This is fascinating and I want to respond on two levels - technical/SEO and moral/emotional. I consulted for the main competitor to these guys until a few months ago so I can speak only generally but I know the subject with some authority.

1. Anyone reading this post is not the target market for this. The real target market are the suckers that they can convince to take out $40,000 in unforgivable government student loans when they enroll at University of Phoenix. Your client is a vehicle for UofP to find these people. It's a very lucrative business for both companies BUT IT IS FOR MOST OF THEIR CLIENTS A SCAM. The people they need are low-income, not tech-savvy, and IRONICALLY, not savvy about the true value of the degree that Online Degrees is selling.

2. Please read the reviews (for instance for Ashford University) http://www.guidetoonlineschools.com/online-reviews/ashford-u... and note that, with rare exceptions, the only positive reviewers are sock puppets.

3. Yet one of the things I don't get is how there could be so many bad reviews and yet people keep signing up. Unfortunately it's probably because of content like this, where the "value" of the degree is shown as "millions of dollars" and not "a slightly higher than minimum wage job (that is not much better than the one i had before) with $40,000 of debt I can't escape even in bankruptcy". I'm NOT exaggerating - please watch the Frontline special on these schools - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/

4. I don't want to pick on you. It's a massive US Government federal student loan subsidy system - handing out essentially free money - that makes this system such a mess and makes the prospective students $30-50k "marks" for the "schools". I personally couldn't take direct part in it anymore but I don't begrudge anyone because it's a system that's broken, some small % of students find it valuable, and these adults are not being forced to go to these schools.

Putting emotion aside for a second and talking about the SEO:

1. The SEO technique you're describing - take public data, build it out with cheaply hired content, and stock photos, is great. That works well and everyone serious (particularly this space, because there is so much data) is doing similar stuff to stay at the top.

2. HNers doing SEO should note that you always have two target markets when you build content - SEO content for people who will backlink to and tweet about that content, and content for the actual users of the site. People looking for an online degree or buying insurance don't tweet and blog (with no-nofollowed links) about it - so you need to put content that SOMEONE ELSE will write about. That doesn't mean the people who link to that content may ever consider using the products your site is selling.

In technology often those two groups are the same; in almost every other area of the web, they're not. Tech guys often don't realize this because their only experience with online content is reading HN and TechCrunch and they see all the consumers of the site's main content tweeting about it. But when was the last time you tweeted about your car insurance?

3. In my SEO consulting, every project is surprisingly, 80% technology and about 20% content. Tech guys are building systems to make massive creation of "useful" content possible, writers are getting paid small amounts to crank out the articles. This trend is accelerating, which ironically makes it a great time for a tech person to be in SEO - the opportunities to crunch data are only growing.