the issue is that public money is being used for this scheme, not that there's anything wrong with taking money from idiots in general.

Hence the argument that public money[1] should not be involved. The school management can't say "no" to it (from any angle), and the would-be students think it's free; nobody, lender in particular, hammers home the point "if you don't do the work, you'll be in deep financial $#!^".

It's the borrower "putting them into debt". Society pressures kids into getting a degree, the school makes it easy to start the process, government makes it easy to borrow the money, but ultimately it's up to the enrollee to sign for the loan and do the work to make it pay off. Every self-appointed pundit is pointing fingers at the school (for "fleecing" students) or the government (for "wasting" public funds), but nobody is pointing at the students for not making the effort.

[1] - "public" insofar as it was legally confiscated from the public at implied gunpoint.

I'm calling complete bullshit on this one: isn't that the very definition of admissions? Even if you claim it's not, I think that if you look at any student's previous grades / work experience / references, you can quite reliably determine who will do the work and who will not.

These schools simply don't want to: they want to admit everybody so they can take their money in exchange for basically nothing. I would fully support legislation to bar for-profit institutions from receiving any federal tuition aid (whether loans or grants).

> public money[1] should not be involved. The school management can't say "no" to it

This is false: schools are not required to accept federal loans.[1]

[1] http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865576111/No-more-student... to accept federal loans

By "won't do the work", I mean really simple things. A student has a week to take a simple on-line 10-question multiple-choice quiz, but doesn't even look at it. For every creative assignment, I make clear "submit something - even if it's just a text file saying 'I have no idea', I'll work with you on it", but nothing is submitted. I'll take a submitted "program" of pure gibberish, write a detailed explanation of what's wrong and how to make it work, tell them to fix it, and give them until the very end of the course to do anything & everything to make it passable, but no resubmission is attempted. Online group discussion participation is required with a weekly N-post minimum (N very small) with very low content standards, a very simple requirement, but little or no participation occurs. These are students who passed high school, hold jobs, can hold competent conversations, show up for class, etc.; I have no reason to doubt they have references, adequate prior grades, and work experience. Yet...when given a very basic collegiate task, they won't do it to a mere 60% sufficiency.

There's a fundamental difference between high school and college: the latter is not obligated to pass you. Every opportunity is given, every task may be simplified to near-triviality, but if the student won't take the steps on their own, they reap the consequences of willful inaction.

But, of course, you refuse this experiential insight and insist it's all about malicious greed.

You miss my point: it's not about rejecting federal loans, it's about rejecting an applicant who does satisfy grade/work/references/funding criteria when there are openings, but the admissions personnel concludes admission still isn't a good idea. The mortgage industry knows what I'm referring to.

No it wouldn't. Admission to selective schools isn't based on criteria, it's competitive among the other applicants in the pool for a limited number of slots. Counselors routinely state that the vast majority of their applicants are academically qualified; students are selected based on interestingness (communicated through essays & recommendations), extracurricular talents, race, gender, and other factors. Sometimes even virtuosos are rejected because there are already enough virtuosos with that particular talent in the university.

As far as I know, it is only very low-end schools in the US that run admission solely off of standards.

But if tiny community colleges start turning people away when they have half empty classrooms, there will be a lot of negative press.

They could probably figure out how to sell it as "raising the bar," talk about providing a more individualized education, ride the negative press as actually increasing the value of their degrees, etc.

The process of getting accepted to a school and receiving financial aid may be long, but considering the student is borrowing tens (and sometimes hundreds) of thousands of dollars it's also incredibly simple.

If public schools are going to promote using public funds for continuing education, it's their responsibility to teach how to use those funds.

The for-profit schools being accused here have no way to not accept those monies. Public agencies advocate public school graduates use public funds for continuing education, but do not teach what not to do with those funds and punish any organization which does not accept those funds. Looks like it's the "public" at fault here.