To keep their respective pipelines full of wannabe interior designers, graphic artists, chefs, as well as allow others who want to study from the comfort of their homes instead of at a traditional brick and mortar campus, to ensure their stockholders get dividens, and the parent company's stock sores, for-profit colleges have no alternative but to do whatever it takes. They are, after all, helping Americans pursue the spectral imgage formerly known as the American Dream.

I don't want to defend the 'for-profits' (on the contrary), but "for-profit' and "online" are not one in the same. Online education can be excellent and not. Ground education can be excellent or not.

The biggest scandal of the for-profits online (both) and the for-profits on the ground is the completion rate. Disgraceful. Students not only leave with debt but that they leave without anything else. Not everyone can be successful in a university, but everyone can be successful at something. The for-profits don't get the difference. Sometimes the ground schools don't either.

None of the for-profits could exist without the gravy train of federal financial aid. But then again, neither could most of the rest of higher education. Is profit good for education? I think it could be. Is it? No. The federal government needs to get a grip to protect the really fine career colleges and make life real for the big for-profits who are a scourge on higher education.

Amen to that happydean.

The for-profits who are playing fair should welcome the cleaning up of those who are duping students.

@ happydean,

Yes, many times we read on here that online and for-profit education is not the same. This misses the point, though since on-line education exists to cut costs and to sell product.

On-line education fits the next 20 years of the business cycle for higher education as the professorate, major expenses and curriculum get hollowed out by free market forces.

To miss this is to miss what has been occurring in context for the last thirty years, but seeing that your handle says happydean, you are already probably aligned with big business and where they want to take the industry anyway....

Happydean and others may want to review documented completion rates at four and two year schools WITHIN THE SAME PROGRAM as compared to the same data in the for-profit sector. You will discover that the for-profits have much higher completion rates.
Additionally, when we review how education is payed for the for-profits do not have access to endowments-who is watching the use of endowments in the not-for-profit sector? What percent of college endowments goes to student aid-it appears less than 5%.
This is not to encourage the unacceptable admissions distortions too many of the for-profits use. Let's look at how ineffective the colleges perform admissions-such as the review of student credits toward graduation. How many students graduate on time?

Most educational institutions -- public and private (for- or not-for-profit) deal almost daily with issues of program quality in the form of curriculum review, assessment, etc. for on-ground and online offerings. Though inevitably imperfect, generally these efforts are ongoing and earnest.

This particular perfect storm (or more accurately perfect black hole) that sucked up money as fast as it bacame available without providing a commensurate amount of quality education should not be mistaken for what we do day-in and day-out. The fact that it could pass for what we do is bothersome. At its most egregious the actions of some for-profit institutions offering online and/or on-ground courses appear to be nothing less than pure opportunism with little regard for eduction or placement.

There are plenty of causal factors: a public failure to anticipate the growing demand for education, lapses in accreditation oversight, buckets of federal money given with little accountability, a failure of for-profit institutions to self-regulate, and an absence of readily available and reliable comparative information. Markets become more efficient when buyers have accurate information. No one but the government has to power to make that happen, something that will hopefully become evident as a result of these hearings. Requiring readily available accurate information is not over-regulation, it is actually good for business -- at least for those of us who are proud of what we have to offer.

@trendisnotdestiny

Online education does not exist to cut costs and sell product. It exists because the technology now makes feasible remote online communication. It is hardly useful to conflate all forms anyway. The costs of preparing a good online course exceed comparable costs for inperson course preparation. When that's not done (in either case) the 'product' is poorer quality.

As a doctoral student online with two Ivy League graduate degrees, I have been greatly impressed by my online work - at the nation's largest public university. As a college founder of an independent nonprofit I certainly agree that all schools need better evaluation. Contrary to the claims of charlesgross, however, the for-profits do not outperform the nonprofits. First of all, match schools on a comparable basis. Next, get actually data. That's grossly lacking across the board (although, not where I attend).

For-profit schools can do a good job. Their mission, however, is no longer fundamentally educational when they become for-profit. Education becomes the means rather than the mission. Nonprofits gain their nonprofit status directly as a consequence of their mission. It is thus a fact that the fundamental incentives are different for the two. It furthermore is no surprise that such a high percentage of for-profits effectively 'cheat' at their game - after all, their mission is profit, fostered by higher 'efficiency' in the means. Thus, their incentive is to cheat on course preparation and delivery. That doesn't mean they will. It does mean that those lacking scruples certainly have no disincentive with such high pay-offs and minimal current regulation or controls.

