Jane Shaw sums up the Obama administration’s war against for-profit career colleges.
?The very name for-profit bothers some people,? says Jane S. Shaw, president of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. ?There?s quite a bit of competition between the community colleges and the for-profits, and Barack Obama, because of his commitment to government ownership, tends to want to see a lot more students going to community colleges and a lot fewer going to for-profits, but there?s no reason to favor one over the other. I think it?s a power grab, just like a lot of other power grabs we?ve seen over the last year.?
These schools, such as Strayer University and the University of Phoenix are the fastest growing segment of higher education institutions. Mark Schneider of the American Enterprise Institute laments their low graduation rates, but I question whether that is the right measure of their success. Surely a portion of the students transfer to non-profit or government-run schools to complete their degrees and others leave when they acquire the skills they need, like Bill Gates left Harvard.
UPDATE: State lawmakers will debate legislation when they return next week that would force community colleges to take federal loans, something only 21 of 58 do now.
