The Government Accountability Office probe used undercover investigators posing as student applicants to meet with admissions officials at 15 for-profit colleges. Officials at all 15 colleges were recorded on camera using deceptive tactics to encourage students to enroll and directing students to submit fraudulent information on applications for federal financial aid, in order to boost the amount of federal grants and student loans awarded.

Federal student financial aid, which includes money from government-issued Pell Grants, Perkins student loans, and Stafford student loans, in some cases accounts for nearly 90 percent of these colleges’ revenues.

Two of the colleges involved in the GAO investigation were Kaplan College’s campuses in Riverside, Calif., and Pembroke Pines, Fla., where one recruiter was recorded saying that Kaplan had the same accreditation as Harvard.

Kaplan, Inc., owned by The Washington Post Company, suspended enrollment at the two campuses pending an investigation of the GAO findings and an internal review of its recruiting and admissions policies in order to “ensure that such incidents are not repeated anywhere at our 75 campuses or among our 16,000 higher-education employees,” said Melissa Mack, a Kaplan spokeswoman.

Rules proposed by the U.S. Department of Education prior to the GAO investigation would tighten regulations of for-profit college recruiters and limit the availability of Title IV federal financial aid to schools that show a pattern of graduating students with more student loan debt than they’re able to repay.

Washington Post stock fell 7.6 percent after the company announced in a quarterly report that the proposed Education Department rules could have a “material adverse effect” on Kaplan’s operations. Kaplan earned $212 million in the first half of 2010, almost 80 percent of the Washington Post’s overall operating income.

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