A few months ago, Dawn Connor was just another college student, attending night courses to become a veterinary technician and practicing her trade by spaying and neutering dogs and cats from a local shelter.

These days, the 33-year-old from Eau Claire, Wis., is shaking hands on Capitol Hill and speaking at news conferences in Las Vegas, the new public face of the satisfied for-profit college student.

Standing closely behind her is the Career College Association, a lobbying group for for-profit schools that provided the organizational muscle to launch the grassroots-sounding Students for Academic Choice at a time when for-profit colleges are under fire.

The Career College Association helped the students establish a website, draft bylaws and set up an online election that resulted in Connor being elected the group's president all at a time when for-profit colleges are intensifying lobbying efforts against tougher federal regulations expected to be proposed in the coming days.

"I'm skeptical of the organic nature of the group given that it is completely towing the association's line," said Christine Lindstrom, higher education program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Harris Miller, president of the Career College Association, said his group extended a helping hand to busy nontraditional students who otherwise wouldn't have a voice and says the new group stands on its own.

"This will be, I think, as this organization grows and gets legs, an effective antidote to those people who hang on a few disgruntled students or former students and somehow think it's typical of the student reality," Miller said.

Although for-profit schools are the fastest growing sector of higher education, there's been little organizing by students themselves. When a voice is heard, it's usually a dissatisfied former student or graduate describing dubious recruitment practices, staggering debt or training that left them ill-prepared to pay it off.