One of my passionate topics, which I often discuss on this blog is the fleecing of students by for-profit higher education institutions. Whenever I see news like this, I feel angry and hurt. I can certainly hope that the likes of University of Phoenix are shut down for good – sooner, rather than later. This comes to you via Huffington Post:

After graduating from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Carrianne Howard hoped to find a job in the video game industry.

She did — kind of. For $12 an hour, she worked as a recruiter for video game companies. And then her position was eliminated. So now, she’s working as a stripper.

According to Bloomberg, Howard spent $70,000 on her degree from the for-profit Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, the parent company of which is owned in part by Goldman Sachs. She told Bloomberg that upon a pre-enrollment visit to the school, a campus tour guide “made it sound like [she] was going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Howard’s story is not entirely unique — and experiences like hers are driving the government’s investigation into the efficacy and recruiting practices of for-profit colleges.

This week, a Government Accountability Office report detailed how for-profit recruiters often promise potential students unobtainable jobs and high salaries, and tell them to lie to procure more federal financial aid. [Full Story]