I was once a teacher at ITT Tech, so I don't mind speaking about my experience there - I don't know much at all about DeVry.
When I was at ITT, instructors' performance evaluations were based around 60% on student retention - since it's a for-profit institution, every time a student flunks out or drops out, it's lost revenue for the school. And since most students pay with student loans (again, being private and for-profit, the costs were sky-high compared to a public university, so virtually everyone paid with student loans), dropouts typically meant defaulted student loans. And if too many students default on student loans, the school can lose their eligibility with the government to accept guaranteed loans.
In my experience, the instructors genuinely cared about the students, about making sure they left the school prepared to go to work, etc. The administrators and recruiters seemed to focus more on generating (and holding onto) revenue. The end result was, for me, that I enjoyed the teaching aspect, but hated the bureaucracy and politics that the students typically weren't exposed to.
Things came to a head when a student of mine in his mid-40's approached me more than halfway through his program and told me he had to drop out. Seems his son-in-law lost his job, he and the guy's daughter were going to be moving in with him, and he needed to drop out to go back to work full-time and help support his kids and grandchild. I wished him well, told him he'd be welcome back whenever he felt the time was right, and that if he needed a reference I'd be happy to give him one. At my performance evaluation a few weeks later, I was marked down because I didn't try to talk him into staying. I was 26 years old and this student was 45-ish; in my opinion, I had no business whatsoever trying to talk him out of doing what he felt like he needed to do for his family. I did end up quitting and getting another job after this.
Other people's experiences may be different, but this is how it played out for me.
