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  4. Mar2017 usa

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    177 Private Colleges Fail Education Dept.'s Financial-Responsibility Test "According to a Chronicle analysis of data released on Tuesday, 177 private colleges that grant degrees failed a U.S. Education Department test for financial responsibility in the 2014-15 academic year. That's 18 more than the previous year," according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. "Of the institutions that failed, 112 are nonprofit, and the remaining 65 are for-profit. In the previous year, 93 of the 159 failing institutions were nonprofit. The department considers an institution’s debt and assets, among other factors, in giving it a score ranging from -1 to 3. Scores lower than 1.5 are considered failing. The department’s methodology in devising the scores has drawn sharp criticism in the past from some higher-education groups. The latest scores cover the institutions for fiscal years ending between July 1, 2014, and June 30, 2015. Several of the colleges have closed since the 2014-15 academic year. Some, like Dowling College, in Oakdale, N.Y., previously failed the financial-responsibility test, while others, like Saint Joseph’s College, in Rensselaer, Ind., passed it." NASFAA's "Headlines" section highlights media coverage of financial aid to help members stay up to date with the latest news. Inclusion in Today's News does not imply endorsement of the material or guarantee the accuracy of information presented. Publication Date: 3/10/2017
    7 years ago by @prophe
     
      Mar2017USAEnglishFinancialDepartment_of_Education
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      For those that draw the line in the sand at $5.00 for a “penny stock,” Aspen Group, Inc. (OTCQB:ASPU) may be able to graduate out of penny-stock-land soon. Trading as low as $1.52 last July (and $1.21 in January 2016), the company has found a solid uptrend to tip the scales at $4.44 in December for its current 52-week high. After a pullback from that high, shares are moving up again, including a 7.7% climb in morning trading to $4.04 on Friday. Shares are being driven by the New York City-based post-secondary education company issuing two substantial pieces of news after Thursday’s closing bell. First, in the third quarter of fiscal 2017 (ended January 31, 2017), Aspen reported revenue of $3.74 million, up 73% from the year prior quarter. The company swung to a profit, with net earnings of $7,377 versus a net loss of $689,718 a year earlier. Aspen also had a record number 825 new student enrollments during the latest quarter, a 50% year-over-year increase. Separately, the company said it signed a letter of intent to acquire an unnamed regionally accredited for-profit university based in California for $9.0 million. Payment will come in the form of $2.5 million in cash, $2.0 million in convertible debt and $4.5 million in ASPU common stock. $900,000 of the $2.5 million cash component will be lent to a newly-formed entity controlled by the loan’s guarantor who owns 100% of the voting power of the university.
      7 years ago by @prophe
       
        Mar2017USAEnglishfor-profit
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        The law school once boasted bar-passage rates of more than 90 percent but has seen its percentages drop to about 25 percent among first-time test takers. A for-profit law school in downtown Phoenix that is struggling with falling bar-passage rates is moving to affiliate with one of the country’s historically black colleges and universities. Arizona Summit Law School has signed an affiliation agreement with the private, nonprofit Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida. The law school, founded in 2004, once boasted bar passage rates of 97 percent but has seen its percentages drop to 25 percent among first-time School officials said they have made several changes aimed at improving bar passage, and that the affiliation with Bethune-Cookman will enable them to benefit from the university's academic support services and marketing. A university official also will serve on Arizona Summit's board of trustees. The deal would allow both schools to pursue their objectives of diversifying the legal profession, officials said. "This enables us to take it to a much higher level sooner, swifter and with greater impact," Arizona Summit President Donald Lively said. Bethune-Cookman President Edison Jackson said in a statement, “Together, we aim to be a leading force in disrupting a legacy of exclusion that has persisted into the 21st century.” The affiliation needs the approval of several accrediting bodies, including the American Bar Association and the Arizona Board of Private Postsecondary Education. The agreement doesn't make Arizona Summit a nonprofit school. However, Lively said the school is working toward nonprofit status. Summit’s owner, InfiLaw Corp., also owns law schools in North Carolina and Florida, and the parent company has been controversial in legal circles. A sister school, the Charlotte School of Law, was put on probation by the American Bar Association last year for two years because of concerns over its bar-passage rates, and the U.S. Department of Education in December yanked the C
        7 years ago by @prophe
         
