U.S. To Scrutinize For-Profit Career Colleges
July 23 2010 - 12:28AM
Dow Jones News
The U.S. Department of Education on Friday will propose a
measure to penalize for-profit career colleges for graduating
students with high debt-to-income ratios.
The proposal, which will undergo a 45-day comment period that is
expected to include opposition from industry lobbyists, is an
effort to ensure schools are training students for gainful
employment in a recognized occupation. It comes at a time when
for-profits are under new scrutiny as they capture a growing share
of federal student aid dollars.
"Some proprietary schools have profited and prospered but their
students haven't," Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. "While
career colleges play a vital role in training our work force to be
globally competitive, some of them are saddling students with debt
they cannot afford in exchange for degrees and certificates they
cannot use."
Under the proposal, training programs would be judged on whether
former students are repaying the principal on federal loans, and
the relationship between total student loan debt and average
earnings upon graduation. The recommendation sets up three tiers of
eligibility, with those in the middle tier facing enrollment
restrictions and debt-to-income disclosure requirements, and the
weakest tier losing access to federal student aid for new
students.
According to the Education Department, if career colleges made
no changes, 5% of all programs would no longer be eligible for
federal aid and 55% would be required to warn students about high
debt-to-income ratios. Many publicly traded schools derive close to
90% of their revenue from federal aid.
The recommendation, known as a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,
has been a long time coming, with federal officials and industry
representatives meeting for a year to discuss new higher education
regulations. The government put forth its first proposal in late
January and the stocks of for-profit colleges have soared and
swooned since, propelled by rumors of how programs could gain
exemption from the regulation.
The Education Department said that this version is "thoughtful,"
with income calculations based on actual graduate earnings rather
than Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. To give time for program
improvement, the agency proposed that the 2012-2013 academic year
be the earliest that programs could be found ineligible for federal
aid.
The Education Department had released 13 other proposals in June
but said it needed more time for this one.
"Some key issues around gainful employment are complicated and
we want to get it right," Duncan said at the time.
The earlier recommendations included proposals on incentive
compensation for student recruiters, a clearer definition of a
credit hour and a new metrics by which students must show academic
progress in order to continue receiving federal aid.
The colleges' programs include training for students to work in
the culinary arts, as medical assistants, and in criminal
justice.
-By Melissa Korn, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2271;
melissa.korn@dowjones.com
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