Not all talk is cheap. Especially not if it comes from the mouths of professors, former corporate executives, or Washington insiders who understand the workings of the $20-billion for-profit higher-education industry and how impending tougher regulations might affect it. Then the talk can be worth hundreds of dollars an hour, thanks to the growing…

"Doing well by doing good" is the business mantra of the for-profit-college industry. But one does not have to look far to find people who question the slogan's sincerity or the very legitimacy of that model. And that was even before reports of some companies' abusive student-recruiting practices and questionable educational standards fed a public…

For-profit colleges are some of the biggest critics of the federal graduation rate, arguing that it gives an inaccurate image of their institutions. They point out that the official calculation doesn't take into account the vast majority of the students who attend their institutions, most of whom are neither "first-time" nor "full-time." So major…