Online colleges reap GI bonanza

“We cannot think first and act afterwards. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.” – Alfred North Whitehead

The purpose for the post today is the concern – we march on – taking and creating messes whereever we go. We want immediate gratification and do not think of sustainability of the resources in present time or the future. Have we not had enough of this greed recently? I guess not…and it makes me sad that we waste so much when we have systemic issues in our Education system that need to be addressed.

The largest issue we will continue to face is in our demographics over the next 2, 5, and 10+ years is the continual chasm between the have and the have nots… (In my opinion, the focus is truly not going to be on racism worldwide) yet on the discrimination that occurs in the different levels within classes of people between the have and have-nots. One example of this is how this selection process manifests in the workplace between the A, B, C players – one could hypothesize that it begins in the classrooms with the A, B, C players. You can see how arbitrarily these children are being cast in these levels and how these ‘levels’ and pay scales can follow these people the rest of their lives. (See the movie, Waiting for Superman). http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/ Waiting for Supernam is a documentary of our school systems in the U.S. and how we are failing our children and why we cannot compete worldwide. There was a mention of the children in the movie in this past Sunday’s N&O Parade (12/12/10). There is also a book available.

BY ERIC LIPTON – New York Times
December 10, 2010

WASHINGTON — When Congress moved in 2008 to sweeten tuition payments for veterans, it was celebrated as a way to ensure that military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan could go to college at no cost and to replicate the historic benefits society gained from the GI Bill after World War II.

Now, a year after payouts on the Post-9-11 GI Bill started, the
huge program has turned into a bonanza of another kind for the many commercial colleges in the U.S. that have seen military revenues surge.

More than 36 percent of the tuition payments made in the first
year of the program – a total of $640 million in tuition and fees – went to for-profit colleges, like the University of Phoenix, according to data compiled by the Department of Veterans Affairs, even though these colleges serve only about 9 percent of the overall population at higher education institutions.

The money flows to the for-profit university industry,questions are being raised in Congress and elsewhere about their recruitment
practices, and whether they really deliver on their education promises.

Some members say they want to place tighter limits on how much
these colleges can collect in military benefits, a move certain federal
officials say they would welcome.

These questions come as the for-profit education industry is under
increased scrutiny, with the Department of Education proposing regulations that would cut off federal aid to colleges whose graduates have extremely low loan repayment rates.

Amid this debate, the industry’s powerful lobbying forces are
pushing for even more, including a change in the law that would allow veterans who sign up exclusively for online classes to also get government housing subsidies, even if they live at home, which could make online education even more attractive.

With their multimillion-dollar advertising and recruitment
campaigns, these colleges have pitched themselves as a natural choice for veterans and active-duty personnel, given their extensive online class offerings, accelerated degree programs and campuses spread across the nation, including near many military bases.

“We offer the flexibility and career focus they want,”
said Bob Larned, the executive director of military education at ECPI College of Technology, a Virginia institution with a major online program and campuses in Raleigh, Charlotte and elsewhere in the Carolinas that collected $16 million in GI Bill benefits in the first year.

Active-duty personnel are eligible for free tuition, which
explains why the for-profit colleges have received about $200 million in Department of Defense tuition reimbursement benefits and fees in the past year, mostly for online classes, in addition to money collected from the GI Bill.

But high dropout rates at some of these colleges, difficulty in
transferring credits, higher tuition bills than at public colleges and
skepticism from some employers about the value of the degrees are all creating unease among some in Congress.

Robert Songer, a retired Marine colonel who is the lead education
adviser at Camp Lejeune, said some of the for-profit colleges hounded active-duty personnel there.

“They are very easy targets, especially because many of them
have never had anyone in their families go to college,” Songer said.
“All they hear from these schools is, ‘This won’t cost you a thing.’”

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/12/09/852125/online-colleges-reap-gi-bonanza.html#storylink=misearch#ixzz180DW5VcF

Gainful Employment Regulations – updated – Oct 28 2010

October 28, 2010
New federal regulations target for-profit colleges
By ERIC GORSKI
AP Education Writer

The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday will release finalized regulations targeting for-profit colleges that give the government a stronger hand overseeing the fast-growing sector — including new rules reining in how recruiters are paid and a controversial attempt to define credit hours.
Still to come early next year is the most fought-over proposal: a rule that would cut off federal aid to college vocational programs with high student-debt levels and poor loan repayment rates.
The department put off finalizing those “gainful employment” regulations until early next year, although Thursday’s package of rules includes one scaled-down gainful employment provision that has eased industry worries.
A full review will not be possible until the final regulations are published online Thursday and in print Friday in the Federal Register. But department officials are portraying themselves as good listeners, saying they made 82 changes in response to comments and criticisms of 13 new “program integrity” rules that will go into effect in July 2011.
“These new rules will help ensure that students are getting from schools what they pay for: solid preparation for a good job,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a statement.
On recruiter pay, admissions officers at for-profit colleges have been barred since 1992 from receiving incentive pay based on securing enrollments. But since then, a dozen loopholes have been put in place allowing the practice, with limits.
The regulations to be released Thursday will eliminate such “safe harbors.”
“It closes the loopholes that led to boiler room-style sales tactics at some colleges, with recruiters doing and saying whatever it took,” said Pauline Abernathy, vice president of the Institute for College Access & Success, an advocacy group for tighter regulations.
Other new regulations strengthen the department’s authority to take action against schools engaging in deceptive advertising, marketing and sales practice. Those are common complaints against for-profit colleges, which are facing intense scrutiny this year for their huge reliance on federal aid and high student-loan default rates, among other things.
Industry officials are eager to see specifics on the department’s attempts to define a credit hour, the metric used to determine a student’s eligibility to receive federal aid. The education department said a standard definition is necessary because some schools are gaming the system, inflating student credits to get more federal money.
The regulations define a credit hour and establish procedures for accrediting agencies to determine whether an institution’s assignment of credit is acceptable, the department said.
Although the department said it is not intruding into academics, others say they are not so sure.
“It’s quite likely they’ve federalized the definition of credit hour,” said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of government and public affairs for the American Council on Education, an umbrella group that represents higher education. “Our position is that no successful and diverse industry is improved by federalizing important aspects of it.”
The education department significantly scaled back one part of the gainful employment rule, doing away with a proposal that would have required schools wanting to start aid-eligible occupational programs to provide five years of enrollment projections and get documentation from employers showing the curriculum aligns with job needs.
Under the final regulations, schools instead will be required to notify the department 90 days in advance of starting a new program. If the department has concerns, schools will be asked to apply for new program approval, a scenario department officials said would be rare.
The department said it was important to get that on the books by next summer, because the full gainful employment regulations are not scheduled to go into effect until summer 2012.
Otherwise, institutions could quickly start new programs or restructure existing ones, eliminating a data trail and skirting the new rules, the department said.
Harris Miller, CEO of the for-profit college industry’s main lobbyist, Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, called the change “a much more reasonable and pragmatic approach.”
Lanny Davis, a lobbyist for a group for several large privately held for-profit colleges, called it a step in the right direction.
Earlier Wednesday, Davis held a conference call criticized the original proposal, saying it would block career college students from learning about new technologies and getting training for green jobs.
(This version CORRECTS the effective date of the recruiter compensation law.)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FOR_PROFIT_COLLEGES?SITE=CALAK&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT Accessed October 29, 2010