President Barack Obama's stimulus package directs billions in new funding to higher education. Poised to cash in on the largesse are a group of large for-profit universities that specialize in scooping up student aid dollars. Some of the schools, known for aggressive recruiting, are increasing advertising and seeing enrollments rise.rnBut are these education businesses appropriate beneficiaries of fresh taxpayer generosity? For years skeptics have raised questions about the schools' marketing tactics, graduation rates, and quality of education.rnAsked about the coming boom in the for-profit industry, Arne Duncan, the new Education Secretary, told BusinessWeek (page 22) that he intends to increase monitoring of federal student aid to all schools, private and public: "I am creating an internal task force to optimize our procedures and to build better connections to other consumer protection agencies."rnCareer-oriented schools such as the University of Phoenix, a unit of publicly traded Apollo Group, have been benefiting from lean times as adults scramble for credentials they hope will help them find work. The stimulus enacted last month will accelerate this trend by providing an additional $15 billion in Pell Grants for students over the next two years.
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