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…

In August 2010, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, speaking informally at a technology conference, said technological innovations should be able to lower the cost of college to $2,000 a year. Mr. Gates's comments reportedly caught the attention of Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican of Texas, who came up with his own back-of-the-envelope estimate of how…

As the Post-9/11 GI Bill nears its fourth year, with more than 550,000 veterans enrolled in thousands of institutions, advocacy groups, lawmakers, and President Obama warn that veterans are vulnerable in a higher-education marketplace eager for their GI Bill dollars--with some purveyors, particularly for-profits, recruiting aggressively. The…

Growing pressure to provide more virtual instruction is spurring efforts to design large courses that balance standardization of content with flexibility for instructors. Each course uses a common template, which sets out lesson objectives, lecture material, practice activities, and assessments. The process results in a single version of each…

"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…

Enrollment in for-profit colleges, while still a relatively small share of the higher-education market, has grown more than tenfold over the past decade. For-profit education companies are now in high demand among venture capitalists and investment bankers, and the industry is one of the rare ones that is faring well in this economy. But while…

In 1974, John G. Sperling left a tenured position at San Jose State University with $26,000 in savings to start an academic program for working adults. In the beginning, he ran the operation out of his house. The program soon outgrew the house, Sperling relocated to Arizona, and the program adopted the name of that state's capital. Now the…

In a speech before a group of career-college executives and lobbyists, freshman Representative Jason Altmire hinted that he would look out for the sector's interests in a coming conference between the House of Representatives and the Senate on legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. Referring to a provision in the bill that would…

This article describes the growth of demand in online learning in Latin America and the expansion efforts made by Texas-based Whitney International to fill such niche. Whitney is a newcomer to a growing group of for-profit players that spot unmet demand for higher education in Latin America. Founded in 2005, it began its distance-learning courses…

After watching the University of Phoenix become a national leader in online education, officials of the University of North Carolina system thought they could do it, too. Unlike Phoenix, which is a for-profit institution, the North Carolina system benefits from having a strong traditional reputation that comes with being a state university.…

It took five years, dozens of drafts, and a total of 14 extensions, but Congress last week was finally on the verge of passing a bill to renew the Higher Education Act, the major law governing federal student aid. The bill, after approval by the U.S. House of Representatives, was headed to the Senate, where a final vote was planned for late last…

Describes the financial and stock performance of companies in the higher education sector during 2000, and describes how the Chronicle of Higher Education's stock index of for-profit colleges has shown a return of 108 percent since the end of 1999. (EV)

The US Commission on the Future of Higher Education, at a meeting in San Diego in February 2006, appeared to reach a consensus on the need to focus on three or four big ideas and not get mired in minutia. The Commission members discussed the need for increased transparency and accountability in higher education and praised the role played by the…

Describes how Career Education Corporation lets its acquisitions retain their identities, which has been a good thing for the historically secretarial Katharine Gibbs Schools. (EV)