Get important education news and analysis delivered straight to your inbox

Choose as many as you want(Required)

Weekly Update

Elementary to High School

Higher Education

Proof Points

Climate Change

Early Childhood

Email(Required)

CAPTCHA

Δ

While state law-enforcement authorities are cracking down on abuses by private, for-profit colleges and universities, state regulators are doing little to prevent those abuses in the first place, a new report contends.

The report, by the National Consumer Law Center, or NCLC, says that states and not the federal government provide the most protection for students. But it said most “continue to neglect their critical oversight and consumer protection role.”

There’s no regulation at all in most states of for-profit colleges that offer only online education, for example, the report says.

The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities was holding its annual convention in Las Vegas, and did not respond to a request for comment about the NCLC report.

Attorneys general in at least 32 states are investigating complaints that for-profit colleges and universities use misleading marketing and leave their students with high debt. Fourteen states have reached the stage of issuing subpoenas.

Close window

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

We offer all nonexclusive stories under a noncommercial Creative Commons license. You are allowed to repost or reprint our stories as long as you use the guidelines below. See here for more details. If you have questions or would like to discuss commercial use, please contact us. If you would like to republish the photos that accompanied this story, please contact us.

State regulators going easy on for-profit colleges, consumer group says

by Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report
June 18, 2014

<h1>State regulators going easy on for-profit colleges, consumer group says</h1> <p class="byline">by Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report <br />June 18, 2014</p> <p>While state law-enforcement authorities <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/content/federal-action-lags-states-crack-profit-universities_15105/">are cracking down</a> on abuses by private, for-profit colleges and universities, state regulators are doing little to prevent those abuses in the first place, a new report contends.</p> <div class="infobox-right"> <h3>Related stories</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://hechingerreport.org/content/federal-action-lags-states-crack-profit-universities_15105/">States crack down on for-profit universities</a></li> <li><a href="https://hechingerreport.org/content/data-show-poorer-families-bearing-brunt-college-price-hikes_14999/">Poorer families are bearing the brunt of college price hikes, data show</a></li> <li><a href="https://hechingerreport.org/content/college-students-bypassing-degrees-purpose_15146/">College students bypassing degrees on purpose</a></li> <li><a href="https://hechingerreport.org/content/community-colleges-increasingly-adding-bachelors-degrees_15514/">Community colleges increasingly adding bachelor’s degrees</a></li> </ul> </div> <p>The <a href="http://www.nclc.org/issues/ensuring-educational-integrity.html">report</a>, by the National Consumer Law Center, or NCLC, says that states and not the federal government provide the most protection for students. But it said most “continue to neglect their critical oversight and consumer protection role.”</p> <p>There’s no regulation at all in most states of for-profit colleges that offer only online education, for example, the report says.</p> <p>The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities was holding its annual convention in Las Vegas, and did not respond to a request for comment about the NCLC report.</p> <p>Attorneys general in at least 32 states are investigating complaints that for-profit colleges and universities use misleading marketing and leave their students with high debt. Fourteen states have reached the stage of issuing subpoenas.</p> <p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://hechingerreport.org/state-regulators-going-easy-profit-colleges-consumer-group-says/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://hechingerreport.org&quot;&gt;The Hechinger Report&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;</p> &lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://hechingerreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=16414&amp;amp;ga4=G-03KPHXDF3H&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://hechingerreport.org/state-regulators-going-easy-profit-colleges-consumer-group-says/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hechingerreport.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

Copy to Clipboard

1