One of the surprises emerging from Black Issues's analysis of the top one hundred institutions conferring degrees on people of color was in the rise of proprietary colleges as major players -- particularly in the fields of engineering-related technologies, computer science, and business.

In fact, the top producer of minority baccalaureates in engineering-related technologies was a California campus of the ITT Technical Institutes in California (see page 56 for chart).

The number two and three institutions conferring bachelor's degrees in computer and information science on African Americans were also proprietary schools -- Strayer College and DeVry Institute of Technology (see page 52 for chart).

Why are these schools so popular with students of color? Educators say proprietary schools have identified an untapped market -- recent high school graduates of color who want a more practical education in a shorter time than that offered by traditional four-year institutions: and older, more mature minority employees who view these institutions as an accessible means of attaining the degrees they need to advance in their careers.

Observers also say proprietary schools are attractive in today's booming job market because they boast good job placement rates and can tout faculty members who actually work in the fields they teach.

"Proprietary schools like DeVry and ITT are making significant inroads among minority students who are turned off by traditional educational institutions who put up barriers to entrance," says Harold Lundy, executive director of the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs. "A whole segment of students has been written off as uneducable because they don't have the requisite score on the ACT or SAT. But these institutions are more open and amenable to inner-city students."

Others echo Lundy's assessment.

"Proprietary schools are a pragmatic choice for a lot of people," says John Lee, president of JBL Associates, a higher education consulting firm in Bethesda, Maryland. Lee says proprietary schools are attractive to many minority students because they are located in major cities, often near the neighborhoods where students live or work. Moreover, since many of the institutions offer classes year round, students can graduate in less time and get a job faster.

"These students are focused on the fact that they need to have a stable job making good money," Lee says. "These are not students looking for the quintessential college experience -- hanging out in the fraternity or sorority house. They don't have the luxury of traveling to Europe for a semester. They need to make money fast, not someday."

His comments are echoed by Dr. Clifford Adelman, a senior researcher at the U.S. Department of Education now on loan to The College Board: "Some of [the proprietary schools] were crooks, rip-off artists, vultures -- particularly on minority populations, particularly women. But the big chains like DeVry and ITT have gotten good."

However. some educators are concerned that proprietary school students are shortchanging their careers. They warn that today's booming economy, with employers clamoring to fill many computer programming or business management jobs, won't last forever. They add that students with a more broad-based education from traditional institutions will fare better in the long run.

"People in the eighties thought engineering was a foolproof career," said Dr. Reginald Wilson, a retired American Council on Education senior scholar. "But waves of people lost their jobs when defense companies downsized. The vagaries of the economy will make technical skills obsolete. I believe that a person with a well-rounded education will be better off in the long-run."

Indeed, many college administrators contacted for this article expressed a vigorous skepticism about the quality of education of proprietary schools, referring to an era before the Department of Education cracked down on many trade schools that operated as diploma mills with high default rates. But others say such worries are unfounded because degree-granting, for-profit institutions are accredited by the same regional bodies that oversee traditional four-year institutions. Moreover, they argue, proprietary schools are more adept at adapting themselves to changes in society, and in today's competitive world of higher education other institutions would do well to model their success.

"If traditional colleges can't learn to transform themselves to meet the needs of the market, they'll be dinosaurs," says Tony Zeiss, president of North Carolina's Central Piedmont Community College.

"Today's economy is demanding greater productivity, and as a result workers are discovering they must constantly learn new skills to stay competitive. But many of these nontraditional students are turning to proprietary schools and to institutions that offer distance learning or Internet classes because their schedules don't mesh with the traditional academic calendar. Colleges have to ramp up to move faster and do a better job of providing services," Zeiss says.

From Storefront to Billion-Dollar Industry

Just a few years ago, the mention of proprietary colleges "conjured images of storefront schools, promising minority students the moon but in reality leaving them with worthless certificates and thousands of dollars in debt," said Sharon Thomas-Parrott, vice-president of government relations for DeVry.