Unfortunately, this kind of cheaters economy also tends to corrupt institutions with an educational mission when they have to compete with cheaters. This is classic game strategy. The question is whether the nonprofits have the willingness and capacity to 'punish' 'cheaters' while pursuing their core mission. Too many nonprofits of hold held too rigidly to a 'high moral purpose' and thus went out of business. In 1950, about 95 percent of college graduates came through small liberal arts colleges, with a large number of those sponsored by religious sects. By about 1970, 95 percent of those small liberal arts colleges were no longer functioning, due to the economics of the National Defense Act support of a massive build-out of large research universities and mass higher education. The relative shrinkage of Federal support is a major part of what has given for-profits both an opportunity and incentive - to essentially cannibalize the student aid.

At least two fundamental reforms are needed: regulate and control student aid to schools to prevent both overreliance and abuse; and, require all institutions to evaluate and disclose transparently with a defined set of comparable data. They should not be subjected to the stultifying and destructive regime of the so-called reform of elementary-secondary education with "No Student Left Behind", but should certainly be required to provide adequate disclosure and truth-in-advertising. There is merit in the diversity of education at all levels, but that diversity works best when its clients (versus mere customers) are able to choose well based on both money and information (and I don't mean 'information overload' - adequate and relevant information).

Let the for-profits meet the need they can, but do not ever be deluded that their mission is anything but profit, and do not corrupt the nonprofit sector by letting for-profits cannibalize scarce resources through deception and cheating.

I agree with many of the comments here regarding the conflict of msiions in for profit schools. Anyone who disputes that need only compare the salaries of the executives of for profit companies versus that of not for profit schools. The differences are staggering, no astonishing! Arne Duncan should have Kenneth Feinberg look at the compensation of these people as he is doing with Wall Street executives. Capitalism without equity is tyranny.

The study would have more meaning if a similar study was done regarding not-for-profit institutions that could serve as a basis for comparison.

What sort of idiot would need to go under cover and set up an elaborate sting to figure this one out?

First off, the story doesn't even mention online education. Many of the for-profit schools have extensive campus networks, and I am not sure what mode of delivery has to do with this story, if anything. The root cause of both the overpricing in non-profit schools and the fraudulent practices in for-profit schools is overly generous subsidies. All the pigs are trying to feed from the same taxpayer filled trough.

The solution to every problem is not more regulation. Maybe we need to eliminate some laws (reduce subsidies) and prosecute people for simple fraud.

Having worked for several "for-profit" schools in admissions I can tell you there is deceit in everything they do. Sexual harassment (and subsequent coverup) is rampant, as are QUOTAS (some call them goals, now I think they're moving to "budget" and depending upon the type of the school the seedier it gets, who cares if they don't have a high school diploma. If they don't have the money for the application fee, suggest they pawn something. Class acts all the way through and not one infrastructure can say they do things any differently.

Not all online for-profit universities engage in these practices. I encourage anyone interested in these issues to visit the program designed for prospective online, adult learners called "Transparency by Design." Capella University was a charter member and others are joining this effort to counter the kinds of problems described in this article and many of the comments: http://www.collegechoicesforadults.org/.

In the wider picture, the abuses noticed in the article can be found in both the for-profit and the non-profit sectors. I suspect that the adult learner programs operated by non-profit institutions sometimes demonstrate the same behavior as noted at these for-profit schools. The abuse incident rate may be higher at for-profits but some non-profits need to reform their business practices as well. I agree that too many schools see themselves as businesses without giving sufficient attention to their civic and social responsibilities.

I have worked in the for profit and non profit sector as a teacher and an administrator. I was much happier in the nonprofit sector. I applaud the Department of Education for going after the recruiting abuses of the for profit sector. Next the department of education should go after the the assessment methods of both sectors because neither sector really prepares people for the world at work in the 21st century.

You can find a link to tomorrow's Senate hearing here: http://help.senate.gov/hearings/ Just click on "For-Profit Schools: The Student Recruitment Experience."

Interesting panel of witnesses:

Gregory Kutz, Managing Director, Office of Forensic Audits and Special Investigations, U.S. Government Accountability Office.

David Hawkins, Director of Public Policy and Research, National Association for College Admission Counseling.

Michale McComis, Executive Director, Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges.

