For-profit colleges exist parasitically on the prestige of elite institutions.

Evidence

“Lower Ed can exist precisely because elite Higher Ed does,” Dr. McMillan Cottom writes. “The latter legitimizes the education gospel while the former absorbs all manner of vulnerable groups who believe in it: single mothers, downsized workers, veterans, people of color, and people transitioning from welfare to work.” — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 291

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader education-gospel critique and how credentialist structures reproduce inequality — parallel to discussions of credential inflation and how vulnerable groups bear the costs.