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Friday, July 23, 2010

Education Department Proposes To End Federal Funding for some 'for profit' private colleges

ERIC GORSKI | 07/23/10 04:52 PM | AP
The Education Department proposed new regulations Friday that would cut off federal aid to for-profit college programs if too many of their students default on loans or don't earn enough after graduation to repay them.
According to a recent Associated Press analysis, more and more low-income students are spending their Pell Grant dollars at for-profit colleges.

Why is this? Academic standards are lower and many of the 'for profit' students are public college drop outs.

A real problem for the 'for profits' is the thirty eight per cent  graduation rate of the for-profits. This begs the question of whether proprietary schools are more concerned with college enrollment than completion.

Some proprietary schools have profited and prospered but their students haven't, and this is a disservice to students and to taxpayers," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a briefing with reporters. "And it undermines the valuable work, the extraordinarily important work, being done by the for-profit industry as a whole.


To qualify for federal student aid programs, career college programs must prepare students for "gainful employment."

The Obama administration, amid intense lobbying from both for-profit college officials and consumer and student advocates, is proposing a complicated formula that would weigh both the debt-to-income ratio of recent graduates and whether all enrolled students repay their loans on time, regardless of whether they finish their studies.

On Wall Street, shares of several for-profit education companies jumped Friday at the news. DeVry Inc., which is among the companies analysts predicted would be least affected by the proposal, climbed 15 percent and was one of the biggest gainers in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

But shares were mixed among companies such as ITT Educational Services Inc., Corinthian Colleges Inc., Education Management Corp. and Career Education Corp. Those companies operate career colleges focusing more on two-year programs or lower-income students and may need to make big changes if the proposal is adopted, analysts said.

Rightardia comment: Wirehead was an It instructor for three of these 'for profit" schools. Many of the programs they offer provide training that will make  it difficult for a student to repay the federal student loans because the jobs waiting after graduation jobs are low paying. This is very common problem in 'for profit' medical programs.


Many of the students are dropouts from public colleges and have learning and attitude problems. If a student doesn't show for class, the instructor has to call the student to encourage them to return to class. Most Florida students in two year associate 'for profit' programs leave with a debt of around $28,000 to $30,000. Nationally, the average is closer to $33,000.


Wirehead actually installed and paid for for Skype phone in his classroom so he could call his students between class breaks. 

Another school had him teaching at two different campuses more than one hour apart and never paid him any mileage. 

When this school tried to get certified by a collegiate organization, the owner insisted that all the instructors work an extra class off of the clock after they had installed time clocks on each campus.


"For profit" schools know they have to help students find jobs and have job placement counselors on their campuses. 

Most publish weekly stats on job placement and also help students ready to graduate write resumes. The schools that have the most to lose are the ones who have not taken the job placement function seriously.


The governments point is that there is little merit in putting a student into debt who cannot get a job that can help the graduate repay the student loan. The government has been subsidizing colleges that are making profits, but this is not helping students.


Rightardia also found most of these 'for profit' schools to be extremely conservative. They were almost the polar opposite of the 'liberal' universities the right wing loves to complain about.

source: http://www.collegesurfing.com/content/for-profit-colleges-are-gasp-making-profit/

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