UC Irvine stops taking referral fees from for-profit school

The continuing education branch of University of California, Irvine, is ending an agreement in which it receives $500 for every student it refers to an online for-profit university, citing the appearance of an ethical breach. Several officials with higher education associations have criticized the arrangement, saying it blurs the line between giving advice and marketing. For the last five years, UCI Extension has had an agreement with Minneapolis-based Capella University in which the online school accepts UCI's continuing education students and their UCI credits into several graduate programs in exchange for the referral fee.

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