OPTING OUT OF THE SENSITIVITY GULAG? David French at the Torch discovers the New York Times covering proprietary institutions of higher learning. First Mr French's commentary.

Already, these for-profit schools represent a viable alternative for many students who see the university primarily as a vehicle for career advancement. Since (truth be told) most students go to college not to learn the nuances of political theory or the joys of Chaucer but instead to improve their economic position, it is not difficult to imagine a day when for-profit colleges—which put job placement at the center of their mission—will present a major challenge to traditional government and nonprofit private schools. As colleges become increasingly politicized (some are so ideologically slanted that students are essentially joining revolutionary cells rather than academic departments), the for-profit schools may be seen as a haven from the culture wars.

He notes there is a downside.

There are, however, complaints regarding the quality of the for-profit educational experience.

But as I read the particulars, I'm prompted to compare and contrast.

Students at these schools study to prepare for careers in business, culinary arts and design, and to become medical technicians or paralegals.

But questions exist about the quality of education at some of these institutions. Federal and state investigators have found that some used inappropriate enrollment practices, like registering students incapable of doing the work. Some critics also charge that the schools make rosy promises about jobs for their graduates that do not materialize.

That's different from admitting unprepared students and calling it "access," or using the expected retirements of Silent Generation professors to induce hopefuls into graduate school, now known as the first mile of the adjunct track?

In recent audits, the New York State comptroller's office found more problems with commercial schools than at other schools. In audits of four degree-granting schools in the past year, the comptroller found that irregularities in financial aid grants were more than eight times higher at the two commercial schools studied than at the public college and the private nonprofit college that it also reviewed.

Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, said in written testimony to a Congressional hearing in March that at one point she had accumulated a two-foot stack of complaints about the schools. She said that while not all schools were bad, enough were to warrant "even more protection from the false sales pitches of many of these for-profit trade schools."

That the state-located and the non-profits are not as bad is insufficient reason to think all is well.

Nonetheless, more and more college students are attracted by the career-oriented education these schools typically offer, as well as by their often relaxed admissions policies and their consumer-oriented focus.

The Wal-Mart version of Jacuzzi U? What is it, maybe 200 traditional colleges and universities that turn away more applicants than they admit? And perhaps what this story tells us is how ineffective elementary and secondary education are at serving some people.

What students get in return is harder to measure. Despite the growth and the public money flowing to the schools, they remain a poorly understood corner of higher education. What is clear is that they often focus on groups that many colleges do not, like working adults or students who have not graduated from high school. They place less emphasis on professors with doctorates and more on teachers with practical experience. They offer a narrower range of courses that are more career-oriented, and they schedule classes at times convenient to working students.

But the quality of education can vary. Gail O. Mellow, president of La Guardia Community College in Queens, said that after the Drake Business School, a commercial institution that did not grant degrees, closed last year, La Guardia tried to see if it could help some of the students.

"We found it impossible," she said. "Even though some of these students were at the end of their sophomore year, their level of preparation was so low that they were not passing our basic placement tests."

With somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of entering freshmen requiring remediation, perhaps the for-profits are a symptom of troubles elsewhere in the education system, or perhaps in the broader society.