CBS News reports that students at for-profit institutions pay, on average, about five times more in tuition than students in nonprofit institutions of higher learning. In addition, one of the reasons that the federal government has tightened its restrictions on for-profit colleges and universities is that students at for-profit schools make up 46 percent of student loan defaults. Critics charge that the education provided at these schools does not provide the students with the knowledge and skills needed to find a job in the field that they studied, leaving them unable to repay their student loans.
For-profit colleges and universities offer Masters, Bachelors, Associates and Doctoral degrees in dozens of fields including health care, communication, business and marketing, education, and criminal justice. For-profit educational institutions offer a large portion of their coursework online though many operate multiple campuses for on-site classes. For-profit institutions include University of Phoenix, Allied American University, Belford University and Rasmussen College.
According to new federal regulations, put in place in July 2010, institutions of higher learning stand to have federal financial aid cut off to programs which have a high percentage of students who trained under high student loans and then could not succeed in repaying their loans. Students will qualify for federal student aid if they register for a program which has a high percentage of former students who repay their student loans.