Can for-profits produce quality education?

By Kevin Kinser. Much of the criticism of for-profit higher education relies on the assumption of an unavoidable tension between quality and profit. This tension typically is framed in a way in which the pursuit of profit is directly connected to reduction in quality, requiring countervailing external regulations and explicitly enforced internal safeguards.
An educational institution will make greater profit, in other words, if it provides lower quality. The regulatory environment is therefore a necessary bulwark against this possibility, setting a quality floor, beneath which private higher education loses legitimacy and government authority to operate. Read more...