The events in this episode were partly inspired by several mid-2010s lawsuits against a number of for-profit (so-called) "colleges." For example, in October 2015, a federal court ordered Corinthian Colleges to pay $550 million to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after Corinthian
was accused of deceiving, luring, and trapping students into taking out predatory student loans. In November 2015, Education Management Corporation (aka EDMC), which manages the for-profit schools the Art Institutes, Argosy University, South University, and Brown Mackie College, agreed to forgive about $100 million worth of student loan debt and to pay just under another $100 million to $95.5 million to settle several lawsuits pertaining to deceptive recruiting strategies.
Sherlock continually mispronounces Wilson Trager's surname with a hard 'j' sound rather than a hard 'g' sound. It's considered incredibly rude and disrespectful to mispronounce someone's name when you've been provided with the correct pronunciation; this may be a sign of Sherlock's contempt for the man.