April 17, 2020
The last recession brought overaggressive recruitment of students by bad actors among for-profit colleges, and some worry about a repeat in this economic downturn.
Eight years ago, as senior staffers on the U.S. Senate’s education committee, Beth Stein and Carrie Wofford finished a two-year investigation documenting excesses by for-profit colleges during the Great Recession of the late 2000s.
The report described a “boiler room” atmosphere in some call centers run by for-profits, where about 35,000 recruiters nationwide at one point aggressively pursued students anxious for a leg up in finding scarce jobs. And sometimes recruiters were loose with the truth…continue reading
