Three times during the past decade, the Pittsburgh campus of Kaplan Career Institute was named "school of the year" by Kaplan Higher Education, a for-profit higher-education company with more than 70 campuses nationwide. The award recognized the college for its rapid growth and high graduation and job-placement rates. But some former faculty members say the honor came at a steep price: To keep those numbers high, administrators would pressure employees to falsify attendance records, raise grades, and manipulate job-placement numbers. If a professor refused to change a student's grade, the professor's supervisor would do it. In this article, the author reports on how some private universities are inflating their graduation and job-placement rates to obtain federal student aid.