shared this view." For-profit schools From 1972 to 2009, there was rapid growth of for-profit schools. Government funding in 1972 and government deregulation in 1998 fueled a dramatic rise in for-profit college enrollment. Government oversight and scrutiny since 2010 as well as competition from non-profit and public education has led to a dramatic decrease in enrollment. At its peak, The University of Phoenix was the largest U.S. for-profit college, with an enrollment of more than 500,000 students nationwide. Other large institutions included Devry University, ITT Technical Institute, the Art Institutes, Kaplan University, Ashford University, Colorado Technical Institute, Ashford University, Strayer University, Lincoln Tech, and Walden University. Altogether, at their peak, for-profit colleges enrolled about 11% of the students but created approximately 47% of all the student loan defaults. Critics of for-profit colleges have pointed to the heavy dependence on federal loans and grants to students, the low student completion rate, and the inability of the majority of graduates to pay their student loans because they failed to secure high-paying jobs. The National Center for Education Statistics reported a 52% rate of default on student loans at for-profit colleges. Student loan debt The amount of debt that students have after graduation has become a major concern, especially given the weak job market after 2008. Nearly all loans are financed by the federal government at an artificially low rate, but students sometimes obtain private loans (which generally have higher interest rates and start accumulating interest immediately). Several studies and news reports have detailed the effects of student loan debt on reducing first time home buying and child bearing—and ultimately slowing down the U.S. economy. Some students have turned to prostitution to avoid college debt. In 2010, the U.S. Department of Education announced stricter eligibility rules for federal financing of loans to student at for-profit schools, which were experiencing higher default rates. Student loans totaled more than $1.3 trillion, averaging $25,000 each for 40 million debtors. The debtors average age was 33. Forty percent of the debt was owed by people 40 or older. In a 2017 report by the National Center for Education Statistics, the researchers found that 27% of all student loans resulted in default within 12 years. Children in poor families were particularly vulnerable, still maintaining an average balance that was 91% of the original loan. In 2018, a poll by Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting found "an