Online institutions

Brigham Young University's Independent Study program appears to be wildly successful. At any given time, students are taking more than 100,000 high school courses and 22,000 college classes, for a variety of reasons: to get courses out of the way in the summer, finish high school or college early, or improve their performance in classes in which they struggled.

Critics of for-profit higher education have of late drawn attention to what they see as a pattern of "accreditation shopping" in which for-profit entities purchase financially struggling nonprofit colleges, and then hold on to the regional accreditation that the nonprofit colleges had for years, even as the new owners expand or radically change the institutions' missions.

With tension of for-profit scrutiny in the air, leaders of online institutions convene in Washington to fret over state, federal oversight.

Princeton Review looking to expand program offering Massachusetts community colleges accelerated health science degree programs to students willing to pay more.

California's Compton Community College loses recognition over range of management issues.

Has a partnership between a private university and a for-profit company created a better way to get students prepared for transfer?

Responding to faculty opposition, Cuyahoga Community College suspends arrangement with Academic Partnerships to offer online accounting degree.