Curry School of Education | University of Virginia

     Few phenomena that impact contemporary higher education have arrived with as much fanfare and as little advance notice as the recent explosion in the provision of educational services and products by for-profit providers. Over the past decade, the image of the for-profit segment of the education sector has been transformed in media and journal accounts from one of blue collar vocational training to the locus of technology-driven degree-granting programs at the baccalaureate and post-baccalaureate levels. At the same time, the perception of the for-profit education providers themselves has shifted from "diploma mills", defined by high student failure and loan default rates, to publicly traded visionaries in a burgeoning "education industry", attracting the interest of Wall Street and the backing of blue chip corporations.

     The entrance of for-profit providers suggests the potential for dramatic changes in the market for higher education, affecting the range of programs available to potential students and the costs associated with different courses of study. Our objective is to move beyond the headlines and 10-K filings, to place recent economic and political shifts in a broader context, to understand better the forces that have supported recent growth in the for-profit provision of higher education, and to understand what those forces portend for the future of both for-profit and non-profit higher education. Concentrating on the behavior of institutions offering degrees at the baccalaureate level and above, the focus of this project is to assess the dynamics of educational production in the for-profit sector and the associated competition and change among public and non-profit providers in higher education.

     We would like to acknowledge the Alfred P. Sloan foundation for their support of our research.