The long term outlook is not good. I have no idea what will happen in the intermediate term. It is finally being recognized that nearly all these for profit institutions exist solely to milk the Federal backed loan and grant programs. They have virtually no filter on who they will enroll as long as the student can qualify for tuition loans. Consequently average quality of graduates is terrible. I don't want to paint all for profit educational institutions with the same brush, however, because those few that do maintain some kind of quality standards, and do flunk non-performing students out, will probably survive if they are in a vocational niche not-well served by patron-supported institutions.
A good formal education is generally quite expensive; thus traditional educational institutions have always had patrons to make up the difference between what the student can afford and what the real cost is. In the past the patron was almost always a church, religious order, or wealthy individual; nowadays, in the case of public institutions, the taxpayer joins these more traditional patrons in subsidizing higher education. It will be impossible for a for-profit institution to both make a lot of money for share holders and have high standards -- because these two conditions are mutually exclusive. There are many who will say that private for profit enterprise can do a better job of educating than can patron supported institutions. This, of course, is nonsense, for the reason I stated..
