For Profit College Executive Pay and Benefits That Will Shock You!

There are some things your college professor can’t tell you and some things that your professor doesn’t want you to know. I am about to share a little bit of both in an open letter to the CEOs and other executives at some of the For-Profit Colleges.

Just a little about me. I’ve been an educator for over 30-years. Many moons ago, I earned my graduate degree in applied mathematics and taught high school students basic arithmetic for nearly 25-years.

After I retired a few years back, I decided to work part-time as an online college adjunct to help make ends meet. My husband passed away 5-years ago so I needed to keep working.

What I have observed in this short period of time working as an online professor may shock some of you – particularly students who attend a For Profit college or take classes through the Internet.

Anyway, here it goes.

With all due respect, you people should be ashamed of yourselves. Never have I seen an industry that so exploits its talent as I have in the For-Profit Education sector, particularly online colleges and universities.

The dynamic many of you so called “Education Leaders” have set up is to work Full-Time and Adjunct Faculty down to the bone, robbing them of any real joy they once had for teaching.

How do some online schools exploit faculty? Let’s talk about loading up online professors with ridiculously high teaching loads that no real human being could possible manage and do so without cheapening the end result.

Which of you thinks in your right mind thinks it is OK to have any teacher instructing 400-600 college students at the graduate and undergraduate level on an annual basis?

Do you really call that “Education”? It’s called creating “robo-teachers” and it is a disservice to your students. Do your accrediting agencies know how many students you assign to faculty a year?

Probably not – because you do a good job hiding it!

Worse, you expect your faculty members to do extra work in addition to teaching impossible responsibilities. And so what I am I talking about here? Specifically, I am talking about asking your adjuncts and full-timers to redesign classrooms on a constant basis because you freak out each time you see a dip in the enrollment numbers, which of course is tied to your multi-million dollar salaries.

And because you are too cheap to hire instructional designers, you expect your faculty to design courses from scratch on a regular basis, write all of the course materials and then maintain the information within the Learning Management Systems (LMS). It has gotten to the point that “teaching” has become secondary because of job creep that you idiots have allowed to happen to your teachers.

Exploiting online faculty seems to be the name of the game for many of you. What am I talking about? Crap like asking your most talented employees (faculty) to do free stuff in order to market your schools so that you can hit enrollment numbers and meet your MBO’s. It’s not good enough that you have massive marketing departments with gigantic budgets to market your schools.

You think it is OK to ask your faculty to “Tweet” and “Facebook” about how great the school is. Some of you even approach faculty to write articles for your so called “student tips” websites, which we all know are nothing more than scams to lure in perspective students and perhaps get them to enroll in one of your programs. The free content you are asking your faculty to write is disrespectful to the profession. a disservice to the wider field of education and exploitative.

Finally, you stupid fools don’t know what the hell is going on in your respective schools. Some of you have not offered a survey to your faculty about how your teachers feel about working at your corporation – oops, I mean school. Why? Because you are afraid to read what your employees really think.

You people take home millions in executive compensation each year as do the rest of your leadership team, like the cadre of Vice Presidents who serve under you. What is sick is that a good chunk of you have never taught a freaking class in your lives.

You have however taken the require finance classes to earn those MBAs and can calculate your profits and bonuses quite nicely.

All of you have contracts that spell out exactly what you will be paid and so if you decide to bail on your school, you still get your golden parachutes. Meanwhile, teachers working at your respective “Institutions of Higher Learning” are paid ridiculously low wages in order for you to maintain the multi-million dollar lifestyles that you enjoy.

How many of you have private cars picking you up from your homes and taking you to work? How many of you have use of a private jet or fly exclusively in First Class when you travel? How many of you “wine and dine” stock holders and investors on the school’s dime? And when is the last time you actually interacted with faculty and more importantly, your students?

You people have been in your ivory towers for long that you have forgotten the people that you are there to serve – students! We are talking about learners who are trying to better their lives with many serving our country with honor and valor in the armed services. Again, you people should be ashamed of yourselves.

And the secret has already come out – you people make money based on profits. All anyone has to do is pull up the annual report of your respective school and see right in black and white.

Exorbitant wages and stock options that make most of you millionaires many times over, made possible because of the steady diet of Federal student loans that come into your schools. What’s it like to cash in on the hard work of everyday people, including students, faculty and taxpayers?

For investors, it is a great R.O.I. to be sure. You Online College CEOs keep the salaries and costs low and give investors the biggest bang for their buck. That’s what it’s all about, right?

What’s next, farming out your online faculty to China? Come on, be honest – you know you have thought about it. If the PR backlash wouldn’t be so bad, you would be doing it in a second.

For-Profit CEO’s, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Most of your universities are set up in a way that exploits faculty – faculty with advanced degrees.

Do us all a favor during the holidays. Instead of sending out an electronically signed holiday card and a crappy coffee cup to show your “appreciation” for hard work during the corporate (oops) academic year, consider instead the following.

Stop exploiting your faculty and pay them appropriately. Give them manageable student workloads. Stop the never-ending job creep. Stop asking them to do more work for free!

Get out of your ivory towers and try teaching a class, just once. See what it is like to be in the field and do the amazing work that teachers do.

Finally, look at your ridiculous salaries! Instead of doing away with teacher’s 401k match, you should be slimming down your fat compensation packages.

You people should be ashamed of yourselves!

FYI

- The information provided for this article was given to Mr. Hollywood from an online college adjunct in an interview. The teacher wishes to remain anonymous for fear of job loss.