Congress Probes For Profit Colleges

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The so-called for profit colleges are spending thousands of marketing dollars on daytime television hoping to lure the unemployed into enrolling at one of their schools. The promises are enticing-good pay, a career, in a short period of time. Who could resist? It seems many have been attracted to such marketing efforts. Yet, the federal government is now investigating the policies and practices of such schools such as Kaplan, Argosy, DeVry University and others. A Congressional inquiry has found that at least some of these schools have encouraged prospective students to falsify admission applications as well as student aid applications. The NY Times has reported on the plight of some students of these schools who’ve amassed huge student loan debt ($200,000 or more) in obtaining a degree from schools that may not be properly accredited.
It may surprise some that these for profit schools are backed by some of the largest and most influential corporations in the country namely Goldman Sachs and the Post Co. which owns the Washington Post. It’s still too early to tell where the Congressional inquiry into the for profit college industry will lead. One can only hope that transparency and justice remain the goals of such an investigation.

Jared Green
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