          USAMar2017ArizonaLawprivatenon-profit
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          WAXAHACHIE — Academic Excellence: two puissant words that all schools and university aim for and contend to be the best. Out of 47 private colleges in Texas that offer online courses, Southwestern Assemblies of God University has ranked in the top five of online colleges in Texas by Affordable Colleges Online for the 2016-2017 school year. According to AffordableCollegesOnline.org, "Texas is second in the nation in the number of institutions offering online degree programs. In Texas, online degree programs are designed to provide the same academic quality and rigor as their campus-based equivalents, but with the flexibility and convenience of 24/7 remote access. There are notable schools in the Lone Star State that merit recognition." With an overall high score of 98.71 for it's 53 online programs, 16:1 student-teacher ratio, and 73 percent financial aid assistance, SAGU ranked No. 4 in the poll and stood out amongst larger schools that include Dallas Baptist University, University of Houston-Victoria, and Wayland Baptist University. As stated by the website, "The colleges that made the list of the Best Online Colleges in Texas for 2016—17 have a demonstrated a record of excellence in delivering online programs and support to students at the post-secondary level." Affordable Colleges Online ranked the best online colleges in the state with information gathered by researchers and postsecondary experts. The organization's goal is to find colleges that offer a balance of academics, student support, and affordability concerning online education. Factors considered in the ranking process included in-state tuition and fees for undergraduate students, the percentage of students receiving scholarships or grants from the college, and availability of job placement services for students and graduates. Within SAGU's online programs, the school offers both bachelor and master's degrees in Education, Theology, and Psychology, continuing to grow in other areas of interest. Many of these programs are also available in fast-trac
          7 years ago by @prophe
           
            Mar2017USATexasonlineEnglish
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            Seven Missouri private colleges and six from Kansas have failed a U.S. Department of Education test of their financial responsibility during the 2014-2015 academic year. The Chronicle of Higher Education this week released analyzed data that found 177 degree-granting colleges across the country failed the test, 18 more than had failed the previous year. Most of those failing were nonprofits. Only 65 of the failing schools were for-profit institutions. Among them was Wright Career College, a for-profit private school that was based in Overland Park and closed in April 2016 after going bankrupt. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that in determining whether an institution passes or fails, the Education Department considers an institution’s debt and assets, among other factors. Scores given range from negative-1 to 3, and any score below 1.5 is considered failing. These schools are subject to cash monitoring and other federally imposed requirements. A school could raise concerns about its financial responsibility and end up on the monitoring list for late financial statements, outstanding liabilities and accreditation issues. The scores are made public by the federal Education Department as some broad indication of the financial health of thousands of two- and four-year schools. The idea is to give tuition-paying students and parents a better look at what their money is buying and how it’s being used. “The department’s methodology in devising the scores has drawn sharp criticism in the past from some higher-education groups,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reported. Among the schools in Missouri listed with a failing score for the 2014-2015 academic year is Westminster College in Fulton with a score of 1.1. But school officials said the college has subsequently improved performance and the reported score “does not reflect our college’s current financial conditions,” said Lana Poole, college spokeswoman. Poole said Westminster’s composite score for financial responsibility would increase to 2.7 fo
            7 years ago by @prophe
             
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              The U.S. Department of Education this week released the annual update of its financial responsibility test scores for private colleges, which is based on data from 2014-15. The 187 institutions that have a failing score -- most of which are small and either private nonprofit or for-profit -- will lose access to federal financial aid without a provisional certification from the department. The department may also require colleges with low or failing scores to take out a letter of credit or be subject to a sanction called heightened cash monitoring. The test was designed to keep tabs on the fiscal stability of colleges, with an eye toward preventing financial aid from going to institutions that may shut down abruptly. For example, Dowling College, which shut down last year, has a failing score on the new list. However, many private college officials have for years criticized the department's methodology for the test. They say the scoring system fails to use generally accepted accounting practices, is backward looking and does not capture the complexity of a college budget. For example, a decline in a college endowment's investment value is counted as an operating loss. The department's Office of Inspector General recently agreed with some of that criticism, noting in an audit released last week that the test's methodology should be improved.
              7 years ago by @prophe
               
