For Profit Colleges: For Better or For Worse

An executive from the famous University of Phoenix shuttered when his business was called an empire and defended its growth by saying that it was student driven. Some 400,000 students attend.

In a panel discussion at the Education Writers Association conference, Jorge Klor de Alva, vice president for the massive online college, said that his enterprise started as a way to fill a niche for working adults who needed to finish a degree. It’s been able to continue to attract students because classes are small and curriculum is standardized.

Tom Snydner from the National Center on Education Statistics said that for profit colleges serve disproportionate numbers of women and black students, suggesting that some of this could be contributed to the fact that many of them are operated in urban centers.

He also presented a chart that showed that for profit colleges spend less on instruction than do public or not-for-profit institutions. Some of that could be attributed to fewer overhead costs as most for profits don’t provide room and board, he said.

Contrary to their reputation, Snydner said these colleges are not way more expensive than public and for-profit universities and that the same proportion of students get financial aid and loans.

Kevin Kinser, a researcher from SUNY-Albany, added that for profit colleges tend to spend a lot of money on marketing and recruitment, noting that every web page he goes to has an ad for the University of Phoenix.

Klor de Alva, however, insisted that students come to his college because of its word of mouth reputation and not because of the aggressive marketing.

There was little discussion in the session about what are some of the problems reporters could look for in for-profit colleges.