Kentucky Attorney General Probing Six For-Profit Schools

The Kentucky Attorney General's office has launched an investigation into the business practices of six for-profit colleges operating in the state, issuing subpoenas to the schools earlier Wednesday.

Allison Gardner Martin, the office's communications director, declined to release the names of the schools involved. She said they operate in Kentucky, aren't necessarily headquartered in Kentucky, and "may or may not be publicly traded."

The Kentucky investigation is the second such probe of for-profit colleges in recent months, following one launched by the Florida Attorney General's office in October, and comes amid a series of U.S. Senate hearings questioning the educational merits of the schools.

The Kentucky Attorney General subpoenaed data on six for-profit schools' student-loan default rates, as well as material used in advertising and recruiting, information about job placement, transferability of credits and accreditation, and details of how financial-aid funds are disbursed.

"I want to make sure these institutions are as interested in educating their students as they are in collecting federal loan money," Attorney General Jack Conway said in a statement. His office "determined a closer look at the business practices of for-profit and proprietary colleges was warranted" after earlier this year conducting an investigation of Decker College and the American Justice School of Law. Neither of those schools, now defunct, was publicly traded.

-By Melissa Korn, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2271; [e-mail]