A Wee Bit More on Deadbeat Colleges

The lede in today's WaPo reports here says it all: "Report finds for-profit colleges serve shareholders over students." The "report" mentioned is an 800-pager is from the staff of the Senate Committee on Health, Labor, Education, and Pensions chaired by Tom Harkin (D-IA). My opinions about for-profit "education" are reasonably clear (see here). There's precious little education going on at the undergraduate level anywhere and what the for-profits should be doing--job training--they do poorly. That they have made so much money at it can be attributed to the failures of the accrediting agencies and federal subsidies as much as anything.

Some might argue that of course, for-profit anythings (colleges, car makers, bankers, etc.) should be about maximizing shareholder wealth. I'm also on record about that too so take a gander here and give the justifiable but not all-encompassing place of shareholder wealth in corporate activity some thought.