College, Inc.

College, Inc.
College Search-Upper Level – 378.04 C


Frontline is a TV series produced by WGBH and shown on most PBS stations. Each episode is an hour long investigative documentary. There have been many great ones over the past 10 years, but a recent one that was released to DVD and is quite interesting in my opinion is College Inc.

College Inc. is about the history, rise, and issues with for profit colleges and universities which are different than public universities or non profit universities. Publicly funded higher education, such as community colleges and public universities, are run with publicly raised funds, either from the state or raised through a community college district, much like a library district or K-12 school district. They are governed by either community college district boards (locally elected) or in the case of public universities, by boards either elected directly by voters or appointed by other publicly elected officials.

Non profit colleges, such as Madonna University, receive no public funding, and raise capital through endowments and donations (mostly from alumni). They are run in many ways, like other non profit institutions. For profit schools, such as University of Phoenix, are run like corporations. They are run by publicly traded companies and therefore are responsible to shareholders. Like other publicly traded companies, their primary goal is to turn a profit.

College Inc. delves into the issues of for profit universities. It covers issues of priorties, funding, accreditation, admissions approaches and their focus on online education. The film discusses how many community colleges struggle, with falling funding, to accommodate the higher education capacity that for profit colleges step in to take up. Unfortunately, most for profit schools are much more expensive than community colleges and even most publicly funded universities, saddling more Americans with additional debt.

In a time when funding is dropping for many public institutions, this documentary raises the issue of how we should be providing education to those for whom other traditional universities and colleges are not an option or not appropriate. Recommended viewing for those interested in issues of education, public versus private control, and the nature of for profit instiutions.