I got my AA from a for profit school, TCI College of Technology across the street from the big Post Office and the Garden. You'll see the ads on the train and my alma mater is a proud sponsor of the Maury Povich Show. So I can speak from experience. I found little difference St. John's and TCI as far quality of the professors. They were all practicing attorneys who were very knowledgeable about the law and the professors at both schools were available, helpful, and very good at teaching the subject matter so the students could understand it. Was St. John's harder than TCI? No, the level of difficulty of Johnny school work was no greater than that at TCI. With the exception of calculus and philosophy, but I suck at math and philosophy is going to be a bitch no matter where you went to school.
Were Johnny students smarter than TCI students? If the were they didn't show because I was still the most knowledge person in class. The major between Johnny students and TCI students was those Johnny gals were younger, hotter, had better tighter bodies and lacked kids. Oh and those Johnny gals were a hella a lot more sensitive than TCI chicks. Even though I managed to piss off chicks at TCI, it was only at St. John's where I caused two of them to walk out of class and caused one snow bunny to report me to the dean.
Are for profit schools shitty, I guess, but there are also some shitty "regular," colleges and universities. I don't know if it was because of my major or the cats I hung at with, but for me and my classmates (and since I go visit TCI from time to time) and the TCI alums who came after me, the shit worked because several them are paralegals, some other TCI alums transfered to John Jay or St. John's and one of my former classmates is in his second year of law school. Also, I need to mention those of us who transfered St. John's, St. John's took damn near (or in my case,) all of my credits. If you have the option to go to public school, do it, because it's cheaper, but if you fluked out of non for profit school or you owe money, then the right for profit college might be what you need to help you get back on the right track.