According to the US Dept. of Education, community colleges are a better choice than for-profit "career" colleges. The story goes that students at for profit career colleges are charged more, get less, have higher drop-out rates and end up with higher levels of debt than students who go to the other schools.
The San Francisco Chronicle story on this matter goes into great depth with anecdotes, facts and figures to highlight the differences between these educational choices. Is there core bias against the for-profits that get into the educational business? Should education solely be the domain of the public and nonprofit sectors? Do the public sector educational institutions really produce results that merit shunning the for-profits? And what about the nonprofits? Are their outcomes any better?
Whatever the true answer, much of the debate centers around money, not necessarily results. And shouldn't results be the primary focus of the conversation?