Top of the morning

You might want to think twice before enrolling in an online for-profit college like the University of Phoenix.

A joint investigation by the public radio program Marketplace and ProPublica found that the online university continues to make questionable promises to prospective students and engage in other enrollment practices that prompted a federal investigation in 2004.

The university ended up paying $10 million in response to that probe. Its parent company recently announced that $80 million was being reserved to settle a lawsuit based on allegations of similar behavior since the federal investigation was settled.  

The University of Phoenix has five campus locations in North Carolina, three in Charlotte and two in Raleigh and employs three lobbyists at the North Carolina General Assembly, all with the mega-lobbying firm McGuire Woods.

The Marketplace/ProPublica story reports that several other for-profit colleges have been cited for falsifying enrollment tests and financial aid documents.