here’s a thing that i don’t think american kids are told often enough:
STAY AWAY FROM FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES.
ITT tech, virginia colleges, bryant and stratton, the art institutes, university of phoenix, everest, devry, etc - do NOT attend these places. do not give them your money - and it will be a lot of money. They are all, to a one, scams.
For-profit colleges prey on minority, low-income, military, nontraditional, and chronically underemployed students by promising them a quick path to a career. They are lying. They often do not allow the transfer of credits to and from, and many are either unaccredited or accredited by suspect accreditors. They rely on their students to take out massive federal student loan debt. They line their pockets with money from the government and then burden their graduates with tens of thousands of dollars of debt for inadequate education and degrees that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
If you’re a non-traditional student looking for a degree, don’t go to a for-profit. Find a community college in your area instead. most ccs have more flexible class times for especially vocational/technical certifications and quite a few offer online-only or hybrid degrees. Hell, if you’re a non-trad student and you have a GED and some spare cash, try studying for a few months and then taking the SATs/ACT and trying for a four-year straight out (that’s what I did). Or get an AA and then do a four-year. Or look for a technical/adult education program sponsored by a local community college or school district. Just please, please, please, don’t go to a for-profit college. They will ruin your credit rating, your finances, and your job prospects.
basically if you see a commercial for a college on TV, don’t go to it, their degrees are basically worthless and a lot of employers actually think less of someone who has a degree from this type of school than they do someone who doesn’t even have one
It’s cheaper to actually go to a community college and then an accredited state college to get a degree, and right now everyone is offering online coursework like the for-profit model.
I worked for a student loan servicer for years. I once talked to a woman who was 20,000 in debt. She was getting an online-only degree to be a *massage therapist* from a for profit school. No one would hire her, because she had never given a massage.
Another woman I spoke to was trying to get a two year administrative assistant degree. She been going to school for five years, she was 60,000 in debt, she did not have a degree.
Me: yeah so I just don’t have the energy to get up and make myself a sandwich or wait for something to cook so I just. Don’t
Her: why don’t you just eat the sandwich components without putting them together
Me:
Her: you can just eat a handful of cheese and some sandwich meat. You don’t have to make a sandwich.
Me:
Me: what
Therapists finding loopholes for mental illness things is one of my favorite things about dealing with mental illness because it really helps me understand that just because a reaction is Common doesn’t mean it’s Right. Does doing dishes stress you out a lot? Buy paper plates. Do your obsessive thoughts make you worry about leaving your curling iron on so you drive home from work to check? Just put the curling iron in your purse and bring it to work with you while we work on tackling where this worry comes from. Symptom management doesn’t have to look like drudgery.
