College, Inc. � The Quick and the Ed

College, Inc. � The Quick and the Ed

College, Inc.

by Kevin Carey

PBS broadcast a documentary on for-profit higher education last week, titled College, Inc. It begins with the slightly ridiculous figure of Michael Clifford, a former cocaine abuser turned born-again Christian who never went to college, yet makes a living padding around the lawn of his oceanside home wearing sandals and loose-fitting print shirts, buying up distressed non-profit colleges and turning them into for-profit money machines.
Improbably, Clifford emerges from the documentary looking okay. When asked what he brings to the deals he brokers, he cites nothing educational. Instead, it’s the “Three M’s: Money, Management, and Marketing.” And hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. A college may have deep traditions and dedicated faculty, but if it’s bankrupt, anonymous, and incompetently run, it won’t do students much good. “Non-profit” colleges that pay their leaders executive salaries and run multi-billion dollar sports franchises have long since ceded the moral high ground when it comes to chasing the bottom line.
The problem with for-profit higher education, as the documentary ably shows, is that people like Clifford are