Dive Brief:

• More than 1,700 complaints of fraud and predatory practices by higher education organizations were fielded by the Illinois Attorney General's office in 2016, moving the industry up to sixth on the state's consumer fraud watch list. 
• Attorney General Lisa Madigan told reporters this week that the complaints are generally tied to for-profit institutions' admissions practices and struggles with student loan debt collections. 
• Higher education was placed on the watch list for the first time in 2015, and has moved up one spot in this year's rankings. 

Dive Insight:

While similar reports have been filed to chronicle the plague of for-profit education on unsuspecting learners, new regulatory repeals may once again change the landscape of higher education at large. College campuses in all sectors could consider developing regular reports to sort student persistence, graduation and postgraduate outcomes based upon socio-economic status upon entry and during degree pursuit. 

This would allow the general public and government officials to see specifically the kind of trends connected with completion that are tied to household income, race, gender and other student profile data that demands additional resources or more context before applying a broad description of successful or unsuccessful institutions.