Jim Cramer Makes a Good Point About For-Profit Universities

(h/t to Campus Progress)

Thus spake Jim Cramer:

And just like the drug companies that spend three times more on advertising than R&D, the for-profit schools spend much of their revenue... coming from the price you pay for their services on advertising -- 53% on average.
[...]
73% of the tuition at the four largest publicly-traded schools is coming from the Feds, in the form of government grants and student loans. Essentially, we're subsidizing the advertising campaigns of for-profit universities, lettting the industry rake in a plump 27% operating margin.
[...]
If [Obama] has to wreck another industry, I don't think I'd shed a tear for most of these for-profit schools. I'd say what they're spending our money on -- buying students to beat the street's earnings-per-share estimates -- is scandalous, if not reprehensible.

Investing in for-profit higher ed isn't just a bad political and social decision, it's also a bad financial decision.