Gunderson, of the trade association, disagrees, citing an online survey, commissioned by CECU and conducted by Gallup in , that includes responses from more than 3,000 alumni of for-profit colleges who graduated between 2008 and early 2018. A higher percentage of survey respondents said they had found jobs within six months after graduation than respondents from what Gallup called a nationally representative sample of associate degree holders. The CECU survey also suggests that most alumni are satisfied overall with their . . . educational experience, and employed graduates of for-profit schools reported a 62 percent increase in median personal earnings after completing their education.
The government gives and takes
For-profit schools make returns for their investors, but their students’ debt is overwhelmingly funded by the federal government, which guarantees more than 90 percent of student loans, Bloomberg reported in .
Even though they’re called for-profit colleges and people may think of them as wonderful free-market creatures, they largely rely on various government programs to generate revenue, says Yannelis. Continue reading “This makes for-profit schools much more dependent on government aid than their nonprofit rivals”