Earlier this month, Charlotte Allen expressed disappointment with for-profit schools. She painted a grim picture, citing low graduation rates and linking to consumer complaints about the University of Phoenix.

She was disturbed by what she sees as poor performance in the market sector, where many of us would expect effectiveness. While I too lament the lapses, I’d like to offer a slightly different perspective.

First, let’s be frank. Community colleges have low graduation rates, too — in the 30 percent range. Furthermore, the for-profit sector is a mixed bag; there may be bad actors, but Capella University is about to receive an award from the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) for leadership in assessing student outcomes. And the fact that students are choosing for-profit schools when they could take their money to a lot of other places indicates that many find the schools’ services valuable. The University of Phoenix has been around since 1976; if it’s as bad as Allen implies, enrollment should have dried up, but it has 443,000 students (and 457,000 alumni).

Profit-seeking entrepreneurs always look for niches that others are not yet serving successfully — in this case, working adults, some with families and many with low incomes, who want education or degrees. For-profit schools are addressing their demands. Whether they do it well or not, I’m not entirely sure, but their growth suggests that they are doing something right.

Now, what really bothers Allen is the fact that these schools rely almost entirely on federal student grants and loans. It bothers me, too, but the fault does not lie with the schools that accept the students. As Allen suggests, the problem is the easy availability of aid based on need, not merit.

Public universities and nonprofits do not exactly have clean hands on this issue. They depend on students who use federal aid, too. But they also have additional sources of revenue — including state appropriations and federal earmarks that are unavailable to the for-profits. Keep in mind that the University of Phoenix stays in business only if students choose to attend. That’s different from public universities, whose officials set their priorities and then lobby Congress and legislatures for funds to carry them out — whether their students benefit or not.