OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ATTACK ON FOR-PROFIT SCHOOLS meets “extraordinary bipartisan opposition” in Congress. I think that whatever scrutiny is applied to employment of graduates should be applied to all schools, whether for-profit or traditional.

UPDATE: Reader Tony Benvin writes:

In your post regarding applying like standards to the examination of for-profit v non-profit schools you would do your readers a favor to distinguish the difference. As a person in the financial services industry I find that a large number of people believe that non-profits must literally not make a profit; they are not aware of the fact that a non-profit is nothing more than a for-profit corporation without stockholders.

Non-profits never make that distinction because the public confusion of non-profits with public charities (which, of course, are decidedly different) works to the non-profit fund-raising advantage. For many people there is no apparent difference between a donation to an Ivy league school’s foundation which charges $50,000/year in tuition and a donation to the Salvation Army which provides social services without charge.

Yes, many “nonprofits” simply pay big salaries to insiders in place of dividends to shareholders. In a related note, several readers have suggested that we eliminate nonprofit tax status for universities and regulate them according to the same standards as publicly traded corporations. Transparency!