How many industry codes of conduct does it take to persuade the public that for-profit colleges are serious about reform?
For those keeping score—and ignoring the obvious wiseacre reply, “One, but they really have to want to change"—the answer, as of Thursday at least, is three.
The sector’s main trade association has one that it updated a year ago. A group of regionally accredited for-profit colleges introduced its own in July, written in lofty language and in calligraphy reminiscent of the Declaration of Independence. And this month, a third was unveiled by the Coalition for Educational Success, the same organization that has pressed to weaken proposed federal regulations on for-profit colleges.
Among several stated and unstated reasons for the codes: the hope that lawmakers and regulators will view them as a sign that the industry can regulate itself and that new regulations, some already on the books, are unnecessary.
But the codes, and the industry’s response to them, send mixed messages. For one, in signing on to the codes, some college companies are claiming credit for being willing to enforce some of the same regulations that their industry trade association is seeking to have gutted by suing in a federal court.
And if recent events are any indication—a U.S. Senate committee held another hearing on the colleges and their dealings with military students on Thursday, and the Kentucky attorney general leading a 21-state investigation into the colleges’ “troubling business practices” says the creation of codes will not derail that probe—the for-profit-college industry still has a lot of convincing to do.
That convincing might have to start close to home. Some of the largest companies in the sector, including two of the coalition’s most prominent members, the Education Management Corporation and ITT Educational Services, haven’t signed on to either of the new codes. (Education Management says it quit the coalition in “late spring.”) The University of Phoenix, the largest for-profit college in the country, also hasn’t signed on to either code, despite being involved in the formation of both. Neither has DeVry, another major education company.
Some have speculated that Education Management, like many companies, is reluctant to sign on because it doesn’t want to adopt the 21-day free trial period that is a signature of the code (unlike Kaplan and Phoenix, which have seen steep falloffs in new enrollments after adopting free trial periods, Education Management’s have slightly increased).
The company says it’s held off because it believes its own newly revised code of conduct is best for its colleges, which include Argosy University, the Art Institutes, and Brown Mackie College. “At some point there is almost code fatigue,” said Anthony J. Guida Jr., senior vice president for external affairs.
ITT, whose president just last week talked at an investors’ conference about the need for for-profit colleges to be more forthcoming about their dealings, did not respond to Chronicle inquiries about its reasons for not signing.
DeVry’s spokesman says it abides by its own code, in addition to that of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities.
A University of Phoenix spokesman says it would prefer that the two newest codes be merged, and it faults the “governance” mechanisms of the coalition’s code for a lack of clarity.
To enforce the coalition’s code, which has been endorsed by several college companies representing about 17 percent of for-profit-college enrollments, including Kaplan and the Career Education Corporation, the coalition has created a new entity, the Foundation for Educational Success. The foundation will be headed by a five-member board of marquee figures: the former governors of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Edward G. Rendell and Thomas H. Kean; plus an education professor from Harvard, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot; a former head of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Jonathan Fanton; and a top official at the veteran’s organization America’s Promise Alliance, Elizabeth Morgan. (Mr. Kean is a partner in a company, Quad Partners, that owns for-profit colleges.)
Companies that sign on will be required to hire outside auditors to verify that their colleges are abiding by the code, which sets out rules for how admissions officers deal with students, and submit those audits to the foundation for review.
The coalition was looking for “auditable standards,” says Avy Stein, a co-chairman of the coalition.
Colleges that have audits that demonstrate compliance with the code will be certified as foundation members; those that don’t won’t be.
The coalition has also recruited a former attorney general of Rhode Island, Patrick Lynch, ,to review those audits. Mr. Lynch is probably better known for prosecuting the owners of a nightclub that was the scene of a deadly fire than for his expertise in student recruiting, but he brings a key credential to the process: He knows many of the attorneys general now looking into the colleges.
In an interview this week, Mr. Lynch said he’ll be a tough watchdog—"I like being the enforcer"—and that the foundation is not trying to blunt efforts by attorneys general to investigate abuse by colleges. But, tellingly, he also says he believes that as the new code catches on, it could obviate the need for the attorneys-general group to impose some broader set of rules for the sector. An additional set of standards from the attorneys general, he says, would “be duplicative and confusing.”
The coalition hasn’t said how the foundation will be financed, raising questions about its independence. Mr. Stein says it might be paid for by college companies, but he says he hopes his preliminary conversations with other backers, whom he declined to name, will also produce some grants for the foundation.
What’s in Them (or Not)
The codes are interesting for what they attempt to regulate (and what they don’t) and for what they say about how different kinds of colleges see the weaknesses of their sector.
The Accord, as the regionally accredited for-profit colleges’ code is known, requires colleges to post information on their Web sites about their faculty, while the coalition’s doesn’t. That kind of posting is standard for most nonprofit colleges, but very few for-profit colleges provide information about who teaches there, an omission that hurts their academic credibility, says Dario A. Cortes, president of Berkeley College. He organized the first Princeton Club meeting in February, with dozens of college leaders and accreditors, which kicked off the effort that produced the Accord. The Accord also requires its colleges to provide on their Web sites a telephone number that prospective students can call for information that doesn’t lead right back to an admissions recruiter. Mr. Cortes says he was amazed that requiring that level of openness was even necessary.
The coalition’s code says nothing about the faculty but requires every admissions recruiter (but not their bosses) to annually sign a form attesting that they have been properly trained, an approach that suggests the root of the problem in overly aggressive recruiting is the “rogue” employee rather than corporate culture.
The revised code of conduct that the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities put in place last September is more akin to the coalition’s code, but lacks its specificity or its enforcement mechanisms. Brian Moran, Apscu’s acting president, says the group won’t be pushing colleges to sign on, for fear of appearing to compromise the impartiality of the codes, but he says he welcomes the notion of a third-party foundation because it would be “viewed as a more objective enforcement mechanism.”
Of course that objectivity has yet to be established.
Still, if nothing else, the codes make clear that the companies are sincere about one thing: After 18 months of government and media scrutiny, they want to change the conversation.
