A Great Opportunity
When I browse the Internet in Central America I get a new kind of auto-targeted advertising.
College ads.
These countries are flooded with them.
“A Great Opportunity for Students in Honduras.”
“A Great Career Decision For Nicaraguans.”
They’re all over.
I’ve been through 4 countries so far, and these ads are following me everywhere.
They advertise schools like this on here… The University Of Wisconsin Platteville.
Click to see where the real ad takes you.
When you click on the ad it tracks all of your data before sending you to a sales page.
“Join the select group of leaders who know that a 100% online master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin – Platteville is a great pathway to professional success.”
When you see this many ads for the same ‘product’ you know it’s a feeding frenzy. Like sharks smelling blood, advertisers are swarming and getting tons and tons of buyers.
I clicked on a few of these ads. They are 80%+ financed and cost very little up front. Everyone can afford an online degree.
It looks like many, many, many Hondurans, Nicaraguans and Guatemalans are signing up to getting their degrees from an American ‘regionally accredited state university’ like UW Platteville.
Ads like these may also be popping up in South America, Asia, and maybe even Africa.
Here’s the question: What’s the value of a degree if everyone has one?
A lot of parents want their children to go to school because “They didn’t get to go.” They know how much it helped their friends who did graduate in the 80’s. That’s exactly why college was more valuable back then. Not everyone could go.
Now everyone can go, even if they’re in Nicaragua! Everyone can get the degree. The degree is low-money-down and is pushed by heavy, heavy advertising.
But what is the value of a ‘marketing’ degree from a small, unknown 3-bold-letters-on-a-shirt college that sells ‘online’ programs in Honduras? Schools like UWP selling their “MS in Organizational Change Leadership” degrees are where most American students are getting themselves into deep debt.
If they handed out police badges this easily, how long would it be before no one took them seriously anymore?
