TRANSCRIPT: Chris Cuomo's Interview with Harris Miller on For-Profit Schools

August 20, 2010— -- Harris Miller, President and CEO of the Career College Association based in Washington, D.C. sat down with ABC News' Chief Law and Justice correspondant Chris Cuomo to talk about the for-profit education industry and allegations of misconduct by their recruiters. The following transcript of their interview has been edited for clarity.

CHRIS CUOMO:

Let's begin at the beginning. Let's get Eiseman (PH) outta the way. He comes out. He looks at you guys as the next subprime. He sees your industry as potentially bankrupting our country. Your response?

HARRIS MILLER:

Totally nonsense. First of all the amounta dollars involved is not even close but that's not the point. The point is that we have a product which is higher education that has to be offered on an ongoing basis. It's not a one time transaction like a mortgage is.

CHRIS CUOMO:

Fair to say that your business is a business. It's about making money. At the enda the day that's what you have to do?

HARRIS MILLER:

Every institution of higher ed-- education has to bring in more money than goes out otherwise the school'll close down. Your tax status has nothing to do with it whether you're Harvard University, whether you're the University of Michigan or whether you're a tax status for profit institution.

CHRIS CUOMO:

We're talking about the-- requirements and the pressures on what makes you a successful institution. Unlike most universities though you're tied to a stock price and you've got Wall Street pressure on you to bring in money. You actively recruit almost like no other university system. Isn't that the bottom line for you? It's gotta be profit first?

HARRIS MILLER:

No. It can't be profit first because if you're not turning out a quality student you're not gonna be able to continue in business because students have choices. They don't have to go to one of our institutions. They can choose to go to a state college if they have relatively open enrollment. They can choose to go to a community college. So unless we can show quality outcomes systematically there's no way these schools will be able to continue to operate.

CHRIS CUOMO:

Why do you think you're under fire?

HARRIS MILLER:

We're under fire for a couple of reasons. One reason is we're making mistakes. There's no doubt that the GAO report which came out in the hearing was very troubling because whether the problems exist because of poor training or whether they exist because of rogue employees or whether they're being taught improperly-- we should not have a situation where that many bad occurrences are being visible.