Private for-profit universities – the Litmus Test

• Private for-profit universities – the Litmus Test

Lately, there has been an avalanche of advertising hype about a host of private for-profit universities from around the world that have hired agents and recruiters to find gullible and innocent students for them to study at their universities. These universities charge hefty fees and then reduce their fees by several thousand dollars in the name of scholarships. Moreover, these universities have other problems too:

• They are either lowly ranked or not ranked at all.
• They grant admission to just about everyone because they are mostly looking for your money and not for your career enhancement.
• Consultants often promote these universities aggressively because they receive up to 26% commissions on your first year’s tuition fees.
• Finding a job with these degrees is next to impossible as an international student.
• The accreditation (recognition) of these universities is often not up to the mark and dubious in many cases.
• Many of these universities are in legal tussles with their respective governments and are often on the verge of being shut down by law enforcement.

Students end up paying the full price of tuition from their second year onward, and many get stuck. They are compelled to return to their home countries mainly due to financial deprivation.

At the end of the day, it is all about the high quality of education you truly deserve. The embassy or the high commission, depending on your destination country, may initially grant you a student visa. However, the Immigration Officer at the Port of Entry might just send you right back to your home country, as they did with about 150 Indian students enrolled in for-profit US universities such as the Tri-Valley University, University of Northern Virginia, University of New Haven in Connecticut, and Silicon Valley University. Want the complete list? Ask for our list in the comment section below.

Here is an excerpt from the Times of India dated January 11, 2016, written by Preeti Biswas. Ask us for the full article, and we will send it to you:

“In the past fortnight, over 150 U.S.-bound students have been deported despite possessing valid admission letters, F-1 student visas, and all supporting documents. The 16 students were part of the latest batch of students to be deported. They started returning to Hyderabad from Saturday evening onward.”

Bottom line? Do your own homework. Leverage AI platforms like Chat GPT, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Meta, Gemini, or any other platform of your choice to double-check and triple-check the status of the universities that interest you. Additionally, read Google reviews to make an informed decision. Here at Alphabet Education, we pledge to send you only to fully accredited, either public, state, or private not-for- profit universities. Stanford, Duke, Columbia, Dartmouth, University of Chicago, Harvard, and MIT, for instance, are private, not-for-profit universities with stellar reputations.