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...community colleges whether proprietary schools are threat to community colleges. The study concludes that proprietary schools and community colleges have individual strengths that make each institution appealing to different segments of the student population. More research is urged to explore the possibility of future collaboration between proprietary schools and community colleges.
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If the educational literature makes anything about proprietary schools (1) clear, it is that they occupy a highly contested and ever-changing place within higher education. Arthur Levine, the President of Teachers College at Columbia University, remarked in 1998, "Within higher education, "proprietary' is still a dirty word" (Strosnider, 1998, para. 12). However, some view proprietary schools as a real threat to traditional public community colleges. For example, Tony Zeiss, president of Central Piedmont Community College in North Carolina, states, "Yes, there is competition for community colleges, and it's spelled with a capital 'P' for proprietary colleges" (Zeiss, 1998, p. 9). As the literature makes clear, the controversy aroused by proprietary schools revolves around several key unanswered questions. Are they threats to community colleges? Do they take advantage of gullible students and even more gullible policy makers? Or do they point to new and better ways of organizing curricula, students, and even institutions? What exactly are the implications of including shareholders within the group of stakeholders to whom proprietary schools are responsible?
Perhaps not one of these questions has a simple answer, but the education literature does provide ample food for thought for those who seek to understand these admittedly controversial institutions in more depth. This review will serve as a guide to recent publications on proprietary schools. It opens with an exploration of proprietary institutional types, students, and structure; then it proceeds to a discussion of two key issues of continuing concern to researchers, policy makers, administrators and stakeholders: Are proprietary schools converging with community colleges? Are they a threat to conventional community colleges?
Types and Scope of Proprietary Schools
Perhaps the most authoritative recent synthesis of the literature on the relationship of proprietary schools to community colleges can be found in Bailey and Badway (2001). Their relatively lengthy analysis, based on two years of research, was prepared for the National Center for Postsecondary Improvement. Asserting that the growth of proprietary schools has "been one of the most watched trends in higher education" (p. 5), Bailey and Badway sought "to develop a better understanding of how for-profits compare to public community colleges with respect to their students and programs and to evaluate the extent to which the for-profit colleges compete directly with community colleges" (p. 4). Bailey and Badway's research employed a two-stage design, in which they first analyzed national data sources, and then conducted case studies at proprietary schools.
Recent Growth and Success Measures
Like other researchers, Bailey and Badway (2001) note that proprietary schools have been the topic of a great deal of controversy within higher education: "... the highly publicized growth of some for-profit institutions has been an integral part of the discussions of the new educational environment and indeed has generated growing anxiety among both private non-profit and public colleges and universities" (p. 6).
Much of this anxiety has come from the rapid growth of proprietary schools. Currently, over 2,300 proprietary schools offer two- and/or four-year degrees and certificates in the United States (Roueche, Roueche & Johnson, 2002). Some of the best-known names in proprietary education are national entities, with campuses across the United States and sometimes in other countries as well. The Apollo Group's University of Phoenix has 58 campuses and 102 "learning centers" in at least 36 U.S. states, Puerto Rico. and Canada. These campuses enroll 116,000 students who enjoy the benefit of articulation agreements with at least 150 community colleges (Strosnider, 1998; Roueche, Roueche & Johnson, 2002). Other national "brands" include DeVry, with 21 campuses enrolling 47,000 students and ITT, with 78 campuses in 28 states (Strosnider, 1998; Roueche, Roueche & Johnson, 2002).
As Bailey and Badway (2001) relate, the Education Commission of the States reported an increase of 78% in for-profit two-year colleges from 1989 to 1999, which is an astonishing figure that pales in comparison to the even more astonishing 266% growth in for-profit four-year colleges in the same decade. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) confirms these figures. The number of publicly-funded two-year colleges has remained fairly consistent between 1980 and 1998, ranging from 945 to 1,092. In comparison, the number of two-year proprietary institutions more than doubled from 1996 to 1997, increasing from 228 to 470 in just one year. As of 1998, the total number of publicly funded two-year colleges (1092) formed 62% of the total two-year institutions, with proprietary institutions (484) comprising 28% of the total two-year institutions, and private non-profit institutions (109) making up the remaining 10% (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000a).
How can success be defined for these schools? This complex question has multiple answers, some of which will be discussed in more detail below, when we turn to considerations of these schools" curricula and pedagogical styles. However, because these schools are, by definition, oriented toward market forces and especially profit, it is appropriate to define their success at least in part on the basis of their status on Wall Street.
On this measure, proprietary schools have done very well, at least until recently. As Strosnider (1998) states, "Within little more than five years, postsecondary proprietary education has been transformed from a sleepy sector of the economy, best-known...
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