More than two million students are enrolled in for-profit colleges, from the small family-run operations to the behemoths brandished on billboards, subway ads, and late-night commercials. These schools have been around just as long as their bucolic not-for-profit counterparts, yet shockingly little is known about why they have expanded so rapidly in recent years—during the so-called Wall Street era of for-profit colleges. In Lower Ed Tressie McMillan Cottom—a bold and rising public scholar, herself once a recruiter at two for-profit colleges—expertly parses the fraught dynamics of this big-money industry to show precisely how it is part and parcel of the growing inequality plaguing the country today. McMillan Cottom discloses the shrewd recruitment and marketing strategies that these schools deploy and explains how, despite the well-documented predatory practices of some and the campus closings of others, ending for-profit colleges won't end the vulnerabilities that made them the fastest growing sector of higher education at the turn of the twenty-first century. And she doesn't stop there. With sharp insight and deliberate acumen, McMillan Cottom delivers a comprehensive view of postsecondary for-profit education by illuminating the experiences of the everyday people behind the shareholder earnings, congressional battles, and student debt disasters. The relatable human stories in Lower Ed—from mothers struggling to pay for beauty school to working class guys seeking "good jobs" to accomplished professionals pursuing doctoral degrees—illustrate that the growth of for-profit colleges is inextricably linked to larger questions of race, gender, work, and the promise of opportunity in America. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews with students, employees, executives, and activists, Lower Ed tells the story of the benefits, pitfalls, and real costs of a for-profit education. It is a story about broken social contracts; about education transforming from a public interest to a private gain; and about all Americans and the challenges we face in our divided, unequal society.

Winner of the 2002 Alice L. Beeman Research Award for Outstanding Writing about Communications from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education Among higher education institutions in the United States, for-profit colleges and universities have steadily captured a larger share of the student market. A recent trend at for-profit institutions is the coupling of job training with accredited academic programs that offer traditional baccalaureate, professional, and graduate degrees. Richard Ruch, with administrative experience in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors of higher education, takes us inside these new for-profit institutions, describing who teaches there, who enrolls and why, and how the for-profits are managed and by whom. He analyzes their different structures, services, and outlook on higher learning and training, and explains in detail how they make profits from tuition income. In Higher Ed, Inc., Ruch opens up the discussion about for-profit higher education from the perspective of a participant-observer. Focusing on five providers—the Apollo Group (the University of Phoenix); Argosy Education Group (the American Schools of Professional Psychology); DeVry, Inc. (DeVry Institutes of Technology); Education Management Corporation (the Art Institutes International); and Strayer Education (Strayer University)—he conveys for the first time what it feels like to be inside this new kind of American institution. He is also candid about the less attractive aspects of the for-profit colleges, including what those who enroll may give up. As Ruch makes clear, the major for-profit colleges and universities offer a different approach to higher education—one that may be increasingly influential in the future.

A provocative history of for-profit colleges and universities. Honorable Mention, PROSE Education Practice Award by the American Association of Publishers, FY17 The most significant shift in higher education over the past two decades has been the emergence of for-profit colleges and universities. These online and storefront institutions lure students with promises of fast degrees and “guaranteed” job placement, but what they deliver is often something quite different. In this provocative history of for-profit higher education, historian and educational researcher A. J. Angulo tells the remarkable and often sordid story of these “diploma mills,” which target low-income and nontraditional students while scooping up a disproportionate amount of federal student aid. Tapping into a little-known history with big implications, Angulo takes readers on a lively journey that begins with the apprenticeship system of colonial America and ends with today’s politically savvy $35 billion multinational for-profit industry. He traces the transformation of nineteenth-century reading and writing schools into “commercial” and “business” colleges, explores the early twentieth century’s move toward professionalization and progressivism, and explains why the GI Bill prompted a surge of new for-profit institutions. He also shows how well-founded concerns about profit-seeking in higher education have evolved over the centuries and argues that financial gaming and maneuvering by these institutions threatens to destabilize the entire federal student aid program. This is the first sweeping narrative history to explain why for-profits have mattered to students, taxpayers, lawmakers, and the many others who have viewed higher education as part of the American dream. Diploma Mills speaks to today’s concerns by shedding light on unmistakable conflicts of interest long associated with this scandal-plagued class of colleges and universities.

