Once banned, for-profit medical schools are on the rise again in the U.S.

Two universities are eyeing the chance to be the first to build a medical school in one of the few states without one. The jockeying of the two schools to open campuses in Montana — one a nonprofit, the other for-profit — highlights the rapid spread of for-profit medical learning centers despite their once-blemished reputation. What's happening in this Western state triggers questions about how future doctors will be trained in the U.S., how that training will be paid for and whether a rural, sparsely populated state can sustain either a nonprofit or for-profit medical school, let alone both.