For-Profit Colleges

Big for-profit American Public now offers competency-based undergraduate degrees that don’t rely on the credit-hour standard, but federal aid isn’t part of the mix, for now.

The Dream Center Foundation, a religious missionary organization based in Los Angeles, plans to buy EDMC, a struggling for-profit chain that enrolls 65,000 students. The resulting nonprofit college group will be secular.

Given the high dropout rates and poor job-placement rates of for-profit colleges, people often blame them for what are, in fact, labor market failures in an economy that has shifted new risks to workers, writes Tressie McMillan Cottom.

A new book argues that the focus on credentials and growing inequality led to the rise in for-profit colleges.

For-profit-college advocates cite Obama administration data goof on loan repayment rates as justification for revisiting borrower-defense and gainful-employment rules.

For-profit Laureate Education becomes a publicly held company and the first such company to adopt benefit status, signaling its intent to focus on mission as well as money.

Even though for-profit colleges may be poised to benefit under the Trump administration, they should not take a business-as-usual approach to their operations, argues Joseph R. D’Angelo.

Education Department officials say they will work through Jan. 20 to review claims of defrauded students, but borrowers and advocates call for more urgency.