Ideas From Readers Submit your story about how you've taught with The Times. Here is another in our Great Ideas From Readers series. If you've used The Times for teaching and learning and would like to see your idea featured on our blog, write in and tell us what you've done. Teacher: Eric Neutuch, coordinator, Strategic College Initiatives and project director, College Connections Project. Institution: SUNY Manhattan Educational Opportunity Center, New York, N.Y. Grade or Level of Students: Adult learners. Idea: Using a Times article on proprietary schools to inform a discussion about the proprietary sector and how students should decide where to apply to college and whether to take on student loan debt. Why We Chose It: For-profit colleges have been in the news quite a bit recently, as have student loan debt and the question of the value of college. This struck us as a useful way to frame decisions about college for nontraditional students. What Mr. Neutuch Did and Why, in His Own Words: I teach a 25-hour workshop titled the College Knowledge Workshop that walks adult learners through the college application and financial aid processes. Participating students include those who have recently completed their G.E.D.s, recent immigrants with secondary educations from aboard and adults returning to formal schooling. For homework, students read the Times article "In Hard Times, Lured Into Trade School and Debt" and answer a few questions, including these: Why are proprietary schools growing so quickly? How do proprietary schools finance their operations? Jeffrey West completed a trade program at WyoTech in automotive technology. Fourteen months after completing his program, he hasn't found a job in his chosen field, and he has $30,000 in loan debt. Who is to blame? Jeffrey West met with an admissions representative who drove to his home. Would you let an admissions representative into your home? Should schools like Western Culinary Institute be allowed to operate? In class, students discuss the questions from the homework assignment in pairs, then as a whole group. The whole-class discussion extrapolates to general questions about the burdens of student loan debt and how proprietary schools should be regulated. During this discussion, I show students Funny or Die's parody of proprietary schools, and we discuss how proprietary schools market themselves to low-income adult students. Many students have experiences of being targeted by admissions representatives from proprietary schools, and they share those stories with their classmates as well as stories of friends and relatives who have successfully completed proprietary school programs. The discussion has always been engaging, and students come away aware that they need a "buyer beware" mentality as they embark on their plans to continue their educations beyond my adult education center. In Short: Providing students with frameworks for thinking through decisions about college can help them better understand the implications of their options. Related Resources: From The Learning Network: Preparing for the Future: Improving College Readiness The Cost of College: Graphing Tuition Prices and Other Expenses Decisions, Decisions Student Crossword: Preparing for College On NYTimes.com: Times Topics: For-Profit Schools Room for Debate: How to Regulate For-Profit Colleges Magazine: Why We Need For-Profit Colleges The Choice: Further Scrutiny of For-Profit Colleges Bucks: Identifying Students With the Most Debt College Cost Calculator Your Money Guides: Paying for College Your Money Guides: Student Loans Video: Debt Trap