Its fortunes are closely watched because it is the giant of for-profit postsecondary education; it received $1.8 billion in federal student aid in 2004-5.

My concern is the development of for-profit education.

A contentious topic has been for-profit medical education, which osteopathic accreditors permit.

Almost a quarter of federal Pell grant funds for needy students go to for-profit education, according to a new analysis by the research firm Student Lending Analytics.

"With for-profit education there is no substantive regulation of what happens in the classroom," Mr. Nassirian says.

He defines these as long-term social and economic trends, including the growth of for-profit education and the aging of the American population.

"I like the competitive shot that they're giving to the system," Richard Mills, the New York state education commissioner, said of ventures in for-profit education.

The University of Phoenix, the nation's largest private university and a pioneer in for-profit higher education, has applied to open a campus in Roseland, officials said yesterday.

Kevin Kinser, assistant professor of educational administration and policy at the University at Albany, has proposed a "multidimensional classification" scheme of for-profit higher education.

Edison is not the only experiment in for-profit education.