Joshua Pruyn, former Admissions Representative, Alta College, Inc., Denver, CO.

In terms of the mission discussion, the mission of a for-profit is not to just make money. All businesses do that to survive. However most businesses have missions, values, and guiding principles. Sometimes these are just wall posters and sometimes these a lived by the employees. Likewise, many schools have lofty missions that are unrealized.

No one has mentioned that there are different kinds of educational needs during a person's life. Focused certificate courses that enable someone to get a job or hold a job are very different from most degree programs. Just as a student who can take a four sabbatical is different from a wage-earning single parent who needs a certificate to get a leg up.

Online can be terrific and awful just like in-person classrooms. Corporate America has been dealing with appropriate delivery methods for student needs much longer than Higher Ed. It might be helpful to learn from them and from the gaming community where passion and learning meet entertainment.

It sounds like the for-profit schools are the 'Scooter Store' of academia. Find something the federal government will pay for and then open a business that provides it.

These studies should really be applied to NFP universities and colleges as well. Having seen it first-hand, I think they would find similar behaviors in not-for-profits.

We are omitting for-profit yet private institutional models - using an ax instead of a scalpel in criticism and analysis. I think there may be a lot of potential value - in savings for taxpayers, cost-efficiency, and employee dedication - in private for-profits. The "problem" is having the shareholder who is removed from the delivery the primrary stakholder instead of the student. This is not necessarily the case in a private for-profit situation.

We have been doing shopping assessments and front-end analysis for all three institutional types for 15 years. Over this span of time, I have seen growing abuse in enrollment practices among all three types, especially in those programs that target adult-learners and so called career education degrees (Allied Health programs, etc.). In point of fact, the worst abuses I have personally documented were committed by a faith-based independent college. On balance, however, the abuses are to be found in all types in certain program areas.

What are the causes of these abuses?

Based on what I see, it would be incorrect to attribute the cause to intentional deception. My judgment is that inadequate training and oversight are generally the root cause. The quest for growth and increasing competition are driving various behaviors on the part of enrollment counselors that are not being detected and managed quickly. This is not to excuse the exceptionally bad behavior of the few but, thus far, Congress has overlooked 90% of the market where abuses take place to focus on 10%. We need a broad GAP audit. If you agree, contact your Representatives.

I don't know how the online versus face-to-Face issue got on this table but all three institutional types have large online programs. Only one very large for-profit is online only, Capella University, and they are well regarded by the accrediting bodies and in the higher education community. Whoever implied that online is all about higher profit margins is speaking from ignorance. I have reviewed the budgets of online and on-ground programs since 1989. Categorically, online programs are not less expensive to operate. Often, their total operating costs are higher. Many factors are involved. I first had this debate with the late Milton Friedman; it took a few dozen budgets to convince him. That was in 1995, we should know better by now.

A lot of "I bet the same thing happens at non-profits too" comments...all of which seem to ignore the fact that many of that sector's recruiters are in fact looking for just the opposite - full payers. Many colleges want to load up on future donors who increase net revenue and due to the positive correlation between daddy's income and SAT scores, increase the academic profile as well. Of course, this is ethically questionable too, but I don't think anyone can accuse NFP schools of what commenter #18 observes. The worst offenders among for-profits (and I will certainly acknowledge that they are in the minority) only recruit at homeless shelters and unemployment lines so that none of the students are expected to reach into their own pockets. They have the 90/10 law, which just promotes the behavior that this investigation uncovered, yet they still try to play and endgame around it.

Let's hear some outrage from the Career College group, because those with the most at stake here are the for-profits who provide a quality product and play by the rules. They're the ones who should be coming down the hardest on the charlatans.

what the report doesn't mention, charlie gross and others, is that these for-profits, along with being almost universally fraudulent hand out automatic A's for classes in order to keep the students sucked into the system. It is just another example of what is happening to higher education in this country, where students are customers and full time faculty have become a relic of the past. Non-profits are not doing much better in letting students know that they will be taught by adjuncts with no commitment to the students or the institution, for their poverty pay does not allow their spending time actually thinking about how higher education should work. And betterschools, I have no idea what numbers you are looking at, but of course on-line education is about profit. More students, less requirements and checks coming in. We have known this way before 1995. Who do you work for? And it is not the minority as you suggest. THe report shows that it is in fact almost all of them. It is spin to say it is not.