                Mar2017FinancialUSADepartment_of_EducationEnglish
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                A report released Thursday highlights the potential impact Gov. Andrew Cuomo's free public college tuition proposal could have on New York's independent and private colleges. The Commission on Independent Colleges & Universities in New York estimated that 54,079 fewer students would enroll in the state's private institutions if Cuomo's plan is adopted. The organization also estimates that 44,693 jobs would be lost due to the student reductions and communities would lose more than $224 million in tax revenue because of the ensuing job cuts. At private colleges in central New York, enrollment would decline by 4,067 students and 2,269 jobs would be cut. The surrounding communities would lose a projected $9.8 million in tax revenue, according to the study. Mary Beth Labate, a former State University of New York official who once served as Cuomo's budget director, is the president of the commission. She said the negative effects of the free tuition discussion are already being observed. "Words move markets," she said. "Enrollment is in jeopardy, capital projects have been put on hold and campuses are making plans for a series of layoffs in the coming months to close potential gaps." Abbey Fashouer, a spokeswoman for Cuomo, touted the state's support for private colleges — more than $2.4 billion in aid since 2011 — claimed that the independent institutions haven't agreed to cap "out-of-control tuition costs" at least than $500 a year for state support. "New York leads the nation in providing support to both low-income and private college students through our already robust $1 billion tuition assistance program and loan forgiveness initiatives," Fashouer said. "With private school tuition in New York averaging $34,000 a year compared to $6,400 at SUNY and CUNY — the numbers speak for themselves." Private college leaders have expressed concerns about Cuomo's proposal since it was first unveiled in January. The governor wants to provide free tuition at SUNY and City University of New York institutions for st
                7 years ago by @prophe
                 
                  Mar2017USAEnglishNew_York
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                  The Trump administration is delaying implementation of one of the signature policies of the Obama-era crackdown on for-profit colleges. The Department of Education announced Monday night it was targeting the Obama administration rule aimed at holding career-training programs accountable for getting students decent jobs and earnings. To be in compliance with the regulations, career-training programs, which are largely at for-profit colleges, need to graduate students whose loan payments don’t exceed 20% of their discretionary income or 8% of their total earnings. Programs that don’t fit this criteria for multiple years could lose access to federal financial aid. Career-training schools will now have until July 1 to file appeals to the program debt-to-earnings ratios published by the Department earlier this year, as part of the enforcement of the gainful employment (GE) rule. Originally, their appeals were due Friday, March 10. The schools will also now have until July 1 to publish disclosures about their debt-to-earnings ratio that are required by the new law. Before this decision, the programs had until April 3 to post those disclosures. The gainful employment rules were a long fought victory for the Obama administration in its quest to crack down on for-profit colleges, which officials and advocates have accused of loading students up with high debt loads for questionable outcomes. The for-profit college industry fought the regulations in court and the Obama administration ultimately prevailed. But the Trump administration’s embrace of an increased role for the private sector in education has had supporters of efforts to crack down on for-profit colleges worried that the new rules could be in jeopardy — and investors betting on for-profit schools. The delay is the first signal that that speculation may be correct. “This is a sign that does nothing to dispel concerns that this administration will be sufficiently aggressive in protecting students,” said Ben Miller, the senior director of postsecondary educati
                  7 years ago by @prophe
                   
                    Mar2017Donald_TrumpObamafor-profitdelayedUSAEnglish
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                    According to a Chronicle analysis of data released on Tuesday, 177 private colleges that grant degrees failed a U.S. Education Department test for financial responsibility in the 2014-15 academic year. That’s 18 more than the previous year. Of the institutions that failed, 112 are nonprofit, and the remaining 65 are for-profit. In the previous year, 93 of the 159 failing institutions were nonprofit. The department considers an institution’s debt and assets, among other factors, in giving it a score ranging from -1 to 3. Scores lower than 1.5 are considered failing. The department’s methodology in devising the scores has drawn sharp criticism in the past from some higher-education groups. The latest scores cover the institutions for fiscal years ending between July 1, 2014, and June 30, 2015. Several of the colleges have closed since the 2014-15 academic year. Some, like Dowling College, in Oakdale, N.Y., previously failed the financial-responsibility test, while others, like Saint Joseph’s College, in Rensselaer, Ind., passed it.
                    7 years ago by @prophe
                     
