Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) seems to think so, painting them as sleazy scam artists seducing the ignorant. But haven’t we heard this same anti-corporate rhetoric before?

Daniel Bennet at Minding the Campus has the story:

A Faulty Attack on For-Profits

Specifically, Harkin laments for-profits’ success in enrolling military veterans and earning their Post 9/11 GI Bill revenues. Despite federal efforts to slow the sector’s growth, it successfully enrolled 31% of all veterans in 2012, up from 23% in 2009. Meanwhile, the public college market share of veterans declined from 62 to 50% over the same period. So why are veterans increasingly choosing to attend for-profit college over public ones? Harkin blames the profit motive, which he believes leads for-profits to use aggressive marketing tactics on naïve veterans.

Harkin’s argument is mistaken for two reasons. First, he appears to question the decision-making capability of many of our nation’s military personnel, all of whom also voluntarily chose to enter the service prior to choosing to enroll in college. If these men and women were capable of making the decision to risk their life joining the military, they are also capable of choosing a college study program and institution that best suits their needs. One of the best attributes of the U.S. postsecondary education market is that it is very diverse, so our veterans have a wide array of offerings to choose from, including vocationally-oriented for-profit colleges. Harkin wants to limit that choice.