For-profit colleges are making billions of dollars in profits by targeting vulnerable populations with misleading promises of low-cost tuition and jobs after graduation. The schools are a good deal for many of their students — who are less likely to graduate and more likely to default on student loans than their counterparts at traditional schools — or a deal for taxpayers. Of $18.3 billion in Pell grants awarded in 2008, $4.3 billion went to students at for-profit schools. State run public universities as well as local community college systems offer the exact same programs at more than 1/3 of the cost. Traditional insitiutions of higher education are not motivated by profit and can therefore deliver a better long term outcome for the student and maximize the use of public funds.