                      for-profitUSAMar2017EnglishDepartment_of_EducationFinancial
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                      Webster will host a conference of independent colleges in mid-March titled “Securing America’s Future: The Power of a Liberal Arts Education.” The conference is hosted by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), an organization of small, non-profit private liberal arts colleges. It is intended as a workshop for leaders of these colleges on the future of liberal arts education in America. The CIC works to provide resources to and promote the visibility of its member colleges. Webster president Elizabeth Stroble will speak at the workshop, along with several other university presidents. “This workshop offers private college leaders in the region an opportunity to discuss responses to significant and continuing changes in higher education, the nation, and the world around us,” Rich Ekman, president of the CIC, said in a press release. “Sharing insights and research will help their institutions deal more effectively with both the trends they face today and future issues.
                      7 years ago by @prophe
                       
                        Mar2017liberal_artsconferenceEnglishUSA
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                        We need to focus more on the disadvantages that poor students face much earlier in their lives The proposal to fully subsidize tuition fees in all state universities and colleges (SUCs) is not as straightforward as it seems. On the one hand, proponents in Congress say that this will help improve the plight of “financially disadvantaged but deserving students.” After all, the Constitution states that the State shall provide “accessible” and “quality” education to all (see House Bill 5905 and Senate Bill 1304). On the other hand, critics say that subsidizing college tuitions will be fraught with many problems. Not only will it be inequitable (serving as a subsidy for rich students), but also distortive (inducing some rich students to shift into SUCs) and unsustainable (requiring enormous fiscal resources yearly). In this article we argue that, although well-intentioned, the free tuition policy alone cannot make SUCs significantly more accessible to poor students. Instead, we need to focus more on the disadvantages that poor students face much earlier in their lives. Inequality of access It’s true that poor students today have a harder time gaining access to education in SUCs. Figure 1 shows the distribution of college students across income groups, both in public and private colleges. The gray bars show that – as one would expect – students in private colleges are likelier to come from richer than poorer backgrounds. If public colleges were an “equalizer” of sorts, one would expect to see an opposite trend in SUCs: students there should be likelier to come from poorer backgrounds. But as the orange bars show, this is not the case: SUC students are likelier to come from the richest income group (17.2%) than the poorest income group (12%). The share of the poorest income group is particularly lower in Luzon (7.5%) and in NCR (just 2%). Simply put, the poorest students are underrepresented in our SUCs. Subsidy to the richest students The data above point to the glaring disparity between the rich and poor’s a
                        7 years ago by @prophe
                         
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                          The secretary of Wisconsin’s Department of Safety and Professional Services sought to reassure the state’s for-profit college oversight board Tuesday that a proposal to shift responsibility for regulating those schools to her agency would not weaken supervision of the industry. But members of the Educational Approval Board were skeptical of whether the state department would have the expertise to scrutinize for-profit schools and protect their students, and voted to oppose the plan in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget. “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” board chairman Don Madelung said. “We’re not broken.” Walker’s proposal would eliminate the agency’s board and shift its staffers’ jobs to DSPS. Speaking to EAB members, DSPS officials pitched the move as a way to complement the agency’s efforts by maintaining its 6½ full-time staff positions and pairing them with the larger department’s legal counsel, investigators, consumer complaint division and other resources. “If the EAB does go away, nothing else would,” Secretary Laura Gutierrez said. “I don’t think the regulations, I don’t think your best practices (or) the way you do business would go away. “We would be protecting the students, and that would be our focus.” Consumer advocates and government regulators have been critical of the for-profit college industry, saying some of its schools use misleading marketing and offer expensive programs that are of questionable value to graduates on the job market. After facing increased scrutiny during the Obama administration, experts anticipate for-profit schools will experience less federal oversight under President Donald Trump, which could make the role of state regulators more significant. Walker advanced a similar plan two years ago to shutter the EAB, which legislators later removed from the budget — something Madelung praised Tuesday as “common sense.” Unlike the proposal Walker announced this year, that plan would have consolidated the work of the EAB’s staff and board into a single part-time employee. Sti
                          7 years ago by @prophe
                           
