Profit and the Public Good - Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed

A common lament about higher education is that it has become more of a private good than a public one, with students as consumers and colleges as businesses focused on hawking their product. But that model won’t cut it anymore, at least not for the nation’s largest regional accreditor, which in January redefined what an institution’s philosophical bottom line should be. “We felt it was important to make a statement -- that education is a public good,” said Sylvia Manning, president of the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. The revised standards are getting an early test, as a commission review team last month recommended a sanction of probation for the University of Phoenix, the nation’s biggest university. According to a corporate filing from the Apollo Group, which is Phoenix’s holding company, a sentence in the public good section is what tripped up the university in its bid for reaccreditation. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/12/accreditors-new-standards-raise-bar-serving-public