Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
The 2010 senate investigation of for-profit universities and colleges has played an important role
in highlighting industry abuses, provoking media scrutiny, and advancing some modest
improvements in regulation of the sector. However, the documents unearthed as part of the
investigation have received little examination. Nor have some of the documents subsequently
revealed by whistleblowers. I’d like to explore what anthropologists might call the “hidden
transcript” of for-profit education companies, before considering the lobbying and rhetoric of
think tanks, trade groups and related organizations supportive of the for-profit sector.
At the end of the movie The Princess Bride, the evil Prince Humperdink challenges Westley to a
duel, crying, “To the Death!” To which Westley replies, “No, to the pain!” Through the cunning
use of persuasive language, (and despite in fact being paralyzed) Westley paints such a vivid and
terrifying verbal image of the pain Humperdink will experience that Humperdink immediately
surrenders.
I bring this up because internal documents leaked to senate investigators in 2010 reveal that one
of the main rhetorical strategies used by for-profit education companies might be dubbed “to the
Pain.” These documents repeatedly discuss the importance of identifying and exploiting the fear,
anxiety and pain of prospective students, in order to manipulate them into enrolling.
For example, an end of year sales report urges recruiters to work harder at “digging in and getting
to the pain of each and every prospective student. By getting to the pain, representatives will be
able to solidify the appointments and have a better show rate.” (2010 Harkin report, page 3). A
detailed telemarketing script from another company urges telemarketers to “KEEP DIGGING
UNTIL YOU UNCOVER THEIR PAIN, FEARS AND DREAMS…IF YOU CAN STIR UP
THEIR EMOTIONS, YOU WILL CREATE URGENCY.” (p 5). One of the strangest documents
in the senate report is “The Funnel of Pain.” Produced by ITT Educational Services, the
“funnel of pain” describes how telemarketers can lead students through a sequence of
questions designed to unearth past failures and current concerns. It is described in a series
of documents and scripts, and a helpful visual model explains how to move targets from
“LEVEL 1 Pain” to “LEVEL 4 Pain.” (7)
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
The Funnel of Pain
(from telemarketing
script)
This strategy of focusing on the emotional power of fear to persuade reflects a keen
understanding of the kairotic moment. If we recall that the students being targeted are
disproportionately poor, minority, unemployed, often single parents from families with no college
experience, and that most of these documents were written at the peak of the financial crisis, the
potential effectiveness of such a communicative strategy becomes evident. The use of this
strategy also reveals how some of these companies understand their audience, as the decision to
focus on pain is connected explicitly to student demographics. For example, one recruitment
guide states that “we deal with people who live in the moment and for the moment. Their decision
to start, stay in school, or quit is based more on emotion than logic. Pain is the great motivator.”
(24) A section on student profiles divides the target audience by vulnerabilities such as “recent
divorce,” “low self-esteem,” “recent incarceration,” and “fired.” (23)
Several aspects of the rhetoric of fear appeals are worth noting. First, while pain and fear are
constantly exploited, care is taken to avoid a direct threat to the “face” of prospective students.
Focusing only on failure and fear risks eliciting anger and defensiveness. Thus recruiting
documents balance fear appeals with expressions of politeness, praise, reassurance, solidarity and
concern. Telemarketing scripts designed to evoke pain also explain how to “build/maintain
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
rapport with the prospect” and ask “positive questions to encourage prospect buy-in.” The section
headings from an Education Management Corporation recruiting document break the pitch
into three main components: “1. Build em up! 2. Break Em Down! Find the PAIN! 3. Build em
Up!” (Kirkham, 2011) Secondly, fear strategies are embedded in the language of therapy and
self-help. Students are typically asked to reflect on key moments of failure they have
encountered throughout their life, to reflect on poor choices, and recall how they felt at those
moments. Consider, for example, the following sequence of questions from the “funnel of pain”
rubric, aimed at individuals in low-paying, low-status jobs:
How well would you say you have been able to support your family in this position?
How well would your family say you have been willing to support them?
Tell me more about that; Can you be more specific; Give me an example
How did that make you feel?
What have you tried to do about that?
And did that work?
What has not having a college degree cost you?
In self worth?
Finally?
How do you feel about that?
