Higher Education Blog
By Jordan Weissmann
The for-profit college industry has long list of failings. The schools are expensive. They educate about a tenth of all undergraduates, but account for almost half of all student loan defaults. Their alums are more likely to end up unemployed than peers who attend nonprofit schools and, if they find a job, may well earn less.
But for all its warts, the for-profit sector does get a few things right. Chief among them: their graduation rates for two-year programs. About 60 percent of students at for-profit schools earn their associate’s degree or professional certificate within three years of starting their education. At community colleges, just about one fifth of attendees graduate on time. The graph below shows the results for the entering classes of 2000 and 2007, based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Read more: theatlantic.com
