Consider The Merits of For-profit Colleges, writes Judith Scott-Clayton, a professor at Teachers College of Columbia, in the New York Times.
For-profit colleges ensure that needy students receive the aid for which they’re eligible, unlike many public colleges, Scott-Clayton notes.
Data from the Education Department show that nearly 88 percent of full-time low-income students at private for-profit colleges received a Pell Grant, compared with 61 percent of similar students at community colleges and 76 percent at public four-year colleges.
In addition, for-profit institutions have pioneered online education, potentially a “disruptive innovation” that could transform higher education.
. . . for-profit institutions, facing the pressures of a competitive market and unburdened by decades (or centuries) of accumulated bureaucracies and multiplying missions, have stronger incentives and greater flexibility to innovate than traditional universities.
Critics have raised legitimate questions about for-profit colleges’ recruitment practices, program quality and benefits for students, she writes, but “these questions should be answered for all college students, not just the small fraction at for-profit schools.”
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