rainbw Balloon Arch Ideas Yesterday I commented on an article that pointed to research supporting the idea that easily obtained federal grants and loans unintentionally make tuition rates go up, at least at for-profit institutions. While the thrust of yesterday's commentary was that there's no reason to believe that this phenomenon is restricted only to for-profit universities, the research was still very insightful.

Interestingly, while the researchers' focus on for-profit schools means that related further research is needed about non-profit and public institutions, this focus led to an unexpected benefit — the researchers realized that the world of for-profit higher education is much larger and more diverse than most people think:

The study also found that research about for-profits substantially underestimates the sector's size. That's because academics and policymakers generally use federal data to scrutinize for-profits, and ignore the large number of colleges that are ineligible to participate in federal aid programs. As a result, commonly-cited figures from the U.S. Department of Education that for-profits enroll 1.8 million students, or about 10.7 percent of all college students, leave out an estimated 670,000 students who attend for-profits that cannot receive federal aid. That group accounts for 61 percent of for-profit institutions, according to the study, and 27 percent of the sector’s students. Most of the colleges in this group are small, which explains their relative high numbers and smaller percentage of students.

This is an important and far too under-reported aspect of American higher education. Unfortunately, however, the article confuses the difference between schools that are unaccredited and those that simply do not participate in the federal financial aid system:

Colleges jump through several hoops to participate in federal aid programs. To be eligible, colleges must have existed for at least two years, have received accreditation from an agency that the Department of Education recognizes and be licensed or authorized by the state in which they operate, according to the study. Many small for-profits do not qualify. And some choose not to try, because meeting accreditation requirements can be costly.

When it comes to eLearning, there are a good number of these sorts of institutions that are accredited by DETC, which is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, but which do not go through the additional bureaucracy required to participate in the federal financial aid system. And some of these schools are among the least expensive options if all of American higher education, even rivaling community colleges in providing educational bang for the buck. It's great that awareness of these low cost alternatives is finally starting to seep into the national consciousness. Here's hoping that trend continues!