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                            The Trump administration has taken its first shot at rules designed to protect students from expensive, low-quality colleges and career training programs. Less than a month after Betsy DeVos was sworn in as its top official, the U.S. Department of Education announced Monday evening that it would delay until July 1 an effort to crack down on career training programs that load students up with unpayable debt. The biggest winners: the more than 800 higher educational programs that claim to lead to “gainful employment” but flunked the department’s January excessive debt test—mostly for-profit art and cosmetology schools. These programs can now continue to recruit applicants (at least until July 1) without having to warn them about alumni’s oppressively high debt loads. The schools can also take this extra time to seek data showing that their graduates’ student loan bills are actually below the official “excessive debt” cutoff. That means bills must be no more than 12% of the average student’s gross earnings, as reported to the Social Security Administration, and no more than 30% of their discretionary income. That means, for example, that students considering entering, say, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh’s two-year Associate’s program in graphic design won’t necessarily be warned that the typical graduate of the program has taken on about $40,000 in debt, but finds a job paying only about $22,000 a year. The monthly financial reality for such graduates is grim. Their before-tax monthly salary works out to about $1,900. The monthly payments on a standard 10-year student loan repayment plan top $400 – or more than 20% of their gross earnings. The department said it would use the extra time to “further review the [Gainful Employment] regulations and their implementation.” The action puts the brakes on one of many last-minute moves by the Obama administration. In January, the Department of Education issued an analysis of the earnings and student debt levels of more than 8,600 higher education programs that offer pr
                            7 years ago by @prophe
                             
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                              The Trump administration just handed an olive branch to the battered industry. he Trump administration appears poised to undo one of its predecessor’s most ambitious attempts to rein in for-profit college rapacity. The Department of Education is delaying the so-called “gainful employment” rule, in place since 2015, the Wall Street Journal’s Josh Mitchell reports. Under the Obama-era rule, the Department of Education would shut off the financial-aid spigot for higher education institutions if their typical graduate reported spending more than 30 percent of after-tax cash or 12 percent of total income on student loan payments. In other words, if a college saddles too many of its students with debt and shabby job prospects — if graduating classes debt-to-income ratios don’t look good for a few consecutive years — it will be barred from receiving Stafford loans, Pell grants, and other forms of taxpayer funding for higher education. The more than 800 schools that the Department of Education threatened in January with sanctions under the rule—98 percent of which are for-profit institutions like Full Sail University and University of Phoenix — will now have until July 1st to hire independent auditors to investigate whether the government’s damning data on their students career outcomes is wrong or flawed. Since most for-profit colleges derive most of their revenue from students’ federal financial aid packages, thousands of the schools may have eventually had to close their doors without reconsideration by the Department. The extended timeline to appeal, and the department’s promise to review the rule, could be a lifeline for an industry that was facing an unprecedented crackdown via states attorneys general lawsuits and federal enforcement actions. But, as Pacific Standard reported in 2015, this wouldn’t be the first time the industry has bounced back from a regulatory beating. For-profit college parent companies stocks have surged since Donald Trump’s election in November. Now, shareholder faith looks like it could g
                              7 years ago by @prophe
                               
                                for-profitUSADonald_TrumpDepartment_of_EducationMar2017gainful_employmentObama
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                                President Trump’s postelection agreement to pay $25 million appeared to settle the fraud claims arising from his defunct for-profit education venture, Trump University. But a former student is now asking to opt out of the settlement, a move that, if permitted, could put the deal in jeopardy. Lawyers for the student, Sherri Simpson of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Monday asked a federal judge in San Diego to reject the settlement unless former students are given an opportunity to be excluded from the deal so they can sue Mr. Trump individually. If the judge, Gonzalo Curiel, decides that Ms. Simpson and potentially others should have that chance, legal experts say it could disrupt the settlement because Mr. Trump and his lawyers saw the deal as a way to resolve all of the claims, once and for all, to avoid a trial and distractions to his presidency. “If even one person could opt out of the settlement and force a trial, that might, in fact, crater the deal,” said Shaun Martin, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. “I’m sure Judge Curiel will be aware of that.” The agreement, announced in November, appeared to resolve years of hotly contested litigation, including two federal class-action cases in San Diego and a separate suit by Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general. Students maintained that they were cheated out of tuition through high-pressure sales tactics and misleading claims about what they would learn. At one point during the contentious case, Mr. Trump questioned Judge Curiel’s impartiality based on his Mexican heritage. Mr. Trump, who has rejected the claims and did not acknowledge fault in the settlement, posted on Twitter after the settlement announcement that he “did not have the time to go through a long but winning trial on Trump U.” Patrick Coughlin, a lawyer representing the class-action plaintiffs, said that it was a “terrific settlement” and that the objection seemed “politically motivated.” He said he feared that the objection could result in delays for students
                                7 years ago by @prophe
                                 
