A Senate committee that successfully pressed for tighter regulation of the for-profit higher-education sector published a report yesterday that said the business had put shareholders before students, the Washington Post reported today. As of 2009, the report said, three-quarters of students in for-profit colleges attended institutions owned either by publicly traded companies or private equity firms. It said that the schools excelled at recruiting students, but not necessarily at retaining them: More than half of students at for-profit schools who enrolled in the 2008-09 academic year left without a degree, the report found. Half of all non-finishers ended their studies within four months. The findings are in line with concerns voiced last year when the Education Department imposed stricter rules on for-profit schools that benefit from federal student loans.
