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For-Profit Colleges: The Unfulfilled Promise

Rick Cohen
December 14, 2010

December 13, 2010; Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | The fastest growing colleges in the U.S. now are for-profit entities, not public universities or the nonprofits typically associated with private colleges and universities. These for-profit institutions, says Maureen Downey in her recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial, are particularly attractive to students “without a college-going culture in their families to inform their higher-education decisions.”

Who are these for-profit colleges? According to Amy Wilkins, vice president of the Education Trust, they are “shysters.”  The Education Trust’s new report, Subprime Opportunity: The Unfulfilled Promise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities, is a devastating critique that has the for-profit college industry howling.

According to the report, “For-profit colleges provide high-cost degree programs that have little chance of leading to high-paying careers, and saddle the most vulnerable students with heavy debt. Instead of providing a solid pathway to the middle class, they pave a path into the subbasement of the American economy.”

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For-profit colleges graduate 22 percent of their first-time, full-time bachelors students, compared to 55 percent for public colleges and 65 percent for nonprofit colleges. The largest of the for-profits, the University of Phoenix, has a six-year graduation rate of 9 percent.

The AJC notes that “the median debt of graduates of for-profits was $31,190, nearly twice that of the private nonprofit graduates, $17,040, and more than three-and-a-half times that of public college graduates, $7,960.” Explaining their low graduation rates, the for-profits say that they take a disproportionate share of students “who are not traditionally regarded as college material.”

They also take a disproportionate share of public subsidies: Though enrolling only 12 percent of post-secondary students in 2008-2009, for-profit colleges got 23 percent of federal college student grants and loans. In the case of higher education, according to the Education Trust’s report, for-profit apparently means a lower quality product.—Rick Cohen

About the author
Rick Cohen

Rick joined NPQ in 2006, after almost eight years as the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Before that he played various roles as a community worker and advisor to others doing community work. He also worked in government. Cohen pursued investigative and analytical articles, advocated for increased philanthropic giving and access for disenfranchised constituencies, and promoted increased philanthropic and nonprofit accountability.

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