlie Chaplin with bundles tied to sticks slung over their shoulders? DeVry is stuck in the 1990s, not the 1930s. I will think of your stupid comment when I try to repeal prohibition before the next session's classes start, though. Did you hear that women can vote now? And FDR has a great "New Deal" that he's created with tons of government hiring via the WPA. That Armistice with the Triple Entente looks a little shakey, though. And stay out of the stock market.

Don't put your 4 graduate degrees on your Target application. Just put college.

And the 4 graduate degrees? Are they all from for profit schools? No one is going to respect these degrees if you apply somewhere that requires education. It's actually worse than having none because everyone knows it's make a believe and it looks like you couldn't get a degree at a reputable institution.

Be smart.

http://www.chronicle.com/article/What-s-the-Ideal-Mix-of/241616?cid=gn&utm_source=gn&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=d3290e2bb98a4566ac842ff4d1263180&elq=c54b83f869074f6289001cb93a7d3d4d&elqaid=16408&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7101

...I'm stuck teaching. I hate my life. I hate my students. I hate for-profits most of all because this all their fault....

At least you can probably qualify for an employee tuition discount YEA! You are only stuck if you think you are stuck.

Most of the for-profits have little to do with education, they should be called for-attendance, since that is all that matters for the profits. Enrolling the homeless, the vagabond, the con man, etc does not make it a "college". Stop giving federal aid to all for-profit schools and the charade will stop.

You are in denial there are some universities that have great online programs and professors. Most for profit schools gave tarnished there image by greed and a priority of satisfying investors. They are not vested in the students and there business model has failed.

Online education could be great, but not as it is currently approached. The pressure to "persist" students is a central problem. The student-professor (instructor/facilitator) void is also a problem--even keenly committed faculty have difficulty filling it. Course design/shell content ensuring basic order often simultaneously ensures superficial, mediocre outcomes for the best and brightest. Online education needs its own pedagogical paradigm. Professors need control of these classes. The institution needs to accept failure rates and stop flooding courses with those ill-equipped to survive them. Students who come out of on-site classes, by the way, where deeper personal/professional relationships and hand-holding are possible and encouraged, are often the weakest performers in online environments. Too many students without basic skills are admitted, and too many professors have felt their pain, their hopelessness, their multi-generational disenfranchisement, and have passed them along, hoping somehow, that a higher moral right was being achieved. Education everywhere has been watered down, professors everywhere have lost authority in their classrooms, and students everywhere are paying more for and receiving less from their education.

Blame the faculty is the norm at these for-profits. Teaching for 5 different schools right now, it is the same pattern everywhere. They treat faculty like we are some dumb animal grateful for the pitiful handouts we have to beg for each quarter. We get bullied by administration, bullied by the students and have no other choice often but to keep teaching at these sh!t institutions because nobody else will take us now given the crap we now have on our CVs. When one of us just quits because they are done with the abuse the level of shock and surprise over the departure by admin is fascinating to watch.

Did you people think it is OK to treat us like crap and expect us to come back for more abuse? Are you nuts??? Did you even remotely think that those of us with other options would put up with your idiot students or your moronic leadership forever? Really? The people left teaching have no other options, that is who is left. The poor, the desperate, the between a rock and a hard place people. These aren't heroic, want to make the world a better place to sir with love, professors. God no. Try getting a job at Target with 4 graduate degrees. They look at you like you are out of your mind. I tried. I also knocked on the door at Kohls, Starbucks (too old apparently), Home Depot, Lowes, Discount Tires and a bunch of other places. I'm stuck teaching. I hate my life. I hate my students. I hate for-profits most of all because this all their fault.

The faculty have little to nothing to do with the crisis....it seems like the attempt to bring in anyone who might only have the slightest interest in a program or capable of taking it on (often with a boatload of personal issues), really hurts. It causes an endless cycle of students dropping out or signaling others not to enroll...low enrollments & cutting staff=crisis. Maybe online should simply be discontinued.

Blame AdAstra for not running classes on-prem. The machine says it's cheaper to force everyone to online than it is to try to make classroom courses happen where they need to schedule instructors at campuses and deal with the logistics of putting butts in seats.

Or you could blame a curriculum that has lost focus on technology, bridged into weak areas and aged (both quickly and poorly compared to the offerings of even community colleges) for a decline of interest in campus classes.

TL'DR - DVU diversified too late, lost its edge and is paying the price in the age of MOOCs and other education disruptions.

No, not really. And you meant 'affects', not 'effects' . Sorry, I guess it can be difficult to write a coherent English sentence. Hmm. Did you have trouble posting your comment also?

Isn't the main issue that many of the students can barely write a coherent sentence, solve a few simple equations, operate a PC effectively, etc? If so, that effects the whole operation. Picking up a few derelicts just to have enrollments, doesn't do much to help the situation.

The pool just got a bit smaller....

http://www.chronicle.com/article/Cappella-Strayer-Merger-Is/241605?cid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=80e3f88336fe404193cd396a6edf380a&elq=86417126f5fc469c955b196e6cb00c2d&elqaid=16360&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7067

It's too late to point fingers...and you're pointing them at the wrong people. Online faculty aren't the reason for the university's problems... they're not being trained, and they're not being mentored...a concept which has failed to take hold with both online and onsite for as long as I can remember. When the people in the front of the room are considered inventory and are moved around like furniture and treated like the reason why the latest recovery plan isn't working, then you have a morale problem of unimaginable dimensions. No amount of finger pointing and rationalization is going to fix it.

The earnings call is on Thursday.

For those wishing to participate by telephone, dial 877-407-6184 (domestic) or 201-389-0877 (international). Ask for the “Adtalem Call” or use conference ID: 13671827. Adtalem will also broadcast the conference call on Adtalem's website at: http://www.investorcalendar.com/event/17942.

It is always the other person who is at fault!