I am not familiar with the term "career college." Is this like a junior college, technical school, or community college--i.e. is it a 2-yr school that awards associates degrees? If so, this does not sound "normal" to me.

You don't say where you are, but I know that in metropolitan areas and the adjoining areas (50 mile radius) that the education/quality of instructors and the library staff are generally comparable to those of 4-year institutions.

I think we all need a bit more information to effectively reply.

I just stumbled upon this topic and I know it's been a little while since the thread was started - but I worked at a career college for 2 1/2 years wanted to respond here.

First, a career college is not like a JC. Career colleges usually grant BA/BS, JC's do not. Career colleges provide education that is intended to be very focused in a particular trade and/or career (think ITT and Univ of Phoenix). Many career colleges are not regionally accredited (although this is changing) and are instead nationally accredited, whose agency standards are much less stringent. Many regionally accredited schools will not recognize credits from career colleges. JC's usually have relationships with state universities in their states which allow for easy transfer for JC students (based on GPA) and therefore have much stricter standards for instructors credentials and overall quality education than career colleges. One of the biggest differences is that career colleges are for-profit institutions.

I completely sympathize with theep's post. I experienced the same frustrations. Honestly, it broke my heart. Career colleges market to low income students, sell them a bill of goods that simply don't exist, stack them up with student loans that they will never in a million years be able to pay off, and leave them with a fairly worthless degree. Tuition where I worked ran about $75,000 a year.

National accreditation standards only require instructors to have a BA/BS - and not necessarily in their field they are teaching. Because these schools are for-profit - $$ is the bottom line. It's treated as a business - not a school. "The customer is always right" tends to prevail - not happy with your grade? Complain, and you get an A.

They will let in anyone whose check clears. One student was admitted who was illiterate, and he was there for 3 terms. Yes, 3 terms. One of the instructors finally caught him cheating and required him, in a meeting with the director, to read the paper he had turned in. He couldn't. That was what had finally convinced the director he didn't belong there.

I did work with some really great instructors, but in some cases I saw their standards lower every term as a result of their own frustration.

All of this said...as a librarian it was a great experience. I was the only librarian and had a boss who was not a librarian and had no idea what I did - leaving me to do as I pleased for the most part. I was able to try a lot of new things, keep what worked and throw out what didn't. I felt very flexible. Because I was the only librarian I did it all...I cataloged, developed the collection, did all IL instruction, shevled and processed books...you name it, I did it. I am now at a very large research institution and had I started there, I would never have had the experiences I had at the career college. So all in all, my experiences there were bitter-sweet.