18 mar But he readily admits to having misgivings about the scale of the loans he could face
Nate Clark, who runs the Career College of Northern Nevada, says the Obama administration is exaggerating the extent of bad practices in the sector.
I think it does exist at a certain level; every segment of our economy has some type of corruption going on and we need to police it, he says, but fears the education department's probe could turn into a witch hunt.
He adds: A lot of money is going to be spent on something and not going to produce a whole lot.
Even those institutions trying to do the right thing struggle to keep students out of financial trouble. The current default rate among Mr Clark's former pupils is 24.6 per cent, he laments, worryingly close to a 30 per cent threshold where the government can stop an institution's students from accessing federal loans.
Pockets of crisis
The education department has identified pockets of real crisis in student borrowing but it believes these largely exist in places where students enrol in a programme and don't complete it, says Mr Mitchell. He stresses that college continues to be a great investment, yielding oversized returns for people who complete anything from a four-year degree to a quick diploma.