THE CONSUMERIST: Should For-Profit Colleges Be Allowed To Spend Taxpayers’ Money To Put Their Names On NFL Stadiums?

Career College Central Summary:

This past Sunday — and for the second time in seven years — the Super Bowl was played at a stadium carrying the University of Phoenix name. The for-profit online school paid more than $150 million to slap its brand on the stadium, with much of that money coming from taxpayers. Some groups say that for-profit schools should not be allowed to make such splashy marketing investments at a time when there are so many questions about the quality of education provided by for-profit institutions.
Over the past several years, legislators and consumer advocates have called for rules that would limit the amount of federal dollars for-profit colleges can spend on marketing each year.
While many schools, even nonprofits, spend money on advertising and recruiting, those expenses all pale in comparison to the $155 million the University of Phoenix shelled out in 2006 for two decades of naming rights for the Arizona Cardinals’ then-new stadium.
And though many stadia are branded with the names of for-profit companies, most of those stadium sponsors don’t get more than 90% of their revenue from federal funds. And that’s a serious issue for some consumer and veterans advocates.

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