The Obama Administration’sDepartment of Education has been working for months on an attack that would severely cripple career colleges in the United States, schools that help American students pursue educational options outside of the four-year non-profit universe.
Charging that these career colleges mislead students into believing they’ll obtain employment upon graduation, and that these schools mislead students into taking on debt, the Administration has proposed a “gainful employment” rule that would severely limit students’ financial aid options if they chose for-profit colleges over the Administration’s preferred four-year university route.
According to sources, the “gainful employment” proposal has been fueled by reports from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) as well as news media that have painted the career university system as predatory. However, many of these reports, including the one from the GAO, were revised after questions were raised about the accuracy of their initial drafts – and many of these reports fail to provide information about similar tactics and return on investment data for four year schools, a mis-step that, this week, Jamie Farrell at Forbes brought to light.
As congressional talks surrounding the negative impact online education has had on graduation rates and specifically loan default rates; what we are not hearing are long term solutions. We are hearing suggestions of Band-Aids.
Do I like the idea of the gainful employment laws? Yes! That said, if we are going to implement them, it should be done across the board and it needs government support to get started. What these lawmakers are failing to recognize is that it took guts, innovation, large investments and a lot of time NOT being profitable for these for profit online education companies to get where they are today…and the model is less than TEN YEARS OLD.
The U.S. House recently voted to defund the Department of Education’s “gainful employment” rule, but the key to eliminating this threat to educational choice for good still lies in the Senate. Senators in several states including Kentucky, Hawaii, Nevada and others will determine the fate of the “gainful employment” rule going forward. So far, the most crucial Republican Senators with votes on this bill are Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen. John Ensign of Nevada. Democrats hanging in the balance include Sen. Daniel Akaka and Sen. Daniel Inouye, both of Hawaii. Americans need to let these Senators know that educational choice must be preserved.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.