Defenders of for profits say that the old model of higher education is outdated, that going away to a 4-year residential campus no longer serves the needs of today's students who are often older and have work and family commitments. And they are right. But higher education has already evolved to meet the changing needs of students. Postwar America expanded its public higher education system into a vast and diverse network of institutions. On one end there are selective state research universities on par with the Ivies. On the other extreme are community colleges with virtually open enrollment. In between the extremes are regional state colleges that grew out of early teachers colleges and expanded to offer a wide range of undergraduate and graduate degrees.
The new community colleges of the 2nd half of the last century were built to serve the nontraditional student. They are typically located in population centers, commuter oriented, and provide flexible class times at a very low cost. And many of the regional state colleges are similarly tailored to meet the needs of students housed on campus as well as commuters.
A recent innovation in higher ed is online instruction, but the for profits don't have a monopoly on this. All sorts of schools offer online classes, including some degree programs that are entirely online. And there even many options for free, high quality online classes. Although I happen to think online education isn't going to put brick and mortar campuses out of business.
So I don't see the allure of a for profit college when most populated places have affordable, higher quality public institutions within reach.
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