One of the most important investment stories of the year flew by on Aug. 16, probably with very little notice in most corners of West Virginia.

An entire group of stocks in the education sector got taken down, hard. Companies like Strayer, Apollo Group and The Washington Post suffered double-digit percentage losses in the wake of a simple government announcement.

Harris Miller, president of the Career College Association, talks about student-loan trends at for-profit colleges.

Colleges owned by Career Education Corp., Corinthian Colleges Inc. and Washington Post Co. have campuses where fewer than 20 percent of federal student loans are being repaid, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which wants to use the data to determine whether programs can remain eligible for aid. Miller speaks on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop With Betty Liu."

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BLOOMBERG

Who's stealing the great chefs of Calgary?

Some of the city's top toques are giving up their high-profile restaurant jobs and heading back to school.

Chefs Hayato Okamitsu of Catch, Scott Pohorelic of River Cafe and Michael Allemeier aren't hitting the books, though. These star chefs have hung up their executive hats to join a new brigade: the instructors in the School of Hospitality and Tourism at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) -- making it arguably one of the best places in the country to study the culinary arts.

SLM Corp., the largest U.S. student lender, plans to sell $760.4 million of bonds backed by loans, according to a person familiar with the offering.

The loans, originated through the Federal Family Education Loan Program, carry a government guarantee, said the person, who declined to be identified because terms aren't public. Bank of America Corp. is managing the sale by the Reston, Virginia-based lender also known as Sallie Mae.

Debt tied to household borrowing, including auto and education loans, and credit card debt, is benefiting from limited issuance. This year's sales of securities backed by consumer and business loans are at $63.8 billion, compared with $115.8 billion in the similar period in 2009, according to Bank of America data.

By C. Ronald Kimberling

Groucho Marx once defined politics as "the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then applying the wrong remedies." This month's hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, especially the evidence of blatant fraud brought out in the testimony of the Government Accountability Office's Gregory D. Kutz, certainly seemed to demonstrate that trouble has been found in the admissions processes of some for-profit sector postsecondary institutions.

The Washington Post Co. and other for-profit providers of higher education pushed back Monday against a government report last week that found many of their former students are not on track to repay their loans.

Several industry stocks, including The Post Co.'s, fell after the release of the report related to a federal effort to tighten regulation of for-profit colleges. The Post Co. said in a statement Monday that the federal initiative "could have a materially adverse effect" on earnings of its Kaplan higher-education unit.

Late Friday, the Education Department released data on student loan repayment rates that showed 28 percent of Kaplan University's former students are repaying the principal on their federal loans.

The University of Phoenix, Grand Canyon University and Universal Technical Institute fared relatively well in a government report on student-loan repayment rates, shielding their stocks from the beating many of their competitors took Monday.

The three publicly traded Phoenix-based schools nearly met or exceeded the minimum 45 percent loan-repayment rate that is a centerpiece of proposed new regulations determining a for-profit school's eligibility for federal financial aid.

University of Phoenix, the nation's largest private university and the pioneer in for-profit education, came in at 44 percent for 2009, better than most analysts expected. Grand Canyon University's rate was 52 percent, Universal Technical Institute's 54 percent.

That sound you heard Friday at 5:15 p.m.? That was the collective thud of the heads of for-profit college executives hitting their desks in dismay when they got a first look at the sort of loan repayment data the U.S. Education Department expects to use in its proposed new regulatory scheme, aimed at ensuring that vocational programs prepare their graduates for "gainful employment."

Adding new fuel to the growing controversy over regulating for-profit colleges, the Department of Education on Friday released data on student-loan repayment rates at the nation's colleges and universities, listing the institutions by name.

Although the department issued no analysis or comparison of repayment rates by sector, outside advocacy groups that analyzed the data found that in 2009, repayment rates were 54 percent at public colleges and universities, 56 percent at private nonprofit institutions, and 36 percent at for-profit colleges.

More than 800 women and men from around the country will gather today at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis to walk across the stage and receive the degree they have earned from Capella University. They will represent the almost 40,000 people who have turned to Capella to advance their careers, primarily through our masters or doctorate programs.

While today's graduates may not necessarily look like the students participating in a commencement ceremony at the University of Minnesota (the average age of a Capella student is 39), they will look a lot like people you see every day. These are purpose-driven learners and leaders who are balancing their education with the responsibilities that come with a family and career.