New Study: “For-Profit” Colleges Actually Hurt Students’ Economic Prospects

Private, for-profit educational institutions have been prominent in the news lately thanks to Trump University, and it’s probably easiest to define them by what they’re not. First off, to state the obvious, they’re not public schools, which are largely funded by taxes (think of the giants, like Ohio State or the University of Florida). Nor are they private, non-profit schools, which are primarily funded by tuition and endowments—i.e. any Ivy League school, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, etc. etc. etc. Private, for-profit schools are the third category, the red-headed stepchild of colleges, distinguished by the fact that they’re “owned” by investors and stockholders who are trying to make money.

Some of these colleges exist mainly online, like the University of Phoenix, and beyond big names like Phoenix and DeVry and ITT Tech, you probably wouldn’t recognize many by name. New ones are always opening, and old ones are always closing. They don’t field athletic teams, they don’t have extensive histories, and controversy, spurred on by poor student outcomes, has attended every moment of their existence.