With the exception of students who study cosmetology, students who attend for-profit colleges end up earning less money five to six years after attendance than they did before they enrolled, a new paper released Monday claims.
“Across nearly all degrees and certificates, our results reveal disappointing outcomes for for-profit students,” states the paper, titled “Gainfully Employed? Assessing the Employment and Earnings of For-Profit College Students Using Administrative Data.”
The paper—released through the National Bureau of Economic Research, or NBER—was done by Stephanie Riegg Cellini, an associate professor of public policy and economics at The George Washington University, and Nicholas Turner, an economist within the Office of Tax Analysis within the U.S. Department of Treasury.
“These negative average effects are largely generated by the high proportion of students (who) do not complete their program of study,” their paper states.
Graduates of for-profits fared better and achieved positive earnings effects, and master’s students also mostly saw “small positive earnings,” the paper states.
However, the paper found that for-profit students experience lower earnings than their public sector counterparts, regardless of student demographics and programs of study.
In examining the 10 most popular fields of study in the for-profit sector, the paper found that cosmetology was the only field where for-profit students got higher returns than public students and that none of the top 10 fields—from practical nursing to HVAC repair—generated positive total earnings for for-profit students.
