I worked at a SMALL for-profit college around 2000. I can only speak for my experiences. Us low level folks... teachers, librarians, counselors... we did work o

I worked at a SMALL for-profit college around 2000. I can only speak for my experiences. Us low level folks... teachers, librarians, counselors... we did work our asses off and really cared and tried like hell to teach the people we were given. Most of them would never have even tried to go to a big public or private university. Some of them should never have gone to any college. The sales people that brought in the students had some kind of incentive to get ANY student in. So to answer that question... the sales people (not really their job titles, but essentially they sold the school to kids) fooled them into attending. I assume that hasn't changed. We were usually given resources to help and were more or less usually supported by those above us. We did the best with what we were given. I kept in touch with some of the students for a while and most of them did ok (not great, mostly just ok) and were at least working in something close to what they wanted. Overall, back then, it was mostly positive. I've since worked at a couple of large public institutions and I can't say it was all that different. People on the front lines were mostly trying to help when they could. Totally different scale though, hard to even compare the two environments.