As Washington Props Up For-Profit Colleges, Students Vote With Their Feet
For-profit colleges have boomed in the last decade, spurred largely by success in hoovering up public money — for-profit college students now account for a quarter of all Pell Grant disbursements, although they only make 12 percent of all college students. Between grants and loans, federal programs provide some 90 percent of all for-profit revenue.
All this would be fine if the for-profits were providing consistently strong education at a reasonable price — but they’re not. Many are no more than diploma mills, preying on uninformed students and providing them with worthless degrees while burdening them with major long-term debt. As a result, nearly half of all student loan defaults come from the for-profit sector.
This hurts the students at the for-profits, of course, but it hurts needy students at more reputable institutions too.