Five Questions to Ask: For-profit Universities
- What are the demographics like at the for-profits you cover? Do these career colleges recruit students that would otherwise attend community colleges or local nonprofit universities? Also important: Are the students attending for-profits because budget cuts have cut classes at state-funded schools?
- How successful are for-profit students in transferring credits to other higher education institutions?
Check to see how readily credits from a for-profit you cover can be transferred to a traditional college or university.
- Research indicates that college-ready students from low-income areas often forego applying to selective colleges for various reasons. How many of those students in your region end up going to for-profit colleges?
- What are the for-profit success stories in your region? Is there a way of quantifying how they succeeded? Was it knowing the right person, having the right professional background, or something else about the college or the experience that helped them succeed?
- What are the marketing budgets of for-profits in your region and how does they compare to other universities? Do traditional universities spend similarly or much less?