The nation’s for-profit, private college industry is a study in horror.
Start with the fact that it actually calls itself an “industry.” Excuse me, but education is a social investment—not an industrial product.
Next, this so-called “private” industry depends almost wholly on government money. It generates practically none of its revenue from the free market. Instead, it cons students into taking expensive government-backed loans to invest in educations that seldom deliver increases in their earning potential.
“For-profit” colleges are just that. They maintain that their obligation isn’t to serve students or society, but to deliver profits to their corporate shareholders. These things are scandal machines, as proven by the latest for-profit college conglomerate to be exposed as a fraud.
Education Management Corporation (EDMC) operates four college systems, offering courses online and in office buildings in 32 states. EDMC gives its recruiters extravagant financial incentives to pressure low-income people into taking-out huge federal education loans in order to pay for courses at the corporation’s colleges.
