Despite the importance of teachers, the preparation programs intended to train them and provide them with the foundational skills they need to grow into high-quality educators vary in format, curriculum offered, quality, and more. Alternative teacher certification programs that are run outside of institutions of higher education (IHE) are an especially varied group that have enjoyed steady growth in enrollment in the past decade. Unfortunately, analysis from this report has found that a majority of students in the non-IHE alternative certification sector are enrolled in programs run by for-profit organizations, the largest of which operates fully online. Online, for-profit entities have been problematic actors in the higher education space for years: This means that their prevalence in the non-IHE alternative certification sector may be cause for concern for policymakers. Therefore, the Center for American Progress analyzed the non-IHE alternative certification sector to find which types of operators manage programs, the role of for-profit organizations, in which states these programs are operating, and how enrollment in these programs varies by race and ethnicity and gender. One notable finding is that large programs operated by for-profit organizations dominate enrollment in the sector. Given existing concerns about the practices of for-profit operators in higher education, the existence of large for-profit, non-IHE alternative certification programs presents a red flag for the states in which they are located and for states into which they are looking to expand. This report provides a preliminary analysis, but state policymakers should build off the findings to identify areas for further research and data collection in order to create targeted solutions to improve the teacher preparation programs in their state.