For-Profit Colleges and Universities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

For-Profit Colleges and Universities - Essay Example rt in providing admission to all desired candidates, for-profit institutes were the second best option left for students to pursue their desired courses. For-profit institutes provide ample choices in the matter of class-timings, anytime admissions, provision of online options, small strength of class and accessible locations. For such students who are pursuing jobs, doing part-time jobs, or having children, for-profit colleges and universities seem to be the viable option (NCSL, 2013). The trend for for-profit colleges was started by John Sperling, a humanities professor at San Jose University from 1961 to 1973. He started remedial reading classes for Mexican Americans and courses in social issues for police personnel. Going against the education norms, he started similar other programs for the for-profit University of Phoenix, presently online and the largest U.S. university, with nearly 500,000 students. Sperling and his supporters changed the mom-and-pop trade school scenario into a $30 billion industry by roping in such investors as Washington Post Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. For-profit colleges give admissions to 12 percent of U.S. undergraduates and use 24 percent of U.S. Pell grants for poor students (Golden, 2010, Dec. 29). Sperling supports for-profit colleges for providing the opportunity to low-income people to attain degrees and jobs. His reaction to the administration’s â€Å"onerous† initiatives was that it â€Å"would make it impossible for the sector to offer many programs† that help students to become teachers, nurses and police officers, and â€Å"would have a devastating impact on institutions that enroll low-income students.† Thus, Sperling and his supporters have set the stage for opposing government regulation and starting a fight between the Obama administration and the rising Republicans (Golden, 2010, Dec. 29). Stakeholders of the larger society need to view the traditional economic theory, which shows that profit-making is not an