Enrollment at America's community colleges has exploded in recent years, with five times as many entering students today as in 1965. However, most community college students do not graduate; many earn no credits and may leave school with no more advantages in the labor market than if they had never attended. Experts disagree over the reason for community colleges' mixed record. Is it that the students in these schools are under-prepared and ill-equipped for the academic rigors of college? Are the colleges themselves not adapting to keep up with the needs of the new kinds of students they are enrolling? In After Admission, James Rosenbaum, Regina Deil-Amen, and Ann Person weigh in on this debate with a close look at this important trend in American higher education. After Admission compares community colleges with private occupational colleges that offer accredited associates degrees. The authors examine how these different types of institutions reach out to students, teach them social and cultural skills valued in the labor market, and encourage them to complete a degree. Rosenbaum, Deil-Amen, and Person find that community colleges are suffering from a kind of identity crisis as they face the inherent complexities of guiding their students towards four-year colleges or to providing them with vocational skills to support a move directly into the labor market. This confusion creates administrative difficulties and problems allocating resources. However, these contradictions do not have to pose problems for students. After Admission shows that when colleges present students with clear pathways, students can effectively navigate the system in a way that fits their needs. The occupational colleges the authors studied employed close monitoring of student progress, regular meetings with advisors and peer cohorts, and structured plans for helping students meet career goals in a timely fashion. These procedures helped keep students on track and, the authors suggest, could have the same effect if implemented at community colleges. As college access grows in America, institutions must adapt to meet the needs of a new generation of students. After Admission highlights organizational innovations that can help guide students more effectively through higher education.

Earnings from Learning examines the historical and contemporary factors that have fueled the rise of postsecondary for-profit, degree-granting institutions as a dynamic and powerful force in education. The contributors focus on such institutions as the University of Phoenix, DeVry, and Strayer to present theoretically grounded and data-driven research from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. They document unprecedented shifts in the postsecondary political economy and landscape and evaluate the implications for nonprofit institutions, including understanding the public and private benefits of higher education, postsecondary access and success, institutional resource allocation, competition, governance, and technology.

Do for-profit colleges and universities (FPCUs) pose a threat to traditional providers of higher education, or do they play a vital role at a time when the capacity of public and private non-profits to meet demand is constrained? With the US no longer the leader in developing a college-educated workforce, can FPCUs help redress the competitive gap? What can be learned from the management practices and growth of FPCUs – that now number close to 3,000 institutions in the US – whose increase in enrollments has out-paced that of traditional institutions, and who now grant around 8% of all degrees? This book offers a clear-eyed and balanced analysis of for-profit colleges and universities, reviewing their history, business strategies, and management practices; setting them in the context of marketplace conditions, the framework of public policy and government regulations; and viewing them in the light of the public good.Individual chapters variously explore FPCU’s governance, how they develop courses and programs, and the way they define faculty work; present findings from in-depth interviews with part-time and full-time faculty to understand how external forces and the imperative of profit generation affect faculty roles and responsibilities of faculty; analyze policy considerations that affect FPCUs, including federal regulation and oversight, accountability and assessment, and the legal and regulatory issues FPCUs face internationally; and finally address the notion of academic freedom and the distribution of public monies to FPCUs. Looking beyond FPCUs’ current strategy of offering career programming to non-traditional students, the book reveals how they are positioning themselves to meet future market needs by developing new programs targeting a wider group of students.Recognizing that FPCUs are more developing than fully developed, the authors convey both the current state and the unresolved issues facing these businesses, and, in so doing, surface enduring topics that face all of post-secondary education.