What are you willing to change now or have you given up trying to deal with the
problem? (10)
Sequences such as this are interleaved with positive assurances that with sufficient self-analysis,
coaching, and commitment, the student can change her life. Telemarketing calls typically begin
with statements like the following: “The reason for my call is that I want to be the first to
CONGRATULATE you on the decision you made to make a positive CHANGE in your life.
CONGRATULATIONS!” Similar assurances proceed throughout the script. Lastly, the pain and
fear elicited from students is carefully framed so that the only way it can be addressed is through
enrolling at the for-profit institution. The “funnel of pain” is intended to move students in only
one direction. Thus after a long sequence of fear-mongering, praise, rapport-building and selfanalysis, the script concludes with a reminder (in all caps) to the recruiter of the overall strategy
guiding the interaction:
KEEP DIGGING UNTIL YOU UNCOVER THEIR PAIN, FEARS AND DREAMS. IF
YOU GET THE PROSPECT TO THINK ABOUT HOW TOUGH THEIR SITUATION
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
IS RIGHT NOW AND IF THEY DISCUSS THE LIFE THEY CAN’T GIVE THEIR
FAMILY BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE A DEGREE, YOU WILL
DRAMATICALLY INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF GAINING A COMMITMENT
FROM THE STUDENT. (2)
The “funnel of pain” is just one rhetorical strategy of many in the senate documents. Furthermore,
hundreds of other texts have emerged recently as a result of lawsuits, leaks, whistleblowing, and
government investigations that collectively present a damning picture of many of the largest for
profit schools.
Since 2010 the for-profit sector has enacted some reforms, and we have seen a slowdown in the
overall growth of private, for profit higher education. However, as Daniel Levy of the program
for research on private higher education observes, this decline is relative – growth relative to
public universities “continues to be the dominant trend.” Furthermore, as Richard Ohmann notes,
traditional colleges and universities are rapidly remaking themselves in ways that are often
indistinguishable from the for-profit model.
While regulatory changes have had a limited impact on the way for-profits operate, the scandals
have led to some interesting changes in the way the industry directs its communication strategies.
Immediately following the senate investigation, several of the largest for-profits circulated new
language guidelines to their employees. For example, leaked training documents from Education
Management Corporation reveal that expressions such as “digging for pain” must be
replaced with “conducting conversations” that “explore consequences.” Common
industry terms such as “overcoming objections” are replaced with “resolving student
concerns,” while “close” is replaced with “gaining commitment.” (Kirkham).
However, by the end of 2011, the trade group representing for-profit colleges and
universities met to discuss a systematic reform of the language used throughout the
industry. This effort, dubbed “Project Rose,” is a blueprint for how to communicate to the
press, investors, the public, and students. It is a coordinated, industry-wide communication
strategy to reframe public debate. The powerpoint slides describing Project Rose were leaked to
the press in March 2012. These slides suggest that the industry faces an enormous PR problem,
and must respond by aggressively reshaping public perception. The authors quote George
Lakoff’s definition of reframing as “changing the way the public sees the world. It is changing
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
what counts as common sense,” and suggest that reframing must start by jettisoning existing ways
of talking. The problem with the existing vocabulary is that it reinforces public perception of the
industry as more about profit than education, “led by business people not educators,” and
“targeting the most vulnerable in society.” In place of this they propose a new vocabulary that
presents an entirely new face to the world. The following slide captures the heart of the strategy:
This slide is doing several kinds of rhetorical work. Most obviously it eliminates the
language of sales and marketing. It takes words that have accrued negative associations,
such as “private equity,” and “telemarketing,” and replaces them with more neutral terms.
It constructs strategic ambiguity around practices that have come under legal challenge,
such as “sales quotas” and “commissions,” and replaces them with “goals” and “salary
component,” which are broader and harder to define. But the main strategy is to
camouflage what they are and what they do by appropriating language used by
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
traditional, nonprofit public institutions. Project Rose marks a fundamental shift in the
way for the profit sector communicates in the wake of the scandal and public scrutiny
that followed the 2010 investigations.
