ITT Educational Services (ESI) provides technology-oriented undergraduate and graduate education through its ITT Technical Institutes and Daniel Webster College.
American Commercial Colleges Inc. has agreed to pay the United States at least $1-million over the next five years to settle a whistle-blower lawsuit accusing it of defrauding the government, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Friday.
The latest enrollment figures from for-profit colleges suggest that damning publicity over their business practices, as well as tighter government regulations that followed it, has done deep and long-lasting damage to the industry. Forecasts for the five biggest publicly-traded schools now call for revenue declines to continue at least through fiscal 2014. Share prices are down between 32% and 86% in the past two years, turning some once-heady investments into major losers, as seen in a stock chart.
Developers seeking city financing for projects that include for-profit colleges will face new standards under a proposal recommended for approval Tuesday by the Milwaukee Common Council's Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee.
The leading lights of the for-profit higher education sector might be unfairly stereotyped as hard-nosed types. Meanwhile, people from Yorkshire have been unfairly stereotyped as keeping a particularly tight rein on their finances.
Corinthian Colleges operates in an industry criticized for deceptive marketing and low graduation and job placement rates. Why would two respected public figures join its board?
Attorney General Lisa Madigan today urged U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to strengthen oversight of for-profit colleges and filed comments with the Department of Education in support of requiring schools to ensure students can pay off their loans and to make more accurate and complete disclosures about their job placement rates.
The state of student debt in California, especially at public universities, is better than the rest of the country. That doesn’t mean the situation is manageable for all student borrowers.
Uncovered confidential contracts reveal that millions of dollars may have been illegally funneled from private universities to fund the success of a club soccer team.
Apollo Group Inc (NASDAQ:APOL), the for-profit education company that is the parent of University of Phoenix, looks like a great deal on the surface. At 7.9 times TTM earnings and over $1.2 billion in net cash, it almost looks like a “too good to be true” situation. It is. The company’s business model is no longer viable and I believe that Apollo’s recent downsizing efforts are just the beginning.
The Milwaukee Common Council on Tuesday unamimously approved standards for for-profit colleges and for developers who seek to use for-profit colleges to anchor property developments.
For example, the not-for-profit Regent’s College has become Regent’s University and the College of Law has become the University of Law, the UK’s first for-profit university.
The next few months should be a busy time for the U.S. Education Department. The administration is gearing up for several rounds of negotiations over possible new rules, including rewriting controversial regulations governing for-profit colleges. Congress is beginning the process of renewing the Higher Education Act. And in the days after President Obama won re-election, Education Secretary Arne Duncan promised an increased focus on higher education issues in the administration’s second term.
A veteran of for-profit higher education has built a new online learning portal, this time a nonprofit. And Michael K. Clifford’s DreamDegree.org, which went live last month, already offers 27 courses that can lead to college credit at many colleges.
San Diego’s Bridgepoint Education launched a voluntary buyout program for its Ashford University arm last week to cut staff on the eve of a critical accreditation decision for the college.
Apollo Group Inc., owner of the University of Phoenix and the biggest U.S. for-profit college, said net income in the fiscal third quarter slid 40 percent as new enrollment tumbled.
The Obama administration has resumed efforts to rein in abuses by for-profit colleges that leave students deep in debt and unable to find decent jobs, renewing a 2-year-old battle over regulations that has produced little more than bitterness and litigation.
The sort of people who go through business school, one might think, would have no problem with the idea of education being provided for a profit. But when Thunderbird, a struggling school based in Arizona, announced three months ago that it was planning a partnership with Laureate, an education company, there was uproar among its alumni and students. A petition calling for the deal to be halted has won almost 2,000 signatures. By “selling out”, Thunderbird’s management is diluting the school’s brand and cheapening its degrees, it says.
One of the more common complaints against for-profit colleges is that the institutions make promises to prospective students about job placement and salary that the schools don’t make good on. A woman in Missouri recently sued one such for-profit school, saying it misled her about its medical assistant program. She had been seeking somewhere between $2-4 million in damages, but the jury went ahead and awarded her $13 million.