Blog U ›    • Confessions of a Community College Dean   Credit
and Credibility April 5, 2013 - 3:46am  Several years ago, I
started musing about the potential for an upscale for-profit
college.  (Here’s the first piece in which I floated the idea of
“Mercedes U,” back in 2005.)  Since then I’ve returned to the
idea several times (such as this piece from 2010, and this from
2012). Founders College gave the idea a shot several years ago,
but flamed out quickly due to terrible planning and a quixotic
Ayn Rand fixation. As far as I know, that has been the only
credible attempt.  Now Tressie McMillan Cottom is trying to put
some meat on the bones of the idea.  And she’s doing it in a
wonderfully bloggy way, posting a work-in-progress on her blog
for crowdsourced brainstorming.    The idea of an upscale for-
profit makes too much sense not to happen.  In fact, it makes so
much sense that it’s worth asking why it hasn’t happened yet.
In most of American life, for-profit providers routinely capture
the high end of th