CLAYTON CRAMER: The Department Of Education’s Crackdown On For-Profit Colleges. “Let me be clear: Public institutions and private non-profits also turn out plenty of graduates who can’t get jobs — especially right now. The incentives are not quite as direct, but a college president with 20,000 students gets a higher salary than a president with 5,000 students. The fact that the Department of Education thinks that this problem only applies to for-profits suggests that there are other incentives in play here besides just concern for students. . . . It appears that someone might have been planning the short selling of for-profit colleges, while persuading the Department of Education to impose regulations that would impair their profitability. The Department of Education’s inspector-general is looking into this very convenient coincidence.”

I’ll believe they’re serious about outcomes when the feds look at places like Chicago State University as closely as they’re looking at the for-profits.