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Colleges Face New 'Gainful Employment' Regulations For Student Loans
HughPickens.com writes: Education Secretary Arne Duncan says the Education Department wants to make sure loan programs that prey on students don't continue their abusive practices. Now Kimberly Hefling reports that for-profit colleges who are not producing graduates capable of paying off their student loans could soon stand to lose access to federal student-aid programs. In order to receive federal student aid, the law requires that most for-profit programs, regardless of credential level, and most non-degree programs at non-profit and public institutions, including community colleges, prepare students for "gainful employment in a recognized occupation" (PDF). To meet these "gainful employment" standards, a program will have to show that the estimated annual loan payment of a typical graduate does not exceed 20 percent of his or her discretionary income or 8 percent of total earnings.
"Career colleges must be a stepping stone to the middle class. But too many hard-working students find themselves buried in debt with little to show for it. That is simply unacceptable," says Duncan. "These regulations are a necessary step to ensure that colleges accepting federal funds protect students, cut costs and improve outcomes. We will continue to take action as needed."
But not everyone is convinced the rules go far enough. "The rule is far too weak to address the grave misconduct of predatory for-profit colleges," writes David Halperin. "The administration missed an opportunity to issue a strong rule, to take strong executive action and provide real leadership on this issue." The final gainful employment regulations follow an extensive rulemaking process involving public hearings, negotiations and about 95,000 public comments and will go into effect on July 1, 2015.
"Career colleges must be a stepping stone to the middle class. But too many hard-working students find themselves buried in debt with little to show for it. That is simply unacceptable," says Duncan. "These regulations are a necessary step to ensure that colleges accepting federal funds protect students, cut costs and improve outcomes. We will continue to take action as needed."
But not everyone is convinced the rules go far enough. "The rule is far too weak to address the grave misconduct of predatory for-profit colleges," writes David Halperin. "The administration missed an opportunity to issue a strong rule, to take strong executive action and provide real leadership on this issue." The final gainful employment regulations follow an extensive rulemaking process involving public hearings, negotiations and about 95,000 public comments and will go into effect on July 1, 2015.
You got all their money, now make senior classes impossible to pass except for only the best and brightest.
A liberal arts or pure science education is not meant to be a professional degree. It's a way to learn a lot about a particular topic, independently of whether that directly helps your employment chances or not.
Historically, there was a fairly sharp delineation between universities and vocational schools--even "white collar" vocational schools like engineering were at separate institutions (often A&T or A&M schools), and lawyers and doctors were primarily apprenticed. At some point doctors, and later lawyers, became highly skilled professions that needed more formal training. To a degree it made sense to combine medical schools with pure sciences under one university, since some of the basics overlap.
But it had the unfortunate side effect of starting the thought in people's minds that universities are vocational institutions, rather than institutions of higher learning. I certainly don't mean to insinuate that a liberal arts degree has no application in the real world--quite the contrary. But it's intentionally targeted at longer-term learning rather than particular vocations per se, and not everyone who pursues a higher degree does so as a job entree.
Nonetheless, the law schools and med schools were followed by a spate of mergers between technical institutes and universities. Suddenly non-university vocational institutes were looked on as crappy and inferior, and it became a mantra (for no good reason) that you needed a 4-year college/university degree to succeed at jobs that historically had been done quite successfully without it. Even a shorter professional program started to become more prestigious if allied with a 4-year college, for no good reason (e.g. nursing schools at universities being, generally, valued more highly than independent nursing colleges).
The result was a massive spike in the number of people going to 4-year colleges--that number has sextupled or so over the past 60ish years--and a massive decline in the number of people going to vocational and technical schools. The latter have become a joke to the point where vocational school brings to mind TV commercials for Devry or Andover tractor trailer driving or dental hygeniest schools.
The downfalls of this are manifold. University prices skyrocket as everyone seeks to get in, whether they are really interested in a university degree or not. Vocational schools fold and a large percentage of the people who'd have attended them are forced into universities, exacerbating #1. Jobs see more and more college degrees, and start expecting them, making people start viewing colleges and universities as professional/career prep schools.
And universities become disincentivized to teach pure liberal arts or even theoretical mathematics, as they start being judged based on how good they are as job factories rather than as educational institutions; the result is a short-term focus that harms long-term research and eventually job opportunities (much akin to eliminating R&D budgets, but on a national scale).
rage, rage against the dying of the light
well its a start in the right direction. I blame the idea of federal loans for the high cost to begin with
,and it always costs us avg americans the most
lets face it, college is not for everyone. but since the failure known as the dept of ed, and the student loans for all, the colleges have little incentive to ensure their students do well, their only goal is to ensure the students can pay. and if the government is footing the bill, its in their best interest to enroll as many people as possible, as they will get paid regardless by the feds (the tax payers)
unintended consequences seem to sneak up everytime the feds try and do anything
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
What I find disturbing is that at age 18, we're allowed to go to war, vote, enter contracts and do just about anything (except drink alcohol... that's another weird one). Yet, we still seem to treat these same 18-year-olds like children when it comes to them understanding the loans that they voluntarily enter into. I never found loans to be a difficult concept. You borrow money now, you pay it back later with interest.
