Civil Rights and Education Groups Call for Protections from For-Profit Colleges

Education Resources 08.28.24

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mattie Goldman, [email protected]

Civil Rights and Education Groups Outline Policy Roadmap to Regulate For-Profit Colleges and Prevent Harm to Students of Color

WASHINGTON — Today, The Leadership Conference Education Fund, along with 14 national civil rights and education groups, published an updated policy brief urging the U.S. Department of Education to protect students, especially students of color, from predatory practices by for-profit colleges. The brief urges the Department of Education to robustly enforce the gainful employment rule, ensuring that the Higher Education Act fulfills its promise of education opportunity for all and provides critical protections to students of color, especially those enrolled in substandard education programs at for-profit colleges. Students of color are overrepresented in for-profit colleges, yet there is insufficient accountability at these institutions to ensure those students succeed. This brief comes on the heels of Project 2025’s attack on the gainful employment regulation. 

Key findings from the report include:

  • A strong “gainful employment” rule is critical to protecting Black and Latino students from substandard career education programs and to ensuring that the Higher Education Act fulfills its promise of educational opportunity for all.
  • Black students are overrepresented at for-profit colleges. While making up 13 percent of all post-secondary enrollments, they represent 25 percent of students enrolled at for-profit institutions.
  • Students enrolled at for-profit colleges are much less likely to graduate than students at public and private nonprofit schools. 
  • Black and Latino students pay a higher net price and incur more debt to attend for-profit colleges.
  • Protecting students as the Department of Education’s gainful employment rule does could increase the annual earnings of a typical financial aid recipient by $3,400 by directing them to higher value alternatives. 
  • Rather than providing a path toward educational and economic opportunity, for-profit colleges often do the opposite. Nearly three quarters (74 percent) of for-profit, certificate-granting institutions leave the majority of their students earning less than the typical high school graduate, even 10 years after initial enrollment.

Read “Gainful Employment: A Civil Rights Perspective” here. Earlier versions of this brief were published in 2019 and 2014.

The Leadership Conference Education Fund builds public will for federal and state policies that promote and protect the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States. The Education Fund’s campaigns empower and mobilize advocates around the country to push for progressive change in the United States. It was founded in 1969 as the education and research arm of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. For more information on The Education Fund, visit civilrights.org/edfund/. 

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