Thanks betterschools for your interesting and thoughtful post.
To clairfy, I am not suggesting that private for-profits have smaller budgets because they are online although they may be (i.e., what Capella was when it first started - a private for profit only online.)
What I meant was that the pvt for-profs can have - at least theoretically - greater mission focus than public for-profs - since they can sacrifice higher returns in any given year without public condemnation and financial punishment. Additionally, in an alleged "free-market" society the taxpayer should benefit from the establishment of an educational institution that is as close to self-supporting as we can get it, which implies that the market (students) pays an appropriate amount for the value received and not necessarily that they are less expensive to operate. My comments are generalities to be sure, lacking substantive analysis. But it seems that most posts on this topic suffer from a lack of hard data in part because what is to be measured - the value of an education - is nebulous as well.

@trendisnotdestiny who stated that "on-line education exists to cut costs and to sell product."

I work at a public, non-profit two-year college with a large online program, of which we are very proud.

I agree with Omnist, who stated that "Online education does not exist to cut costs and sell product" and noted that it does not cut costs.

However, left out of this discussion is the important point that online education makes education available to a whole group of students who might not otherwise be able to go to college. This includes workers with schedules that are incompatible with attendance at face-to-face classes, people caring for young children or elderly parents, people with health issues, etc.

While not all online education is high quality, the same could be said of on-campus education. Online education CAN meet the highest educational standards. In the hands of skilled educators, it can be highly stimulating, interactive, and rigorous.

@maggiecase -- I agree. My comment was directed at someone's suggestion that online education has a higher margin. As for taxpayers, these new regulations have produced a number of new analyses on taxpayer costs. I can't vouch for the data personally but they pass the smell test of being in the neighborhood: for-profits, $750 per student per year; community colleges, $10,000 per student per year (this seems high to me; my last run at it came up with $6,500 but that was a few years ago); I can't recall the public 4-year taxpayer cost but it seemed to be a little lower than the new community college figures.

@cerebellum -- I agree, especially with the proven increase in access provided by online students. In one program we studied, one-third of the students were firm in their judgment that they would not be in college were it not for the availablity of their online program. In this school alone, the generalization amounted to thousands of students. As for quality, let's not allow the detractors to make anyone believe that there are no good data on this topic. Last year, the Department of Education conducted a meta-analysis on 46 quality research studies comparing online with on-ground instruction.

http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/opepd/ppss/reports.html#edtech

The findings were that online only generally does a better job that on-ground only. Blended comes out on top. One needs to read the study though to understand the issues.

The for-profit industry serves an important place where there traditional brick and mortar schools have failed miserably: that is providing access to those that can't get to the schools themselves.

I agree that there is a difference between for-profit and online education. It is for-profit groups that have really pushed the envelope in providing online line education which is giving that area of a bad rap. However, schools in general, regardless of profit motive, are failing in not providing more concrete ways of developing students and demonstrating what they have learned.

We are assuming that a school with a great reputation and excellent placement rate means that the students learned a great deal and are able to take that with them in the future. That is not necessarily the case. We need to focus on developing a complete set of transferable skills that any and every college will demonstrate and develop for the student. Then we need to provide a curriculum that will challenge those students to do so.

This is where the use of technology is critical to building such a platform.

I have taken a number of online courses from the University of Virginia, Northern Virginia Community College and College of DuPage. I have found that the community colleges are about educating the masses and hardly focused at all on providing solid transferable skills. They run you through a course making you read chapter after chapter, taking the prepared exams provided by the company and providing no real lecture content.

The opposite was true at UVA. They required constant contact with the teacher/facilitator, performance based assessments, a large number of assessments ungraded and graded, and a cumulative exam format so you left with true knowledge from the course.

Not all schools are that way. But if online education is going to work, it can't be treated like the bastard child it is at many of these community colleges. They can't look at it like a huge revenue stream with little cost. My professors at COD were a joke.

I never had responses in less than 4 to 5 days and their returning of grades on papers was appalling.

We need to focus on making sure we getting the most out of our resources. This means that all colleges and universities, regardless of profit motive, online or not, should be required to develop programs that are student learner focused. The students need to come out of the programs with a distinct set of skills and performance measures that they can bring to the table for the employer, non-profit or grad school applicant.