Now propriety education has been transformed into a $3.5 billion industry dominated by national franchises like DeVry that are traded on the NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchanges.

Headquartered in Oakbrook, Illinois, DeVry has 33,000 students at its fourteen campuses in the United States and Canada. And the institution continues to expand as DeVry plans to open two campuses near San Francisco and New York City this fall.

Thomas-Parrott says although many students hear about DeVry through word of mouth, and admissions staff visit high schools and often arrange home visits to talk to parents, the institution also advertises heavily on radio, on television, and in newspapers.

Forty-five percent of DeVry's students are minorities, and most of them are first-generation college students. They are attracted to DeVry, Thomas-Parrott says, because the campuses are located in their communities and because of DeVry's job placement record.

"A lot of our students are working and many also have families," Thomas-Parrott says. "They appreciate the fact that we offer a business and technology curriculum that gets them into the job market much faster than if they attended a traditional institution."

Indeed, that's what attracted Rodney Lott to DeVry. After Lott graduated from high school in Chattanooga, he attended Tennessee Technical University, but felt he was wasting money taking classes that didn't apply to his engineering major. He left after a year to serve in the military. When he left the armed services in 1985, he decided to enroll in DeVry after hearing a friend's experience. In the beginning, Lott did have some concerns.

"I didn't know what kind of degree I would be getting and whether I could get into graduate school," he says.

But DeVry administrators reassured him that his degree could be used to attend graduate school, and Lott was impressed with the school's placement rate.

"Plus I could get my degree in three years instead of four," he says.

Tuition rates at proprietary institutions are higher than at community colleges and public four-year institutions because for-profit schools get no state subsidies, must pay taxes, and are designed to earn profits.

For instance, a student would pay about $8,100 for a full-time load of classes at Strayer University, compared with about $1,492 at community colleges. However, proprietary institutions do cost less than many private colleges.

Like other students at accredited institutions, students use financial aid to offset their costs, especially Pell grants, guaranteed student loans, and state aid.

Proprietary school officials believe they are also attractive to minority students because they don't have entrance requirements that keep many minority students from attending college.

"A majority of our students are working while returning to school," says Maria Boulter, director of public relations for Strayer University, a for-profit institution with nine campuses, most in the fast-growing suburbs of Maryland and Virginia. "We offer credits for life experience and accept transfer credits."

The university also offers classes in the evening on the Internet, and lets students and register and order books online. Thirty-nine percent of Strayer's 3,900 students are students of color.

"We don't make them jump through hoops the way traditional institutions do," Boutler says.

Boutler also notes that students flock to Strayer's computer science program because of employers' desperation for employees with technical skills: "There are an estimated 19,000 technical jobs going [unfilled] in this area."

A Traditional Advantage?

But others sound a note of caution, saying employers' insatiable demand for technically proficient employees will abate.

"The bubble will burst," says Bernard J. Milano, partner in charge of recruiting at KPMG Peat Marwick and director of the Ph.D. project, a program to diversify the ranks of business school faculty by encouraging more minorities to get their doctorates in business. "The technical skills students are learning now will be obsolete in twelve to eighteen months. I just don't know if one can rely solely on technical skills for a long-term successful career."

Instead Milano says students should be striving to get a broad-based education that will allow them to negotiate today's treacherous job market.

"Undergraduates from traditional institutions will have far more options, more tools to rely on to manage a long-term successful career," he says.

But don't tell that to Valerie Johnson, a recent graduate of DeVry, in Kansas City, Missouri. Johnson is headed to Omaha for a job at Lucent Technology. Before attending DeVry, Johnson was working, but could not advance in her company because she didn't have a college degree.

"DeVry was the answer for me because I didn't want to take four years to get a degree," she says.

Johnson says that, unlike the community college she attended after she graduated from high school, her classes at DeVry and the faculty emphasized teamwork.

"I worked hard, made a lot of contacts, and now I'm headed for a job with one of the leading technology companies in the country," she says.