Which institutions of higher learning are abusing the use of Pell Grants, for-profit or non-profit?

According to Richard Vedder of Minding the Campus, there’s plenty of blame to go around.

Three Pell Grant Scams

Many politicians, including senators such as Tom Harkin and Dick Durbin, have grown indignant over the allegedly vast amounts of higher education money captured by for-profit institutions via the Pell Grant program. In fact, they consider this something of a scam. The truth, of course, is that throughout its history, including now, the vast majority of Pell Grant funds—at least 75 percent– have gone to students attending not-for-profit colleges.

The implication of the criticism, of course, is that for-profit institutions (or at least many of them) are diploma mills, whereas the educational experience offered by institutions untainted by the corruptive influence of profits is of high quality, and provided by selfless individuals working for the public good. I think that is hogwash, but that is a subject for another day. Suffice it to say that there are documented instances where for-profit institutions pressured relatively unqualified students to enroll using Pell Grants, but there are numerous examples of not-for-profit schools doing similar things. The scam here is much broader than the good senatorial critics claim.

Most Pell Recipients Don’t Graduate

Then there is the second Pell Grant scam, or at least monumental misuse of resources: the probable fact that most Pell Grant recipients do not graduate from college in any reasonable time frame. It is a “probable” fact because the U. S. Department of Education does not routinely publish data on graduation rates of Pell Grant recipients. It is true that researchers have used Pell Grant data to do some evaluation of the program, but it is also true that Department of Education makes it hard to learn the truth, which, I think, is roughly, that most Pell Grant recipients never graduate. This is arguably a scandal, certainly an inefficient use of public money, and whether it is scam-ful depends on your definition of that term.

Read the rest at the link below.