Proprietary Colleges and Diversity

Definition of a Proprietary College

There are thousands of proprietary schools in the United States, and they are quite diverse. Like traditional nonprofit schools, proprietary colleges and universities vary dramatically in size, mission, and income. Some proprietary schools prepare students for trades or vocations, while others offer the same degrees that nonproprietary schools offer. As a convention, most scholars who study and write about proprietary colleges and universities focus on the degree-granting proprietary schools because they are most like traditional colleges and universities. It is argued that in this way, proprietary and nonproprietary schools can be better understood and more easily compared. At the same time, this approach understates the differences between the types of institutions within the sector known as proprietary. In this entry, proprietary colleges are defined as regionally accredited, degree-granting institutions of higher education that offer programs at the associate, baccalaureate, master, and doctoral levels.

Nonprofit colleges and universities are typically accredited by one of six regional accrediting bodies. For-profit institutions have been seeking and receiving accreditation for many years, but it was not until for-profits began offering associate's, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs in large numbers that they sought the same type of regional accreditation that the nonprofit colleges and universities had already attained. DeVry and the University of Phoenix are considered the two best-known for-profit colleges in the United States. Both are regionally accredited to offer multiple types of degrees.

Two important points should be made in order to better understand the nature of proprietary institutions. First, the term traditional college or university is what one thinks of as a nonprofit institution. It is a 2- or 4-year college that awards associate's, bachelor's, master's, and/or doctoral degrees. Many of these traditional schools have been defined as “nontraditional,” but they have been defined as such because of their missions or governance, not because they are for-profit. This entry does not make this distinction. All traditional colleges are defined as nonprofit and all nontraditional colleges are defined as for-profit.

It is also beneficial to understand a few aspects of Title IV funding. Both traditional and nontraditional colleges and universities qualify for federal Title IV funding if they are regionally accredited and meet other U.S. Department of Education requirements. This is important because Title IV [Page 1718]funding means, among other things, that a school's students are eligible for federal student loans.

Below is a summary of the characteristics of proprietary (for-profit) versus nonproprietary (nonprofit) colleges created by Richard Ruch. It should be noted that while the list of characteristics is useful for understanding the differences between these types of institutions, it understates the complexities of each feature.

• Nonprofits have donors. For-profits have investors.
• Nonprofits have endowments. For-profits have private investment capital.
• Nonprofits have stakeholders. For-profits have stockholders.
• Nonprofits have shared governance. For-profits have traditional management.
• Nonprofits have a prestige motive. For-profits have a profit motive.
• Nonprofits' focus is on the cultivation of knowledge. For-profits' focus is on the application of learning.
• Nonprofits are discipline-driven. For-profits are market-driven.
• Nonprofits emphasize the quality of inputs. For-profits emphasize the quality of outcomes.
• Nonprofits' focus of power is faculty power. For-profits' focus of power is customer power.

Proprietary Colleges and Diversity

Christopher Morphew's research highlights that institutional diversity has long been recognized as a positive and unique attribute of the U.S. higher education system. Many institutions have been successful at enrolling a diverse population, but some institutions continue to struggle. Defining diversity on campuses continues to be a challenge and a debate, especially in light of affirmative action policies as well as institutional efforts to become more inclusive. Many institutions have broadened their definition of diversity to include a variety of demographic factors including race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, geographic representation, and federally recognized disabilities. While other types of institutions, including public and private 4-year, community, and junior colleges, continue to focus on efforts to increase the diversity of their student populations, some proprietary schools remain among the most diverse institutions in the nation. Kevin Kinser states that the largest growth in American higher education in the past decade has been in for-profit institutions. Today, more than 2 million students are enrolled in for-profit institutions, and they are more likely to be low-income individuals, racial minorities, single parents, high school dropouts with GEDs, or first-generation college students without parents who can help pay the tuition bill.

...