Private For-Profit Institutions in Higher Education
November 20, 2013
The private for-profit sector of higher education has seen unprecedented growth over the past decade, and its market share is at an all-time high. Given its growing importance, it is essential to understand the evolving role of this group of institutions in the higher education landscape. How has enrollment in for-profits grown and did this change during the Great Recession? What are their tuition levels? To what extent do their students rely on Pell grants and student loans? A series of interactive visuals casts light on these questions.

In a series of interactive visuals, we provide national and regional data on for-profits and other post-secondary institutions which we anticipate will be valuable to students, parents, policymakers, practitioners, and researchers.

These interactive charts and maps illustrate the rapidly changing role of the private for-profits institutions in the higher education landscape. This change is reflected not only in their unprecedented enrollment growth, but also in how they span the market for student loans and Pell grants. These interactives reveal how the patterns for for-profits differ markedly from the other groups of post-secondary institutions – the publics and non-profits. They also make clear how the patterns vary even within the different types of for-profit institutions – the less than 2-year institutions, the 2-years, and the 4-years. Compare trends for financial and non-financial indicators across different types of for-profits or with their counterparts in the public and non-profit sectors. Explore common trends across the nation for these different groups of post-secondary institutions or compare regional patterns with national. This format also enables comparison of any indicator of interest across the nation and the region, at a certain point in time or over time.

Takeaways:

  • Enrollment in for-profit institutions has shown unprecedented growth in the last decade and a half, while exhibiting explosive growth immediately following the onset of the Great Recession
  • Tuition and net tuition (net of financial grants) at for profit institutions greatly exceed comparable publics.
  • Likelihood of students availing loans and student loan amounts generally far surpass comparable publics.
  • Though broad patterns exist, there is considerable variation between the region and the nation.
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