I’ve always wondered why people would pay profit schools rather than attending their local community/junior college. You’ve GOT to know what you’re signing on for people.
With Goldman’s Foray Into Higher Education, A Predatory Pursuit Of Students And Revenues
Goldman For Profit Higher Education
First Posted: 10/14/11 08:34 AM ET Updated: 10/14/11 03:56 PM ET
Goldman Sachs , Wall Street , Private Equity , Providence Equity Partners , University Of Phoenix , College , For-Profit College , Higher Education , Online College , Online Higher Education , Business News
Education Management Corp. was already a swiftly growing player in the lucrative world of for-profit higher education, with annual revenues topping $1 billion, but it had its sights set on industry domination. So, five years ago, the Pittsburgh company’s executives agreed to sell its portfolio of more than 70 colleges to a trio of investment partnerships for $3.4 billion, securing the needed capital for an aggressive national expansion.
One of the new partners brought an outsized reputation for market savvy, deep pockets and a relentless pursuit of profits — the Wall Street goliath, Goldman Sachs.
After the deal closed and Goldman became a partner, employees soon noticed a drastic shift in culture. Longtime admissions managers were replaced, ushering in an era in which recruiters were endlessly hounded by supervisors about hitting weekly enrollment targets. The admissions staff nearly tripled, requiring expanded floor space to accommodate a sales force of more than 2,600 across the country.
Management handed down revamped telemarketing scripts designed to prey on poor and uneducated consumers, honing in on their past mistakes in life as a ploy to convince them that college would solve all their problems, according to conversations with more than a dozen current and former Education Management Corp. employees over the past two months.
“You’d probe to find a weakness,” said Brian Klein, a former admissions employee who worked for three years at Argosy University Online, one of four major colleges operated by EDMC. “You basically take all that failure and all those bad decisions, and you spin it around and put it right back in their face as guilt, to go to this shitty university and run up all of this debt.”
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