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This article discusses the rise of for-profit universities (FPUs) and their impact on non-profit universities (NPUs) in the United States. While there have been many empirical studies on this topic, a theoretical model to understand the implications is lacking. The paper proposes a theoretical model to explore the interactions between FPUs and NPUs, showing that the expansion of FPUs leads to contractions of NPUs and a decrease in total employment between the two sectors. The model is based on education production functions and the optimization strategies of FPUs and NPUs. The article also highlights the challenges and complexities in measuring the quality of education and the multidimensional outcomes produced by universities. Overall, the article sheds light on the competition between for-profit and non-profit universities and its effects on the postsecondary education landscape. [Extracted from the article]

Given the legitimacy challenges faced by entrepreneurs, gaining access to the resources necessary to create viable new ventures is often difficult. Accordingly, scholars advocate that entrepreneurs align with high-status partners to convey that they are an accepted part of the sociocultural and organizational landscape. Although startup accelerators have been argued to play this supportive role for high-tech, high-growth ventures, it remains unclear whether they are effective at serving the needs of ventures pursuing social missions alongside business structures, or for-profit social ventures (FPSVs). To explore this issue, we examine whether social impact accelerators (SIAs), accelerators specifically designed to support FPSVs, help such ventures make the transition from mere ideas to viable organizations, a process known as emergence. To determine a causal relationship, we employ a quasi-experimental design and adopt propensity score matching with the nearest neighbor matching algorithm to study 7185 startups that applied to 383 accelerators worldwide from 2013 to 2019. By matching accepted startups to a control group of rejected startups, we find that SIAs, on average, facilitate new venture emergence, with accelerated FPSVs raising more external financing, earning more revenues, and hiring more full-time employees than their unaccelerated counterparts. These results hold when controlling for selection bias, thereby providing robust evidence for a causal relationship between acceleration and startup emergence. However, a subsequent subgroup analysis reveals that this causal effect is contingent across a breadth of "who," "when," and "where" contexts, highlighting the idiosyncratic differences that different startups face in the acceleration process. Plain English Summary: Recent empirical research on the benefits provided by startup accelerators suggests that accelerators help early-stage, commercial, growth-oriented ventures access external financing. While useful in demonstrating the value accelerators provide, we see an opportunity to expand this focus to explore the acceleration effect in a broader context. Given the important role social innovations play in the global economy, we explore how social impact accelerators (SIAs), entities designed to help startups simultaneously scale economic and social impact, help nascent for-profit social ventures (FPSVs) transform into viable, self-sustaining organizations, a process known as emergence. We find that SIAs do indeed facilitate emergence, with accelerated FPSVs raising more external financing, earning more revenues, and hiring more full-time employees than unaccelerated FPSVs. However, the SIA effect varies depending on how old the startup is, the gender composition of the founding team, and where the startup is located. By validating the causal impact of SIAs on FPSV emergence, our findings can inform not only theory and practice, but also public policy focused on bolstering the social innovation ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography of opportunity research has identified places with few or no college options: so-called "education deserts." This study extends this geography of opportunity research, exploring how geographical constraints affect students' choices, particularly the choice to attend a for-profit college. Using the Education Longitudinal Study 2002 (ELS: 2002) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), we measure the number of college options within students' commuting zones in the United States. When there are any for-profit colleges in a commuting zone, students are more likely to attend them and less likely to attend community colleges. Additionally, when there are any public two-year colleges in a commuting zone, there is a negligible impact on enrollment in for-profit colleges. This finding shows evidence of public-private competition and crowd-out in post-secondary education. Also, the presence of community colleges within education deserts makes community colleges a more favorable choice over for-profit colleges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil has by far the largest higher education system in Latin America, with a sizable share of students enrolled in private-sector institutions. Its recently established and fast-growing for-profit sector is one of the largest worldwide. The for-profit sector already surpasses the public sector in student enrollment, and its role is growing. Public policy has supported for-profit growth, ostensibly for tax revenue reasons, but the federal government has recently launched social initiatives that include tax exemption policies for the for-profit sector in exchange for need-based scholarships. Through exploratory data analysis, this study explores the role, function, and form of the for-profit sector compared with its nonprofit and public counterparts. The findings reveal that the for-profit sector shares some important characteristics with the nonprofit sector but contrasts sharply with the public sector. The study concludes that countries such as Brazil are moving toward public funding for private higher education to meet enrollment targets. These findings may be able to address issues in other countries by considering similar public policies toward private higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues the philosophical concerns and foundational challenges raised by a for-profit model of education. The for-profit model is governed by a business paradigm, without reference to the context in which it is found. The authors explore primary ethical questions and challenges presented by this model. As such, they present potential solutions to the growing problem in higher education as a corporate entity. The authors introduce a potential model for analysis of the issues and suggest an interventional technique with concrete directions for change. Universities are on the threshold of a transformation which can no longer be isolated from wider society. This environment awakened the critical task of blending corporate success with educational integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the institutional determinants of federal loan status for a recent cohort of college students. We first set out how institutions influence loan accumulations and repayment rates, with particular focus on for-profit colleges. We then test a set of hypotheses about loan status and repayment using national data on loans, defaults, and repayments merged with college-level data. For all measures of loan status there are significant raw gaps between for-profit colleges and public and not-for-profit colleges. After controlling for student characteristics, measures of college quality, and college practices, large gaps in loan balance per student remain: students in for-profit colleges, especially the 2-year colleges, borrow approximately four times as much as they would have at a 2-year public college. For a student attending the 'average' college, their repayment rate is predicted to be 5 [9] percentage points lower if that college is for-profit compared to public [non-profit]. Repayment rates are also lower for colleges with higher proportions of minority students and with lower graduation rates; contrary to some claims, single-program institutions appear to have higher repayment rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty years after pro-market policies were first adopted, how best to organize Chile's scientific enterprise remains as elusive as when universities were state-run and funded. This paper explores scientific research at a for-profit university, University Andres Bello, to ask if a new mode of knowledge production is in the making and with what impacts for Chilean universities. In contrast to trends described in the North American and European university literatures, the Chilean experience to date indicates that market competition reinforces existing scientific practice, including evaluation mechanisms. Its largest impact may instead lie in challenging cultural notions of a university's rights and responsibilities, with potentially negative consequences for existing state-run and non-profit universities. These findings are important for developing countries seeking to expand research without expanding public universities or expenditures, and raise important questions regarding the specific mechanisms that mediate between a university's forprofit business model and its research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When universities became corporate universities, the constraints that defined universities changed. The values of the old university, of scholarship, truth and freedom, were replaced by the values of the market. Education became a product, the university a firm, and the university system an industry. This paper considers the decline in academe as universities converge towards for-profit corporate universities. The paper explores why universities have become corporations, how they have become corporations, and how academics survive within those corporations. In the corporate university, the academic becomes accountable to management and to students. Collegiality is sacrificed for managerialism, and freedom for accountability. The academic role is inverted. The academic becomes the academic of the production line, producing standardised teaching and research. The paper suggests that the corporate university risks sacrificing too much scholarship and too much freedom for the principles of the market, thereby diluting the integrity of the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers an analysis on the emergence of for-profit electronic learning providers in Asia. It states that the accelerating roll-out of technology, the availability of advanced learning management systems, and the high growth rates of Internet usage are some of the factors that have prompted the expansion of e-learning providers. It also mentions that many people recognize the fact that for-profit providers better meet the rapidly changing educational needs in the society. It further features some of the successful e-learning providers in Asia including the Hartford Holdings and Kenichi Ohmae Graduate School of Business.