CHEA, US - For-Profit Higher Education

The summary of the one-day meeting convened by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Washington, DC (USA) on March 21, 2011 on Exploring the Future of International For-Profit Higher Education and Quality Assurance: Where are we now and where do we go from here? is available UNESCO CHEA.

EXPLORING THE FUTURE OF INTERNATIONAL FOR-PROFIT HIGHER EDUCATION AND QUALITY ASSURANCE: WHERE ARE WE NOW AND WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? A CHEA – UNESCO MEETING. SUMMARY, March 21, 2011, Washington, DC.
A meeting on for-profit higher education was convened on 21 March 2011 in Washington, DC by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It brought together some 25 participants representing executives of for-profit colleges and universities, academic researchers who focus on this sector and accreditation and quality assurance experts. The executives of for-profit universities and colleges were mainly from the leading U.S. institutions such as Kaplan, Inc.,The University of Phoenix, Laureate Education and Career Education Corporation. A representative of an Indian for-profit provider, NIIT (USA) Inc., attended the meeting. Other participants included quality assurance agencies and academics from Egypt, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, the International Finance Corporation and the Commonwealth of Learning.
Purposes of the meeting
Following the various discussions of private and for-profit colleges and universities that occurred at UNESCO’s 2009 World Conference on Higher Education, this meeting had three purposes:
1. To frame the emerging role of for-profit higher education as it relates to the international activity of colleges, universities and quality assurance/accreditation organizations and, in particular, the role that the for-profit sector plays in providing additional opportunity for those seeking higher education.
2. To explore the feasibility of developing some common principles of accountability and transparency across all higher education institutions nationally and internationally.
3. To prepare and publish a summary that provides a foundation for future consideration of international for-profit higher education and provides background for a possible UNESCO Forum on Private Higher Education to be held in 2012.
The participants were provided with a wealth of literature published on for-profit higher education provision which informed and enriched the debate. This was a significant opportunity to frame the emerging international dialogue on the growth and impact of the for-profit sector. A key purpose was to discuss, given recent news coverage of the for-profit sector in the United States, whether it was a problematic element in the higher education system or made a useful contribution to increasing access.
UNESCO’s interest in private higher education provision had been heightened by the 2009 World Conference on Higher Education, where it became clear that such provision would be important for many of its 193 Member States as they struggled to meet increasing demand. Governments seek UNESCO’s advice on the policies that they should adopt for integrating the private sector into their higher education provision. There are parallels with earlier UNESCO work (with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) on guidelines for quality assurance for cross-border higher education and (with CHEA) on combating degree mills.
CHEA’s interest has been focused on creating connections between the for-profit and non-profit higher education sectors in the United States, seeking benefit from the expanded access opportunities that are made available while discouraging practices in both sectors that might prove problematic for students.
An important question is how the for-profit sector can be regulated without strangling it. Is it possible to develop some common principles of accountability and transparency for all providers of higher education? Although this meeting focused on the U.S. experience, future meetings will look at the reality of for-profit higher education in other countries.
Models of for-profit higher education
Private higher education is a broad continuum of many types of providers. Although this meeting was billed as being about for-profit providers, we must first ask if this distinction is helpful. All private providers try to make a surplus and appear much the same on the ground, especially in developing countries.
A key issue is the business model used by the for-profit sector. The model created in the United States, with investors seeking substantial financial returns, has raised many questions. However, taking an international perspective, it may be that distinguishing within the private sector between for-profit and not-for-profit institutions is unhelpful. Public universities become profit-making enterprises when they operate outside their home jurisdictions. In the Arab countries, governments are giving land to private institutions because it is good for development.
Because developing countries have had to spend significant public resources on pursuing the United Nations 2000 Millennium Development Goals in other areas, they have tended to give the market an important role in higher education. A key task is to help governments see a positive role for the private sector. Legitimate for-profit institutions welcome strong quality assurance frameworks, but ask that they be applied fairly across the whole higher education sector.
Public institutions have to break even and re-invest any surpluses. The key question is what surpluses are spent on. All public institutions are engaged in making cross-subsidies among units. However, the private sector may be more disciplined about the way it reinvests surpluses. One reason advanced for the success of the for-profit sector in the United States is that public institutions have priced themselves out of the market and the for-profit higher education institutions have taken advantage of online technology to drop prices.
The for-profit sector has been accused of questionable recruitment practices and low graduation rates. Representatives of the sector from the United States said that they had improved in this regard, beginning some years ago. This had resulted in significantly reduced recruitment by some institutions. However, graduation rates are a difficult performance measure to apply because of student mobility among institutions...
Middle East and Arab Region
In the Middle East, one country checks an overseas institution’s intentions for its activities against its mission statement for its home country when reviewing its application to operate. Sometimes incoming institutions do not give faculty any role in governance and show little understanding of the local context. Curricula tend to focus on business, with some engineering. Admission requirements are often set below what would be required at home (e.g., in Australia, India or the UK), there is little student support and the faculty are frequently poorly trained or briefed for their role and are given no opportunities for professional development or research.
In the Arab region, all external quality assurance agencies now follow European, UK or U.S. methods and there really is a common quality assurance language. With many joint degrees and much franchising, international collaboration on quality assurance is a necessity. Open and distance learning is still a challenge as is the multiplication of overseas campuses, which makes conducting quality assurance from the home country more difficult. With many countries seeking to become education hubs, the number of these campuses may continue to increase.
There is a danger that when institutions seek foreign accreditation, local and national needs can be downplayed. There is also recourse to accreditation mills by some would-be providers in Arab countries...
Conclusions
The discussion showed that the for-profit sector can deliver education in the public interest. Accreditation and quality assurance are important services to the public and are helping to make governments more comfortable with a variety of business models in higher education. It is important to pursue the dialogue about for-profit education within the academy as well as with governments. This will help to build bridges and increase trust.