WASHINGTON — In its ongoing efforts to crack down on for-profit colleges that leave their graduates saddled with debt and little to show for it, the U.S. Department of Education released new data Thursday that shows graduates from public undergraduate certificate programs earn an average $9,000 more per year than their counterparts at for-profit undergraduate certificate programs.
“The data show that public institutions pay off,” U.S. Undersecretary of Education Ted Mitchell said Thursday in a phone conference with reporters.
Steve Gunderson, president and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities, or CECU, the organization that represents the for-profit college sector, said the data released Thursday is “faulty” and “lacks context.”
“It is absolutely absurd to compare totally different fields of study and suggest that programs traditionally taught in public institutions have higher incomes than programs taught in proprietary colleges,” Gunderson said. “This reflects the continuing ideological bias of this Department against our sector and is yet another example of why Americans are tired of out-of-touch bureaucrats in Washington.”
Diverse presented Gunderson with a statement from the Education Department that said the data show that, even among undergraduate programs of the same field of study, the average difference is still about $2,700, or about 13 percent, higher for public-sector programs than for those in the for-profit sector.
Gunderson responded that earnings alone do not provide a full picture of a given college’s success and that other factors — such as demographics and location — matter.
