Education

“The real question now is whether continued pressure on for-profit colleges will result in further closures and more petitions from hundreds of thousands of students with tens of billions of loans they now know can be legally discharged.”

That’s what we said last May when disgruntled students from the now defunct Corinthian Colleges began to press the Department of Education for debt relief after the government accused the for-profit institution of using fraudulent recruiting practices.

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Mankiw's claim that college costs are the inevitable result of Baumol's Disease is pure self-serving rubbish.

Robby Soave highlights a perfectly horrible proposal that may become policy at American University. Excerpt:

A South African mayor has awarded 16 young women scholarships for college education based on a virginity test. The mayor hopes this may encourage other young people to be “pure and focus on school.” The move is intended to encourage other young people to continue with their higher education and remain focused on achieving a college degree or certificate instead of a pregnancy.

Last summer, Corinthian Colleges closed its doors amid government scrutiny of for-profit colleges.

The school - which had been the recipient of some $1.5 billion in annual federal aid funding - was variously accused of employing deceptive marketing practices, falsifying job placement records, and lying about graduation rates.