Report Questions Nonprofit College Conversions

A new report from the Century Foundation questions the legitimacy of four former for-profit colleges' recent transformations to nonprofit status. Those institutions are "covert for-profits," according to the report, "where owners have managed to affix a nonprofit label to their colleges while engineering substantial ongoing personal financial benefits for themselves."

The report's author is Robert Shireman, a former U.S. Department of Education official who recently joined the foundation as a senior fellow. The report said several for-profits have sought to become nonprofits to avoid federal regulations, some of which Shireman worked to create. By using public information requests, Shireman wrote case studies about the conversions of Herzing University, Remington Colleges Inc., Everglades College and the Center for Excellence in Higher Education (CEHE).