How do you build the Harvard University of the for-profit college sector? That’s perhaps a silly question at face value but the question reveals the challenge of manufacturing prestige and legitimacy in a higher education system that is fundamentally ordered by the former and fueled by the latter, frequently in the form of accreditation.
A common lament about higher education is that it has become more of a private good than a public one, with students as consumers and colleges as businesses focused on hawking their product. But that model won’t cut it anymore, at least not for the nation’s largest regional accreditor, which in January redefined what an institution’s philosophical bottom line should be.
A university system is that institution which operates at the tertiary level of the country’s educational system. Regarding which level of government should run a university system, the Nigerian constitution places university education on the concurrent list; implying that both the federal and the state governments can establish and run a university.
The government says its plans to exempt for-profit higher education providers from VAT are developing, despite a Budget announcement postponing the proposals because of “significant concerns”.
The owners of America's big for-profit colleges have developed a big bag of tricks to keep tens of billions of federal dollars flowing their way, regardless of the bad consequences for students and taxpayers. Every time we think we've seen it all, a new brazen tactic emerges.
His father, a college administrator, told him in January that he had started an account for the baby in the Private College 529 Plan, a relatively little-known program that lets participants prepay tuition at private colleges and universities, at today’s rates.
After being in the doghouse for more than two years, for-profit colleges such as Apollo (APOL), DeVry (DV), Corinthian College (COCO), and Strayer College (STRA) are rallying today - Apollo reported better-than-expected profits this morning. Does it mean that the sector has turned the corner? Should investors go bargain hunting in the sector?