The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs has begun an investigation into four for-profit colleges over concerns about students' dropout and loan-default rates, and the ways in which students are recruited in the first place.
For-profit colleges have been under increased scrutiny at all levels of government in recent years, amid growing concern that many of their students are left shouldering unwieldy debt but unable to find good jobs, and that tax payers are being debited in the process.
"What we are concerned about," said Julie Menin, the commissioner of consumer affairs, speaking about problems within the industry at large, "is that predatory, for-profit colleges are taking advantage of the ambition that so many New Yorkers with low incomes have for a better life, and cheating them out of their dreams and their money."
The department issued subpoenas in February to Berkeley College, Mandl School, New York Career Institute and Technical Career Institutes, also known as TCI College.
Read more at The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/nyregion/new-york-city-consumer-agency-investigating-four-for-profit-colleges.html