If a for-profit school does this efficiently and effectively over a non-profit, that is great. But I don't see that. I see us wasting these valuable resources; resources that will be eaten up by inefficient for-profit groups to dole out profits to their shareholders until all of that money is given away. Then we are left with the students of the future, in desparate need of funding for their very expensive educations, only to have nothing available to them.

Then as a society, we are stuck with individuals who can't think, can't write, unable to market themselves and employers spending billions more on basic remedial training.

I think congress has the right idea to look and filter out this graft. However, let's take this opportunity to figure out a way to make this more efficient for everyone.

Traei Purtee - seeking out others who want to change the philosophy of education.

I am told that the above link isn't always working, here is the Abstract:

Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online
Learning Studies (2009). A systematic search of the research literature from 1996
through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning.
Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a
face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous
research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size.
As a result of this screening, 51 independent effects were identified that could
be subjected to meta-analysis.

Key findings include:

1. Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average,
than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.
Learning outcomes for students who engaged in online learning exceeded those of
students receiving face-to-face instruction, with an average effect size of +0.24
favoring online conditions. The mean difference between online and face-to-face
conditions across the 51 contrasts is statistically significant at the p < .01
level.

2. Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage
relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction.
The mean effect size in studies comparing blended with face-to-face instruction
was +0.35, p < .001. This effect size is larger than that for studies comparing
purely online and purely face-to-face conditions, which had an average effect size
of +0.14, p < .05.

3. Few rigorous research studies of the effectiveness of online learning for
K–12 students have been published. The systematic search of the research literature
found just five experimental or controlled quasi-experimental studies comparing
the learning effects of online versus face-to-face instruction for K-12 students.
As such, caution is required in generalizing to the K-12 population because the
results are for the most part based on studies in other settings (e.g., medical
training, higher education).

I'm so glad that the brick and mortar non-profit educational world engages in no false advertising or promises, no fraudulent inducement, no deceitful admissions policies, no abusive fund raising, no grade inflation, and no squeezing of families dry, all while maintaining high standards of transparency and careful evaluation of value added and education provided. Good grief. Talk about misplaced, self-serving judgment. Let's look inward.

Two words: no duh.

Anyone who has worked in a for profit institution can tell you that the profit motive drives academic and student services decisions. While higher education is a business and lots of reputable schools make bad decisions, I would be surprised to find the widespread and systematic deception and abuse that I witnessed as the registrar for a small proprietary business school. Perhaps I'm just naive, but it's been a while since I've had a student crying in my office because the admissions rep told her she could complete a course of study in the evening that isn't even offered as a part of the institutions evening curriculum. The rep made his admissions goal and got his sales bonus, but the students weren't always that lucky.

Tell me that a small liberal arts non-profit university that is struggling to survive isn't "hyping" and bending the truth to get students.

I wish the investigation could have sampled both for-profit and non-profit using the same criterion. I tend to not like only looking at part of the problem. Based on the comments so far, it appears that the problem is "who is gaurding the hen house" not which hen stepped on the egg.

Fifteen colleges is a rather small number when you compare to hundreds of for profit schools. That still doesn't justify any schools using deceitful methods to recruit students. There are good and bad aspects of both brick and mortar colleges and for profits. I agree with the comment about make it a real study by sampling just as many non-profits and see what the findings we have at that point.

It's hard to add something useful to such an intelligent discussion of this issue: thanks to all for that. I gave a writing workshop for teachers at perhaps the largest of the for-profits some time ago that illustrated how hard it is for that segment to do quality work, even when it tries. I was paid well to give the workshop, designed to improve the quality of instruction, and so were the teachers attending. But it seemed futile, according to the teachers. They couldn't assign writing as part of their courses, they told me, since students didn't like to write and the students, at the end of the day, were customers, and the customer is always right. Sigh. That same attitude has been seeping into the non-profits, to be sure, but it does dominate the for-profits.

The elephant in the room is the federal student loan program. Without it we wouldn't be having this discussion. Basically, it is a means of taxing students' future earnings by saddling them with an enormous debt to repay upon graduation. The rather shaky assumption that a college degree (in anything) will provide the excess means necessary to pay off the debt makes possible the marketing of degrees of dubious value in this regard, something both profit and non-profit are apparently doing with abandon. Face it, there have always been diploma mills seeking to sell the naive a credential they purport is the equivalent of one earned from a reputable institution (where reputation is based in part on past history). In providing the loan program, the government has simply provided a candy jar for these same operators, and their ilk, to wallow in. The first step is to revisit the student loan program, and in particular, change the assumptions upon which it is based.

