December 5, 2014

Take the FastTrain to Hooker Row.

Inside Higher Ed yesterday reported that FastTrain College, a for-profit college in Florida, has used strippers as recruiters.  You've got to hand it to them to find a new way to use the oldest profession.  It is a match made in heaven, or at least in the corner of the Kitty Kat Klub.  The similarities are amazing:

• Consider the pretension of names.  Strippers have their stage names, all equally as dramatic as many of the for-profit colleges. In fact, all you have to do is put "Miss" or some other appropriate sobriquet in front of most for-profit names and the confluence is complete.  Step right up to see Miss Everest; Mama Phoenix dances for you tonight; View the splendors of Madam Grand Canyon; Give it up for Ms. Victory; Let's have a hand for Lady Corinthian; Are you ready for Trident Doll; Get ready to take off with Mistress Full Sail.

• Consider the lure versus the payoff.  In strip clubs all over the world pathetic boobs lay out loads of money for the promise of a pathetic boob that at best they will touch.  Likewise, in many cases, poor students at shady for-profit institutions are promised something that will never be delivered.  Or if it is delivered, in either scenario, one has to wonder about the social "disease" that comes with it.

• Consider that what you see is not necessarily the real thing.  One may never really see what is real versus what is artificial.  Or, one can see and yet one doesn't seem to care, their appeal to the lowest common denominator.
  

• Consider the anonymity of the experience.  There is no social bonding in the establishment.  One hides either behind the raincoat, the hat pulled down over the eyes and the fake name, or one hides behind the online walls of the classroom.

• Consider that sometimes one will be whisked away for the "in-person" experience, a depressing, hollow experience in a private room or in an office building in a distant city. 
  

• Consider that at any moment, the law may come in and shut the place down, and one's involvement will immediately lead to disgrace and humiliation.

Mor importantly, consider that this seemly, frowned-upon institution is merely the extreme of the rest of the world.  Sex is paraded all through popular culture, so strip clubs, exotic dancers, even outright prostitution are merely the reality lingering around the fantasy world.

Meanwhile the shady "for-profit" realm of education is merely the same reality lingering around the fantasy world of higher education. "Not-for-profit" colleges and universities present similar opportunities for their students.  Your average admissions' officers at many reputable colleges and universities are attractive young men and women whose "allure" doesn't discourage interest from either gender.  Even more importantly, as discussed in countless editorials on the expense of college, many are questioning the value of an education at many upstanding institutions.

As usual there is a thin g-string separating the wheat from the chaf(ed) thighs.