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Comment Online classes aren't real great (Score 1) 428

I've taught a few online classes for a state-wide community college. To say I've "taught" them is kind. I was basically a grader. The first day of the semester they blasted the material onto the online Blackboard system and it had all the due dates and assignments. I couldn't change anything on the syllabus because the syllabus was standardized for every section across the state and so were the grading tools. This meant that when they turned in speeches (yes I "taught" public speaking online for one of the classes as strange as that sounds) and the speeches were done on terrible topics I couldn't lower their grade or tell them to redo it. When their voices had no enthusiasm at all I couldn't lower their grade because the state mandated grading tool didn't have anything that covered enthusiasm. This meant that you could take the class, do a speech that wasn't really appropriate, read in a monotone and still get an A as long as you took all the tests, had good eye contact, and met the time length and visual aid requirements.

Comment For Profit Colleges are terrible (Score 4, Informative) 428

Business Week has done a few scathing articles about for-profit colleges in the last year. One showed how they go into homeless shelters and try to get homeless people to sign up for student loan money. One college even went so far as to actually pay the homeless students for attending classes. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_19/b4177064219731.htm?chan=magazine+channel_features

Another story was about how they have gotten into the practice of buying up super small trade colleges so that they can get the accreditation. One of these for-profit schools bought an aviation school and "expanded" it into mainstream courses http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_11/b4170050344129.htm

A third story was about how these for-profit schools also target the military. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_02/b4162036095366.htm

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