My only personal experience of a for-profit school was applying for a job as a librarian at one. The head of the school who interviewed me didn't know what an ALA-accredited degree was, and thought perhaps I wasn't qualified because my university called it "Masters in Information Science" instead of "Masters in Library Science." He didn't know what their collections budget would be for books or databases, and seemed stunned by the question. And on and on. It became obvious very quickly that he had little idea of what a post-secondary library was and that they had no real plans to provide one for their students.
My other experience is having students at for-profits come to the academic library where I work to do their research, since their school either provides little to nothing or they can't find the links on their schools' websites. I've had trouble finding them, too. They sometimes tell me that their teachers tell them to use our library, since they don't have the materials. It's one thing to tell students to use a better-funded or equipped library to supplement what you have. It's another to make little to no attempt to provide anything.
This is not the only issue, but I think the level of library services are one good indicator of the type of 'education' many of them intend to provide.

cwinton - change what assumptions? Far as I know, here are the assumptions that the the federal student loan program are based on: not all students have enough cash on hand to pay their tuition and not all of them qualify for grants that pay the tuition. At many schools, these loans are supplemental, they don't come close to covering the entire cost of the tuition bill, so the availability of the federal student loans by themselves cannot drive all of this. Do the math - if a first year postsecondary student can borrow $3500 plus another $2000, and the tuition everywhere was exactly $5500, then you'd have a point.

You see "taxing students' future earnings," others might see an investment in one's future. Student loans paid for some of my undergraduate degree quite some time ago, and I'm glad they were available, because another option may have been to take a semester or two off and earn as much as I could by working in some lousy job with the hope that I'd return and finish my degree.

These schools are amazing but as a business person they do use all of the techniques used in retail. If they can not get the business one way they get it another like purchasing an existing school that is normal has a good reputation. Then the academic community hold the prior students in the same regard "you got your degree on". I had that happen to me as I tried to get jobs even though my degree was from the school prior to the acquisition.

Why not send undercover applicants in to state schools and community colleges? If you only investigate one side of the fence, you will only find bad behavior on that side of the fence.

After all, state schools promised me that my degree could get me hired almost anywhere. They promised it would lift me out of poverty.

No. It did not.

It did, however, load me with debt and make me "overqualified" for the only jobs I can actually get with my degree.

And by the way, it was from a highly respected university.

So I went to grad school. Same problem.

Obama and the DOE show no concern for graduates from state schools that are saddled with debt and working for pittances. Only the for-profits squirm under the microscope.

From my perspective, both of them misrepresent the monetary value of a degree. And as for whether state schools are so much better at the edu-ma-cation part, well, just take a look at the book "The Five Year Party."

@ amnirov
"What sort of idiot would need to go under cover and set up an elaborate sting to figure this one out?"

The kind that needs evidence.

It is fine to suggest that future investigation also examine non-profit schools (although most reputable non-profits don't heavily recruit like for-profits do). However, that doesn't excuse the behavior uncovered here. And yes, as a taxpayer, I am more concerned about waste that goes toward lining someone's pocket than waste that goes toward sustaining a struggling non-profit.

Again, the issues here are fivefold:

For Profit vs. Non Profit - just because one is incorporated as a profit making enterprise, and can focus on providing excellent education to many who otherwise not be able to find it at many public and private colleges and universities focused more on research grants and dollars than student success - also, For Profit institutions of higher learning that qualify for Federal student aid must be accredited by the same agencies as the private and public institutions, North Central, Southern States, etc. Good For Profit universities can provide excellent, student centered learning for a good cost! Poor For Profit universities may provide poor education, little support to students, and high default rates on federal loans JUST poor like state and private universities.

Also, For Profit Universities often provide an excellent hybrid mix of localized campus centers throughout a region or the nation, while also providing on-line programs that can supplement the campus centered, face to face learning, or if for instance, an employee is called up for military service, then the student can keep taking classes on-line during their deployment.

Outrageous cost of higher education in the public sector - over the last thirty three years the costs of public education have vastly gone up faster than families' income and so outstripped family income, that, back in 1967 students could attend most of the state of California schools for $500 or less per year! Even midwestern state universities might cost $1,000 per year in graduate school or less! Where did the money go? Less federal and state subsidies? Bloated administrative costs in ever complex university bureaucracies?