However, Project Rose can be seen as the culmination of a set of changes that had been
evolving in a piecemeal way for some time. Similar renaming strategies begin to take
shape between 2000 and 2010. Take, for example, the names of for-profit institutions of
higher education. Despite the variety of institutions of higher education, naming
conventions break down into a few patterns, namely:
So here’s a pop quiz for you. What kind of institutions are these – public, private nonprofit, or private for-profit?
1. Sylvan Learning Systems Inc.
2. American Career College
3. American Public University
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
4. Ashford University
5. University of the Rockies
6. Walden University
It turns out that all six of these institutions are private and for-profit. In the last 10 years
there has been a dramatic shift in the sector from names that suggest private, for profit
status (for example, Sylvan Learning Systems Inc.) to those that mimic public, non-profit
universities, concealing their character. Even “American Public University,” which
appears to indicate in its very name that it is public, and, presumably non-profit, is in fact
private and for-profit. (All three elements of the name are in fact questionable - perhaps
even the word “university.”1)
One can identify related strategies in the marketing and advertising web sites for-profits
have built. One example of this can be seen in the thousands of what are called “lead
generator” sites that look like neutral, objective, informational sites that will match
students with the best-fitting university. If you enter your personal information, many
will list for-profits and non-profits together.
1
Hanley collected data on the entire scholarly output of all for-profits in the U.S., and concluded that this
amounted to so little that “calling an organization with no meaningful scholarship a university is a bit like calling a
muddy path through the forest a motorway “US for-profit universities 'unworthy of the name'” Times Higher
Education, 16 February 2012. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=419029
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
But if a student selects a non-profit university, they will typically get a call from a
recruiter trying to persuade them to select the for-profit institution, and if the student
insists on sticking with the non-profit, they may discover their application is never sent to
the non-profit. So in effect these sites use public, non-profit school names as “bait.” The
extent of this practice was recently revealed by whistleblowers. For example, here are
some quotations from a whistleblower who worked at Vantage Media, one of the largest
lead generator companies:
“Students were not at all receptive to the calls as they couldn’t understand why they
were being called by College.us.com, a Vantage Media website, and not the
community college they thought they sent their inquiry to…the student never does
hear from the community college they had wanted information from in the first
place.”
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
“Vantage Media is deceiving possibly two to three thousand students a week.
Students are being misinformed. Public school reputations are being damaged. This
is simply wrong and needs to be stopped.”
“The whole Vantage Media lead generation model puts the student’s education
path at risk.” (Whistleblower James Soloway, who worked at a Vantage Media call
center, & filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission)
These and many related strategies are identifiable in the web sites of colleges, their
marketing and advertising documents, and in leaked internal documents used by
recruiters, telemarketers and salespeople.
I’d like now to sketch two ways the for-profit sector has managed to shape policy and
exert influence. The first involves deepening networks of influence that emerge between
trade groups, think tanks, lobbyists, policy makers and government agencies from the
1990s through the end of 2010. The second centers on broad shifts in the rhetoric
produced by the sector.
In order to understand how the for-profit sector has shaped policy through lobbying and
campaign contributions, the work of Brian Pusser is of particular value. Pusser is one of
the few scholars examining for-profit lobbying and campaign contributions. In 2003
Pusser suggested that despite all the talk of how globalization, technology and the
economy were driving the restructuring of higher education, it was in fact lobbying that
played an increasingly important role, and he predicted it would likely become the
decisive factor in the future. He writes:
We agree that for-profits are more accurately characterized as beneficiaries rather than drivers - of change. However, there is one arena in which we suggest
for-profit higher education providers and other corporations involved in
postsecondary provision do have a very real chance of altering the postsecondary
landscape. It is in the political arena, through the use of lobbying and direct
campaign contributions to shape regulations and policies that for-profits may
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
ultimately prove to be of the greatest significance. (Pusser and Walcott “Politics,
Lobbyists, and the Transformation of Postsecondary Education” 2003)
This prediction has been proven correct, and I’d like to indicate some areas that suggest
important ways in which networks of influence, and lobbying in particular, have grown.
Here are a few examples.
