Wall Street Hurts Education at For-Profit Colleges

(Bloomberg) — Wall Street investment firms’ pursuit of short-term gains interferes with the educational goals of the for-profit colleges they invest in, said U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, chairman of the education committee.  Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which owns 39 percent of Education Management Corp., is among Wall Street firms that “have no interest in the long-term educational outcomes of the students attending the schools,” Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, said today on the Senate floor. About 1.5 million students are enrolled in for-profit colleges owned by 15 publicly traded U.S. education companies, and another 33 for-profit educators are partially or fully owned by private equity firms or hedge funds, Harkin said. Unlike nonprofit universities and public institutions, for-profit colleges are legally bound to work in the interests of investors, he said.

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