Linda Stamato, a regular contributor to The Star-Ledger and NJ.com, is co-director of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution and a faculty fellow at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.
For-profit college conglomerates take in millions of U.S. students—12 percent of the nation’s college students—and pocket their publicly-financed student grants and loans—$30 billion annually—while their students account for nearly 50 percent of loan defaults. These outfits generate substantial profits, attract Wall Street speculators and hedge funds to finance their expansion all the while making a joke (on us) of the notion that “private industry does it better.”
For-profit colleges in New Jersey
New Jersey is not a big player in for-profit higher education—eleven schools, several with multiple campuses—but, with some 20,000 students enrolled, it’s big enough.