1. Steven Eisner’s senate testimony shows how lobbying intensifies in the 2000s, with a
flow of people from government to for-profits, and from for-profits to government
constituting “a revolving door.” For example, this slide from Eisner’s testimony shows
some important examples of movements between the department of education and the
for-profit sector, and vice versa:
2. Accreditation. From 2000 to 2010 the for-profit sector begins to “work” some of the
main regional accreditation agencies, to find loopholes, and to set up “alternative”
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
accreditation agencies. Many representatives take up positions on existing agencies. As
Eisner notes, by 2010, 6 of the 16 members of the Accrediting Council for Independent
Colleges and Schools are from the for-profit sector.
3. In many different states ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) has
played a crucial role in writing “model legislation” hospitable to for-profits. For-profit
education companies who are members of ALEC led the teams writing this legislation.
ALEC also submits a yearly education “report card” for every state in the U.S., and a key
criterion is the extent to which a state is receptive to online, for-profit schools. As a result
of these criteria, their latest report ranked Mississippi the top, and Massachusetts at the
bottom.
4. Blackboard, the learning management system used by most institutions of higher
learning in the U.S. (and which is increasingly used internationally, and in the K-12
sector) begins to position itself as a source of educational policy, and also to partner with
for-profit education companies. Blackboard representatives are often found on
governmental policy making groups. In 2009 Blackboard published a report entitled
“Unlocking the Global Education Imperative: Core Challenges and Critical Responses.”
The report reviews existing scholarship on higher education produced by government and
by universities, and deems it ‘insufficient’ (2). It states that Blackboard is “ideally
positioned” to function as an agent “for major change in higher education.” Blackboard
has also joined a company called StraighterLine. StraighterLine is a partnership between
Blackboard, the world's largest learning management company, SmartThinking, the
largest online tutoring company in the country, and McGraw Hill, one of the largest
media/publishing companies in the world. As the CEO, Burck Smith states, their goal is
nothing less than “to transform higher education,” and bring about “full scale deployment
of an alternative academic labor model.” They plan to take advantage of the current
financial crisis to persuade academic institutions to outsource classes, general education
classes in particular. It is proposed that StraighterLine would enable universities to cut
costs, manage higher enrollments, expand revenue and reach new markets. The explicit
model for such teaching is the call center, with its sophisticated tools for optimizing
“utilization capacity,” and 24 hour, seven-days-a-week access to teachers.
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
I would like to conclude by examining some shifts in the language used by the interest
groups identified. Collectively, these groups, along with allied think tanks and
foundations, have advanced influential arguments about the need to a) restructure higher
education, b) make changes to pedagogy, institutional organization, and labor conditions,
and c) redefine key terms such as ‘democracy,’ ‘choice,’ ‘access,’ ‘participation,’ and
‘literacy.’ They have pushed for the digitization, outsourcing, privatization, automation,
and “unbundling of the higher education product.” From the late 1990s onward the
arguments and rhetorical strategies advanced by these groups migrate into government
reports such as the National Educational Technology Plan and the Spellings Report
(Commission on the Future of Higher Education).
If you think back to the late 1990s you may recall it was widely predicted that a radical
restructuring of universities was inevitable. There was enormous confidence that
universities would be “Amazoned.” It was widely suggested that it was inevitable that
universities undergo radical change, and that this would involve digitalization and
conformity to corporate models. Consider the following quotations from 1999:

“Thirty years from now big university campuses will be relics. Universities won’t
survive. It’s as large a change as when we first got the printed book.”
Management Guru Peter Drucker.

“You guys are in trouble and we are going to eat your lunch” Michael Milken,
junk bond king, convicted felon, and educational “entrepreneur. 1999.

“Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail usage
look like a rounding error.” John Chambers CEO of Cisco Systems, (1999).

"In future years we will look upon the wired remains of our once great democratic
higher education system and wonder how we let it happen." David Noble, 1999.
The visions of restructuring that were presented at the turn of the century were largely
“top down,” premised on the idea that the challenge to universities would come in the
form of corporate competitors who replicated top universities, cherry-picking the most
famous faculty from traditional schools. However, the dreams of figures like Michael
Milken ran aground on accreditation barriers, paltry student demand, and the dot com
collapse. As David Noble suggests, the radical, utopian hopes associated with late 20th
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
century models for restructuring higher education closely mirrored those associated with
correspondence schools just 100 years prior, and both failed rather miserably.
