For Profit 2 year Colleges Focus on Completion

My last blog covered the variety of 2 year public colleges. But many for profit firms focus on less than 4 year degrees such as Devry, ITT, Phoenix, Heald, and Career Education. The business models for these firms rely on student retention and growth to increase their stock price. So they try to limit dropouts and help students complete their program. It costs about 30% of tuition they get to recruit a student, so this is another incentive for retention
Public 2 year schools are not paid for completion. In California the community colleges are paid for third week in a semester attendance. So they can use a "churn business model "that keeps them solvent if new entrants equal drop outs. There is an urgent need to rethink the institutional funding incentives in the 2 year public sector. For some ideas on how to do this read Invest in Success by Sacramento State, www.csus.edu/ihe

Labels: College Completion, College Success Studies, two year colleges