If you don't want massive loans, pick a state school. There's a lot of state schools that offer in-state tuition rates to out-of-state students, in addition to your own state's schools. There are a lot of choices without picking private for-profit schools. Now, there might be some more niche degrees only offered by a limited number of colleges, but those are much, much more fewer than the number of students who claim to be victimized by student loans.
I'm not saying that *no* colleges have predatory loan practices, or that *no* students are victimized. I'm just saying that a great deal of students who claim to be victimized are experiencing something closer to buyer's remorse at the first major, adult decision. Some of the blame for the student loan situation *should* sit with the students who entered into these agreements.
Well, if someone comes from a wealthy family and can afford it, sure they can take nothing but philosophy and underwater basket weaving all they want.
But it makes sense that if loans that need to be paid back are being given out, it makes sense that you lower the risk of default (or misery of lifetime debt) by loaning to those that are studying something with real potential to go on in life and repay the loans.
It doesn't make sense to give $120K in loans to someone taking Medieval Lesbian Literature studies as a major, does it? How the hell will they ever pay that back with their glorious career as a burger flipper at McD's?
Most people go to college to get a degree to get them a foot in the door at a good job at the end. It makes sense to loan out in amounts equitable to what they likely will make at the end of their degree run.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Every high school counselor in the country as well as a fuckton of parents believe otherwise. College is the new high school. Try getting a so-called "entry-level job" without a degree and without multiple years of experience you can't get without already having the job. Granted, it can happen, but there's a reason that lots of people have been unemployed for months or even years. Employers want employees that require zero training, despite the harsh reality that employees can't do the job from day one without having already received training from an employer anyway.
I went to a state college (twice!) and the graduation rate was bellow 33%
That's a scam... flat out scam. You have to go, they know you have to go, and they abuse you to squeeze as much money out of you as possible.
Yes, there are those that just drink themselves out. But the colleges offer absolutely no help with anything at all.
You're paying a fortune for classes, and the schedules make little to no sense at all. I'd go to a 30min English class, then have to wait an hour and half to take a 4 or philosophy class, then wait 2hrs for my 1 hour programming class. There were thousands of students studying for the same degree I was! What's the point of having these nonsense schedules?? Can't I just get into the 8am-5pm compsci course and be done with it?
On top of that, what's with the books scams? I'm required to buy a book my professor wrote but we never open it in class? Really? I was so broke I'd literally go without eating some days, but my professors ripping me off for $89.95?
Then the campus police... Constant unending harassment. Granted, I was a long hair... but, for example, they decided to raid the door rooms over xmas break and leave me a ticket for underage drinking for having an empty wine bottle in my room. It took me 2 months and 2 visits to court to get it cleared up that I was 23 I had enough going on, I didn't need to be dealing with them.
I will be steering my son towards one of the well established local community colleges we have around here when the time comes. They seem to be the best value, and the least likely to rip you off. I'd stay away from any "online" schools, TV offers and State colleges. They are the worst. The only difference between those and the state collges is the State ones only rip off maybe 80 to 90% of their students as apposed to 100% for the university of Phoenix and the like.
It doesn't make sense to give $120K in loans to someone taking Medieval Lesbian Literature studies as a major, does it?
It makes even less sense to take out $120k in loans to study Medieval Lesbian Literature. Let's put some of the blame where it belongs -- on the students who take out ridiculous loans to study financially worthless subjects.
If you tie government funding of colleges to the salaries of the graduates, you pretty much eliminate the option for someone to take Medieval yada yada because the college won't be able to afford to offer it. This will be just one more step into turning colleges and Universities into trade schools.
How the hell will they ever pay that back with their glorious career as a burger flipper at McD's?
By arbitrarily raising the minimum wage, of course.
It makes sense to loan out in amounts equitable to what they likely will make at the end of their degree run.
It makes more sense to take out loans only "equitable" to what you expect to make in income.
Well, if someone comes from a wealthy family and can afford it, sure they can take nothing but philosophy and underwater basket weaving all they want.
"I'm sorry, but the philosophy and basket weaving departments are being eliminated because there is insufficient funding to hire the professors that teach those topics."
cite.
That someone made bad choices in no way entitles Mickey Dee to be effectively subsidized by tax money in their quest to give as many people as possible various horrible metabological illnesses. Minimum wage needs to be high enough that the employee doesn't need any kind of additional support, otherwise you're simply building a corporate welfare state.
Also, I'm not entirely certain what you mean by "deserving" here. Are bad - by which I presume you mean economically unsuccesfull - choices some kind of sin that needs to be punished?
An intelligent human should also realize that a society where people can't afford to have children is doomed. A Mensa member might comprehend that it's not possible to know your economic fortunes for two decades or so it takes to rise a kid. And a once-in-a-century genius could even hypothesize it's cheaper to ensure children have a stable and safe environment to grow up in than to deal with the consequences if they don't, even after we factor in the horrendous consequence of poor single mothers not having maximally miserable lives.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.