Between 2000 and 2010, one can identify major shifts in the rhetoric surrounding for
profit higher education in the U.S. Some key characteristics include the following:
 Tactical de-emphasis on the corporation as the ideal for educational restructuring.
With trillions of taxpayer dollars being spent on bailouts for major financial
companies, the argument that universities should be run more like corporations
has become far less prominent.
 The association of online education with the principles of access, diversity,
democratization, participation, accountability and transparency, and “traditional”
public education with their opposite
 Legitimization of the for-profit sector by minimizing the differences between for
profits and public universities, and between online and campus-based education.
 Demonization and scapegoating of university teachers. Resistance to
privatization, outsourcing, and de-professionalization/casualization of academic
labor is defined as obstructionism, or elitist hostility to the needs of students. (See
“The Future & its Enemies” (ALEC) or “Catching up to our students and the
future” (Educational Technology Plan. See also the comments of Rod Paige,
Bush’s first secretary of education: “Education is the only business still debating
the usefulness of technology.” Educational Technology Plan, 2004)
 An intensification of the “crisis rhetoric” described by Klein in the Shock Doctrine.
 The re-definition of universities as businesses, along with the complaint that
universities operate according to very poor business models. (“American higher
education has become a mature enterprise: increasingly risk averse, self-satisfied,
and unduly expensive...History is littered with examples of industries that, at their
peril, failed to respond to—or even to notice—changes in the world around them,
from railroads to steel manufacturers. Without serious self-examination and
reform, institutions of higher education risk falling into the same trap, seeing their
market share substantially reduced and their services increasingly characterized
by obsolescence.”)
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
 The strategic appropriation of what Lankshear calls the “ethos of web 2.0,” as
well as the language of social constructivist pedagogy to mask shortcomings in
the educational models being promoted.
One of the most distinctive elements of this rhetoric is a “creative ventriloquism” in
which the impetus to restructure higher education is “ventriloquized” - represented as
coming from the demands of either technology, or a new generation of tech-savvy
student-consumers. Consider, for example, these two quotations. The first is from the
2006 Commission on the Future of Higher Education, produced for Bush’s second
secretary of education. The second is from John Chubb of Edison Schools and Stanford
University political scientist Terry Moe. Chubb and Moe have provided much of the
intellectual foundation for arguments in support of both for-profit charter schools and forprofit higher education.
 “As higher education evolves, the new landscape demands innovation and
flexibility from the institutions that serve the nation’s learners…In this consumerdriven environment, students increasingly care little about the distinctions that
sometimes preoccupy the academic establishment, from whether a college
has for-profit or nonprofit status to whether its classes are offered online or
in brick-and-mortar buildings.” (2006 Commission on the Future of Higher
Education)
 “Real technological change outsources work to distant locations, allows students
and money to leave, substitutes capital for labor, and in other ways disrupts the
existing job structure [of teaching]. Technology has a far-reaching capacity to
transform politics. As distance learning proliferates, for example, teachers will be
less geographically concentrated in districts, considerably more dispersed, and
much more difficult for unions to organize.” John Chubb of Edison Schools and
Stanford University political scientist Terry Moe, authors of Politics, Markets,
and America’s Schools and Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the
Future of American Education
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Fear, Pain and the Rhetoric of For-Profit Education Companies
Pressure to restructure higher education is represented as emanating not from the realm of
politics, but from technology and from the desires of a new generation of tech-savvy
students. In both of these texts, resistance to privatization, outsourcing, and the deprofessionalization and casualization of academic labor is defined as obstructionist
resistance to technology by faculty who vainly resist the future, and who embody elitist
hostility to the needs of students. The internet and student demand are remaking
education, creating the need for an entirely new kind of university. As Fisher suggests,
neoliberal tenets are thus “rearticulated as technological realities, and their ideological
undercurrents are neutralized.” However, the political project informing both reports such
as the 2006 Commission on the Future of Higher Education, and the work of for-profit
advocates such as Chubb and Moe, is clear. It involves destroying teacher unions,
radically undermining teacher autonomy, and turning education into a deregulated,
digitalized, global market. In short, a project that perfectly encapsulates what Sandel calls
“market society,” where every dimension of social relations is made over in the image of
the market.
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