People here may know this but it doesn't seem like it (at least some) so I figured that I'd chime in.
The difference between a "for profit" college and a "not for profit" college is whether the college has shareholders. It has NOTHING to do with whether the college makes more revenue than it pays out in expenses. Most private colleges do not have shareholders who own the college. These are not for profit colleges. The for profit colleges do have shareholders who own the college and have a right to distributions when they are paid like any other for profit entity. The third set of colleges are the public schools that are run by the government. I know there are new hybrids of quasi-public but the above 3 fits all groups basically.
Another thing that seems to need clarification is the 80% from the article. There is no 80%. The article said that 8 of the top 10 recipients of GI money were for profit schools not in 8 in 10 dollars or 8 in 10 schools receiving aid. Just 8 of the top 10 were for profits. It also says that most of the GI money goes to for profit schools vs. not for profit schools or public schools. So from the article, we can see that at least 50% of the GI money (if true) goes to for profit schools which would mean more than $15 billion since 2009 (using the $30 billion figure from the article)
The article also states that some for profit schools have served the military students well and led to civilian employment. Whether or not those good schools are the largest recipients of the funds is not addressed in the article.
