Fail State is a 2017 feature-length documentary film chronicling the public policy decisions and marketing ploys that contributed to the growth of predatory for-profit colleges in the 2000s.

[3][4] Internal industry documents featured in Fail State reveal that for-profit schools specifically sought to recruit “isolated” individuals with “low self-esteem.”[5][6] While the film features liberal lawmakers like Rep. Maxine Waters and Senator Tom Harkin who sought to prevent the harms, it points out that in an earlier era it was conservatives in the Reagan administration who sounded the alarm about abuses by for-profit schools.

[3] Shebanow initially began filming Fail State as a documentary about student loan debt but the collapse of Corinthian Colleges shifted his focus to the way that federal aid had fueled the growth of predatory schools, while investment in public higher education declined.

[1] Fail State received reviews from outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, which stated that the film offers an "easily digestible account" of an "appalling, infuriating story,"[9] Multiple outlets noted that the documentary would provoke emotions in the viewer, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it a "dispiriting look at the way young Americans have been failed not just by sham schools but by the lawmakers who help those businesses thrive".

[10][4] The Wall Street Journal noted that Fail State "is quite egalitarian in meting out blame" for the abuses, naming both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who abetted the scams by relaxing consumer protections that had been enacted in response to earlier scandals.