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                                  Several of the region's private colleges say Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposal for free state college would have a negative effect on their schools. WBFO's Senior Reporter Eileen Buckley says members of the Medaille College community are being encouraged to write to state lawmakers to consider an increase for the Tuition Assistance Program instead of supporting the tuition-free plan for SUNY. “The lobbying efforts that we have are in full force. We are doing it individually from our desks at our various campuses,” said Dr. Kenneth Macur, president at Medaille College. Macur said he remains skeptical about how much Cuomo's plan would cost the state and taxpayers. The Governor wants students in families earning $125,000 or less to receive tuition free scholarships to all state colleges and universities. Macur is more concerned about how it might effect a student's "right to choose" a college. “More than being worried about what happens to Medaille, I’m worried about students who are forced into huge lecture halls. Forced into schools where the graduation rates aren’t as good, where the care and concern doesn’t exist as it does at Medaille and what’s going to happen to those kids,” Macur remarked. Medaille’s tuition is a little more than $27,000. About 922 of the college's students did received $2.5 million in TAP toward their tuition. “Sticker price goes up on an annual basis two, three percent, but the actual net tuition, on average, has been going down over the last three to four years,” Macur explained. “And so even though we’ve done a great job making college affordable for students in the region, we’d be penalized by the governor’s plan.” When the governor appeared last month at rally Buffalo State College to seek support his idea, he made a remark about the cost of private education. “Average student debt $29,000, $29,000 – you just can’t do it,” said Cuomo. “One of the problems with using the debt statistics in that way, you miss that the fact that private college graduates have lower default rate
                                  7 years ago by @prophe
                                   
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                                    The first class of students who went to community college for free under Tennessee Promise is graduating this spring. Some might go straight into the workforce, some plan to transfer to public universities — but private colleges are starting to make a concerted effort to recruit them, too. One of these efforts comes in the form of a scholarship, a potentially hefty one: Tennessee Promise students transferring to Lipscomb University will receive at least $10,000, making up more than a third of their tuition. The university announced the "Lipscomb Promise" scholarship last week. “A substantial amount of their education will be funded by this university," said university president Randy Lowry. "That, in partnership with state resources ... [and] with their own resources and work, should provide them with the opportunity for this kind of college experience.” This award is not actually new — Lipscomb already offered the $10,000-plus scholarship to transfer students, under a different name, in past years. Lebron Hill, a junior, says the "Lipscomb Pathways" award was an integral part of his deciding to transfer from Motlow State Community College last year. "The money was a main factor in my choice, so I'm glad I was able to get the scholarship," he says. So "Lipscomb Promise" is essentially a rebranding. But changing the wording is not insignificant — after all, the entire Tennessee Promise program showed that marketing makes a difference. The governor has acknowledged that a huge part of its success is the fact that it proactively labels community college as "free," even though it was already free for many students because they qualified for federal financial aid. Mike Krause, who oversees the Tennessee Promise program and the state's higher education commission, says he expects calling the scholarship "Lipscomb Promise" will make a difference. “I think this is a place where the brand matters. You’re able to tell a student who’s really gotten used to the Tennessee Promise message [that college is affordable for
                                    7 years ago by @prophe
                                     
