You are likely to see MASSIVE drops in enrollment at ALL of the for profit trade schools. People flock to these schools for the 1st couple of years in a recession in an attempt to get retrained into the "booming IT field" or "booming medical field". When you have a depression at least in employment then after a couple of years with new graduates completely unable to find jobs then the word gets on the street that the for profit trade school diploma is worthless.
You will see implosion in student enrollment starting in Fall 2012 and only getting worse. I would not be surprised if you have 30% drop in enrollment in Fall 2012 compared to Fall 2011.
And an AA diploma is pretty much useless for a "professional" career. Even the medical assistants starting out have a BS degree because the job market is so competitive. You have entire graduating classes of RN from public community college unable to find jobs and taking jobs as medical assistants. Under those circumstances what chances does an Everest or Heald medical assisting graduate in the job market ??
Answer : NONE
Very few jobs exist in medical offices. My doctors and dentist tell me that almost every day people walk off the street looking for work.
The students worthy of the name are at the PUBLIC community college with at least the sembalance of academic standards and it is mostly the REJECTS who are UNWILLING to STUDY at the community college the end up at for profit trade schools.
The for profit schools have no incentive on quality control but rather have EVERY incentive at least in the short run to hand out diplomas like crackerjack boxes.
Unfortunately, in the LONG RUN this approach doesn't work when everyone figures it out that the diploma is worthless.
For all profit trade schools, the LONG RUN is NOW.