Career Education Colleges and Universities

Career Education Colleges and Universities is a Washington, D.C. based trade organization that represented about 1,500 for-profit colleges as of January 2011. From 2010 to July 2016, it was known as the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, also known by the acronym APSCU; before that, it was called the Career College Association, but changed its name in 2010. As of July 2015, most large for-profit college chains had left the group in the previous year.

The organization engages in extensive lobbying, and has vocally opposed the Obama administration's attempts to regulate for-profit colleges. Its president, Steve Gunderson, a former Republican congressman, has said that the laws proposed by Obama are "evidence of an ideological declaration of war against the private sector’s involvement in the delivery of postsecondary education." In 2012, the Association brought a lawsuit against a United States Department of Education initiative aimed at improving the quality of degrees issued by for-profit colleges, which ended with Judge Rudolph Contreras striking down the regulations, which he called "arbitrary and capricious". In 2014, the Association brought a second lawsuit challenging similar regulations (79 FR 64890).