                                      Tennessee_PromiseMar2017Free_tuitionUSATennesseeEnglish
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                                      Buoyed by the ascendancy of Donald Trump, America’s predatory for-profit colleges are renewing their multi-front fight to destroy a key measure to hold them accountable: the gainful employment rule. The new battle plan includes pushes in Congress and before the Betsy DeVos Department of Education, plus two new lawsuits aimed at the regulation, including one, in Arizona, that has not been previously reported. It looks like this harmful effort is rapidly gaining traction. It took the Obama administration nearly eight years of battling well-paid for-profit college lobbyists and lawyers to finally enact and implement this regulation, which has a simple, common sense premise: Career training programs that, year-after-year, leave graduates mired in overwhelming debt should lose eligibility for taxpayer-funded student grants and loans. Career education should make people financially better off, not worse off, and the rule aims to channel money away from programs that do harm — and channel it toward those honest, effective colleges that are genuinely helping students build careers. For decades, many for-profit colleges, through a toxic mix of high prices, low quality, and weak job placement, have promised more than they could deliver, and yet have been getting billions annually in federal aid, much of it spent on advertising and profits, rather than education. Many veterans, single moms, displaced factory workers and miners, and others struggling to build a better future have been deceived and abused by unscrupulous college owners, whose offices are in Wall Street suites as well as strip malls. The final gainful employment rule does not demand much; only the worst programs flunk its test comparing graduate earnings with debt levels. The first round of results, reported in January, showed that 98 percent of the flunking programs were at for-profit colleges. The for-profit colleges have never stopped trying to overturn the rule, even after federal courts decisively rejected two separate industry lawsuits. Now, however,
                                      7 years ago by @prophe
                                       
                                        Mar2017for-profitDonald_TrumpObamaUSAEnglish
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                                        Alums of a disgraced for-profit college chain have spent years trying to cancel their federal student loans. For three years in federal court, the Obama Department of Education told them to keep on paying. Improbably, the Trump administration is poised to say differently. Under a preliminary accord, the federal government would invite tens of thousands of former students, who more than 20 years ago attended beauty and secretarial schools owned by defunct Wilfred American Education Corp., to petition the Education Department to cancel their unpaid debt and receive refunds on past payments, according to four people familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing confidential settlement negotiations. The applications are almost certain to be approved, these people said, and the government would foot the bill. The deal-which is not complete and may change-would resolve a 2014 class-action lawsuit against the Education Department brought by seven former Wilfred students who claimed the feds for decades had been wrongfully collecting on debt that students needn't repay. Federal law allows borrowers to cancel their loans when their schools violate certain rules, and Wilfred routinely flouted the law by falsely certifying that its students were eligible for government loans, according to the complaint. The lawsuit claimed the department knew the loans were eligible to be forgiven, yet it made no effort to inform debtors of this right. If finalized, the settlement would represent one of the largest debt-forgiveness schemes undertaken by the Education Department. That it didn't happen under Obama, who championed student debt relief measures, and instead could happen under Trump, who in November agreed to pay $25 million to settle several lawsuits tied to his own foray into for-profit education, could upend expectations that a Trump-overseen Education Department would favor the interests of for-profit schools over those of allegedly defrauded students. Jim Margolin, a spokesman f
                                        7 years ago by @prophe
                                         
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                                          I’m working with a client to help fill a management level position, and last week we interviewed an applicant with three degrees from a for-profit university. As college degrees become more important for both hiring and advancement, these for-profit educational institutions are growing in number and presence. For-profit schools are just that — businesses. They are corporations, often with shareholders, that have the objective of making a profit. Education is their product. If you’re thinking about going back to school, here are some things to consider before you commit your time or your money to these businesses. Consider your objective. If you want a technical skill, the for-profit route may be for you. Most of these schools do not have entrance requirements. Money and a high school diploma or its equivalent will get you a seat in the program. If you want a college education, consider that the for-profit degrees come with limits. Credits for your work may not transfer to other programs. A bachelor of science degree may not qualify you to move into a graduate program with another school. Most employers will give preference to a candidate with a degree from a traditional university. And if you’re thinking about an advanced degree that will allow you to teach at the university level, don’t even consider the for-profit route. If your objective is flexibility, remember that many traditional universities are now offering online classes and flexible scheduling. Pay attention to accreditation. Accreditation for the university AND for specific programs is a big deal. Learn what accreditation means. Know what the standard of excellence is. Lack of appropriate accreditation may mean your degree is worth very little. Pay attention to cost. Congress is now involved in investigating the costs of for-profit schools. Many state schools are now offering online, evening and weekend programs for much less money. For example, the Georgia WebMBA program is a fully online 18-month master’s program offered through a consortium of
                                          7 years ago by @prophe
                                           
                                            for-profitUSAMar2017English
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