It's Hard to Shut Down a Poorly Performing For-Profit College

Cutting off access to the student aid spigot is probably the most important way the Department of Education can clamp down on poorly performing for-profit colleges, but doing so isn’t easy—as the ongoing saga of Corinthian Colleges shows. Today, Corinthian announced that it missed a deadline to reach an agreement with the government to wind down and sell its programs, although both it and the department expressed optimism that a plan is coming soon.

Corinthian Colleges owns 107 campuses under several for-profit chains, including the Everest Institute, Everest College, WyoTech, and Heald brands, most of them located in California. Questions about the quality of Corinthian’s education have dogged the company for about a decade, and students at several of its schools have had among the highest loan-default rates in the country. California Attorney General Kamala Harris sued Corinthian in October for allegedly targeting vulnerable, low-income students with deceptive marketing that misrepresented job placement rates. Other state AGs have followed suit.