Download For-profit colleges receive billions in taxpayer money and charge

For-profit colleges receive billions in taxpayer money and charge high tuition.
For-profit colleges receive over $32 billion from federal financial aid programs, which accounts
for 25% all federal financial aid dollars.
Most for-profit colleges charge much higher tuition than comparable programs at public
institutions.
•
•
•
Bachelor’s degree programs averaged 20 percent more than the cost of analogous
programs at flagship public universities.
Associate degree programs averaged four times the cost of degree programs at
comparable community colleges.
Certificate programs similarly averaged four and a half times the cost of such programs
at comparable community colleges.
Where is this money going? Not on instruction or student services.
•
•
•
A U.S. Senate HELP committee investigation into for-profit colleges showed that forprofit colleges spend only 17% of revenue on instruction while they spend over 22% of
revenue on marketing and recruiting.
For every careers services counselor employed by a for-profit college, the college will
employ ten recruiters.
Additionally, the CEOs of the publicly traded, for-profit education companies took home,
on average, $7.3 million in 2009. In contrast, the five highest paid leaders of large public
universities averaged compensation of $1 million, while the five highest paid leaders at
nonprofit colleges and universities averaged $3 million.
When for-profit colleges put profits, marketing and management salaries above student and
quality instruction we know students suffer.
According to the same HELP committee report, students who attend for-profit colleges are
more likely to drop out, be unemployed and default on their student loans.
•
•
•
More than half of all students enrolled in for-profits drop out without getting a degree
or diploma within a median of 4 months.
According to a National Center for Education Statistics study, 23 percent of students
who attended for-profit schools in 2008-9 were unemployed and seeking work.
Nearly half of all student loan defaulters went to a for-profit school, and 1 in 5 students
at for-profit schools default within three years of entering repayment.
Join Faculty Forward because faculty working conditions are student learning conditions.