At least nine publicly traded for-profit education companies said on Friday a U.S. Senate committee has asked for more information from them regarding their recruitment practices and use of financial aid for students.

Apollo Group (APOL.O), Career Education (CECO.O), Capella Education (CPLA.O), DeVry (DV.N) and ITT Educational Services (ESI.N) received requests for information from the U.S. Senate's education panel, the companies said on Friday.

Brightpoint Education (BPI.N), National American University Holdings (NAUH.O), American Public Education (APEI.O) and Universal Technical Institute (UTI.N) also received these notices.

Responding to what it called a "deeply troubling" government report that highlighted extensive examples of aggressive recruiting by for-profit colleges, the Career College Association has announced that it will initiate a series of steps to rein in abusive practices by its member colleges.

The program will include a tougher code of compliance and the development of an industrywide "mystery shopper" program to help police colleges' recruiting and financial-advising practices.

Click through a few of these traditional university and community college claims, then think about the mandatory information required on all the marketing and advertising for your school.

Frustrating, isn't it? How is it that career colleges are being accused of tricking students into attendance? Where's the accountability for all these schools touting free tuition, state-of-the-art resources, and promising high five figure salaries? Where's the pity for the college freshman at Florida State University, when he realizes that maybe his school isn't the most "student-centered university in the nation"? Does he get to sit in front of the government and testify that he was 'tricked' into attending? Of course not.

In an unprecedented move for the for-profit higher education industry, Kaplan College in Pembroke Pines has stopped enrolling new students after federal investigators uncovered incidents of high pressure and potentially fraudulent and misleading sales tactics.

A second Kaplan campus in Riverside, Calif., also put new admissions on hold, pending the results of an internal investigation.

Some people can't take yes for an answer. Private-sector colleges and universities are expanding access to higher education, providing a pathway to skills and training for over 2.7 million students every year. Many of these are older working adults returning to school to rejuvenate careers and improve job prospects. Demand for this kind of purposeful, practical education is at an all-time high. So enrollment in one of our colleges or universities practically should promote itself.

Instead, as a Government Accountability Office report released this week based on GAO personnel posing as potential students at 15 schools reveals, a small number of school admissions and financial aid personnel felt they had to paint outside the lines.

In an effort to expose the higher standards to which career colleges are held regarding advertising and recruitment, Career College Central has already compiled over 50 examples of advertisements in which community colleges, four-year institutions or their related online programs make statements that career colleges cannot.

Check out just a few of our findings below:

Senator Tom Harkin will request information from 30 U.S. for-profit colleges and consider new legislation for the sector after a government investigator described fraud, lying and high-pressure sales tactics used by education-industry recruiters, the Iowa Democrat said today.

Harkin, chairman of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, said he will ask publicly traded and closely held companies to disclose graduation rates, loan defaults among former students and recruitment practices. He called for more hearings as early as September, and said a legislative package may be possible by the end of the year.

By Amir Moghadam

MaxKnowledge Performance TV Interview: Maryse Levy, Vice President of Education and Career Services with Education Affiliates, discusses how staffing affects educational outcomes, and provides hiring, on-boarding, evaluation and ongoing development perspectives and strategies.

Watch this interview

By Kevin Kuzma

The most egregious offenses are often repeated in contentious relationships. In the higher education realm, there is a pervasive double standard in the way that career education schools and their competitors are perceived, and that disparity has been a marriage breaker between them and other institutions of higher learning. Nowhere is it more clearly evident than in the realm of advertising and marketing.

The public comment period for the majority of the U.S. Department of Education's proposed regulations aimed at protecting the integrity of the Title IV federal financial aid program ended at midnight Tuesday.

Department officials have the next three months to read and consider close to 1,800 comments posted on regulations.gov (including duplicates) -- ranging in length from a sentence or two to 100-page dossiers -- submitted by a mix of college presidents, financial aid officers, associations, companies, and rank-and-file students and employees. Final rules must be published by Nov. 1 to go into effect on July 1, 2011, as the department has planned.