Some Owners of Private Colleges Turn a Tidy Profit by Going Nonprofit

For profit colleges have been a menace in the world of higher education for many decades now, but Patricia Cohen explores how the latest move towards exploiting college students has been for these colleges to claim not-for-profit status. The tax exempt salaries of these college officials hit 6 to 7 figures annually, while saddling young college students with debt that their degrees do not help pay back. But the government is not far behind the chase – for-profit schools that cannot prove that the educations their students receive will enable them to repay student loans can have their state funding cut off. But not-for-profit schools are not subjected to such scrutiny, making the switch even more beneficial for money-hungry universities.

Read an excerpt of the article written by Patricia Cohen:

After a recent government crackdown on the multibillion-dollar career-training industry, stricter limits on student aid and devastating publicity about students hobbled by debt and useless credentials, some for-profit schools simply shut down. But a few others have instead dropped out of the for-profit business altogether, in favor of a more traditional approach to running a higher education institution. And the nonprofit sector, it turns out, can still be quite profitable. Consider Keiser University in Florida. In 2011, the Keiser family, the school’s founder and owner, sold it to a tiny nonprofit called Everglades College, which it had created. ...read more

Private equity firms begin a frenzied race for young investment bankers

This piece explores the fast expanding world for junior investment bankers, the hottest commodity in the finance world. Recruited barely out of undergrad, young investment bankers are commanding high salaries as private equity firms like the Blackstone Group and Bain Capital are tripping over themselves to hire the newest talent first. At the same time, Silicon Valley has an equal hold on young entrepreneurs, but equity firms remain the most lucrative in terms of compensation, hitting 6 figures with ease.

Read an excerpt of the article written by WILLIAM ALDEN AND SYDNEY EMBER:

They are only in their early to mid-20s, but some young bankers on Wall Street are the most sought-after financiers around, with lucrative pay packages dangling before them. Junior investment bankers who graduated from college only last year are being madly courted by private equity firms like Apollo Global Management, the Blackstone Group, Bain Capital and the Carlyle Group in a scramble that kicked off last weekend. After back-to-back interviews, many are now fielding offers for jobs that won’t start until the summer of 2016. This process has become an annual rite by private equity firms, which raise money from investors (like pension funds) to buy entire companies. ...read more