Having failed in the U.S. with K-12 and higher education, for-profit education providers are now invading the lifelong learning field. The difference this time is they are going after your funding.
Last month for-profit coding schools were on Capitol Hill looking for government funds. The for-profits, from new coding schools to online course providers to summer youth program providers, have occasionally entered the field of lifelong learning over the past five decades.
What is new now is that they are going after your funding. They do it in various ways. Some ask for taxpayer money for their students, taking money away from yours. Others by-pass your program and go seek government contracts directly. Some use your program’s nonprofit postal rates to get taxpayer subsidized advertising.
What the for-profits have in common:
1.High prices, serving a few, not the many that nonprofits serve.
2. A big profit, usually 20%, that makes a few people rich.
3. Diversion of taxpayer money that should go to your program.
4. Almost always, overall and in the long term, lower quality.
LERN is dedicated to serving the nonprofit sector, and defending the nonprofit lifelong learning sector. Nonprofits provide higher quality lifelong learning, to greater numbers of the public, at more reasonable prices. Most of all you and other nonprofits have as your mission serving your community.
If you have thoughts on this issue, feel free to email LERN President William A. Draves at draves@lern.org