This whole issue of For Profit vs. Non Profit is spin cooked up by traditional schools that have failed their students, not kept up with learning technologies as supplemental means for education, and are fearful that they will eventually close due to the American Market - If you provide good services, at a reasonable price with extra value, you will get the customers. If you have a bloated and fat bureaucracy with no or little productivity, turf protection and poor or no leadership, you will also get what will come your way!

jungianscholar

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The bubble is about to burst for these for-profit behemoths! It's about time.

Let us not forget the for-profit corporate held prisons and that the USA has more of its populace, per capita, than any country anywhere in the world.

Long term, the issue is what should be socialized and what should be for-profit. When government is subverted and removed and made into for-profit, it is a conspicuous scenario. I used to say during the BushCo era that if it wasn't bolted down they took it and if it was bolted down, they came back with a sawzall and took it.

5% of the populace owning 95% of the wealth and using the stock market system to achieve this. When NPR is drooling over their lamb chops and mint jelly to report "the numbers" as their priorty news, it does not escape that National "Public" Radio is serving the 5% of the populace.

typo correction: USA has more of its populace, per capita, in prisons than any country anywhere in the world.

The biggest fraud on the taxpayer is done when schools allow students to borrow two or three times their actual direct cost for "living expenses" (e.g. borrowing $138,000 for a $40,000 degree), then have the students enter the Income Based Repayment (IBR) plan, where the student will never fully repay their loans. Master's level students can borrow $10,250 per semester even if the actual cost of the classes are only $4000, meaning roughly $6000 of the loans goes in the student's pocket. Students end up leaving school with $100,000 or more in loan debt for a degree which actually cost $40,000, using all the excess to pay their mortgage, credit cards and any other debts they have, then are let of the hook by the IBR plan. No sane investor would lend money on such loose terms, yet we have these loose lending and repayment terms which assume that all borrowing was necessary and done in good faith. If Title IV regulations were rewritten to force schools to limit funding to direct cost only, most of this problem would be eliminated. Debts would be cut at least in half and students would fully repay their loans. Schools can do this now voluntarily, but unfortunately most do not under the guise of "living expense" allowances.

Thank you fiscalsense (#46), 11132507 (#36) notwithstanding. I repeat my assertion that for starters we need to revisit the assumptions behind the loan program. There are worthy goals for such a program, but we should not be underwriting loans for every tom, dick, and harry educational startup institution, a large number of which have been created precisely to enrich a few, ultimately at the expense of the US taxpayer, and leaving in their wake non-credit worthy, and likely impoverished victims who have been sold a pipe dream and at best a worthless credential.

To #36 and 47: I'm all for Student loans up to direct cost. What many students are doing now though is taking advantage of the easy loose lending and borrowing far above direct cost, using all the excess to pay other debts which Title IV was never intended to cover. If tuition is say $4000, they're borrowing $10000 (Students are eligible for loans greater than direct cost if they are part time or grad students) and living on the $6000 difference, term after term, ending up with something like $100,000 for a $40,000 degree or even over $200K over their college career when including grad, undergrad and PLUS loans. If you talk to a student with high student loan debt, find out how much they got back in refunds. Most students in this category will then enter some sort of Income Based Repayment plan (if they pay at all) which means they'll never fully repay these loans, sticking the taxpayer with the loss, while the students who were responsible and only borrowed what was necessary fully repay their loans.

The problem is State Recognized Public Colleges do not offer the courses provided in For-Profit colleges. I can name a few State Universities & City Colleges that offer Computer Programming in Basic & Fortran. This happens because they fail to replace Professors that don't have knowledge being used in the real world today. Bureaucratic nonsense. It is until now that State and City colleges have seen that they need to start Teaching updated courses. Only 1 city college in the Los Angeles Community College District has courses that are valid for todays I.T. Industry and offer many of their courses on-site and online. Yes it's true that For-Profit colleges are a rip-off but this happened because of our public school sector was unwilling to revamp it courses. What LACCD did offering those new courses and degrees was a great step and I am happy to say that now for me it's worth going to a Public college that offers those courses. Now the real question is...which university to transfer too? So far thay are still living in the stone-age with old school courses not worth taking because they don't fire their Professors. I don't want a degree from a recognized college for mere academic arrogance...I actually want to learn something I'll use in the real world! As an employer of the IT industry I would never hire someone with any degree unless they show their transcripts and so far For-Profit colleges only seem to teach updated courses.