ONE of the great ironies of the nonprofit world is that it has spawned a large and lucrative for-profit industry.

He was replaced by Dr. Frist, the founder and onetime chairman of the Hospital Corporation of America, the grandfather of the for-profit industry.

In the 1980's, the same F.C.C. treats the medium more like an unregulated for-profit industry than a public asset designed to operate in the public interest.

The amount of funding and staff make DSTT the largest collaboration between the for-profit pharmaceutical industry and a university in the United Kingdom.

Representatives Boehner and McKeon have also pushed through committee other changes sought by the for-profit industry, and lobbyists and lawmakers gave them good chances of passage this year.

But remember this is a for-profit industry, profit is not a dirty word, and some of the owners have large investments in these facilities.

"We're probably right in the middle of a swing," said James D. Shelton, the chief executive of Triad, about the for-profit industry.

But in the scandal-ridden rise of other publicly financed, for-profit industries, like nursing homes and psychiatric hospital chains, the for-profit advantage has often proved illusory.

SBA has established numerical definitions, or "size standards," for all for-profit industries.

Political life has turned into a for-profit industry.