A few days ago, the report of a 2 year investigation by a Committee of the Senate, led by Tom Harkin, was presented with severe criticisms towards current practices in for profit education in the US. The report is based on an extensive two year investigation and resulted in a in-depth report about the selected 30 companies that were examined.
A new scholarship from Strayer University will trim about 30 percent off the cost of a degree for qualifying students. And other for-profits have also increased institutional grant aid, suggesting that the industry may be warming to the tuition discounting that is so prevalent among traditional colleges.
A specter of corruption is haunting the global campaign toward higher education internationalization. An overseas degree is increasingly valuable, so it is not surprising that commercial ventures have found opportunities on the internationalization landscape. New private actors have entered the sector, with the sole goal of making money. Some of them are less than honorable. Some universities look at internationalization as a contribution to the bottom line in an era of financial cutbacks. The rapidly expanding private higher education sector globally is largely for-profit. In a few cases, such as Australia and increasingly Britain, national policies concerning higher education internationalization tilt toward earning income for the system.
West Virginia's Higher Education Policy Commission has approved a rule expanding its authority over private and for-profit colleges. The policy approved Friday would require information from every state private college on student retention rates, transfers, licensure pass rates and loan default rates.
For the first time in West Virginia, the higher education oversight body will have sweeping authority to crack down on struggling private and for-profit colleges. On Friday, the state Higher Education Policy Commission approved a new policy that gives itself the power to demand data on student retention rates, transfer information, licensure pass rates and loan default rates from every private college operating in West Virginia.
After two year's worth of chairing frequently combative committee hearings on for-profit higher education, Sen. Tom Harkin's four-part report should come as no surprise. But there is more bad news for the industry.
In an echo of their broader philosophical divide, Romney and Obama split sharply over what role the private sector should play in the U.S. education system.
For-profit college representatives are fighting in federal court for the right to avoid telling students if they are likely to afford their debts after attending school.