An interesting piece from Daniel Gross at Slate, looks at the declining fortunes of Edison (a for-profit schools company, listed on NASDAQ) and concludes that for-profit (or at least corporate) education is inherently uneconomic. I agree, with the caveat that narrowly focused vocational training can be delivered on a for-profit basis, as witness the ‘University’ of Phoenix (the scare quotes reflect the fact that this institution would probably not qualify as a university in Australia or many US states).