The Association for Private Sector Colleges and Universities (formerly the Career College Association) provides the latest in a string of misleading advertisements from for-profit colleges protesting the Department of Education’s planned gainful employment regulations.
This ad highlights a successful graduate of a for-profit college and includes the tag line, “My education. My job. My choice.” But it forgot one more, very important, statement…Your Money.
The Department of Education isn’t forcing these schools to close or saying students can’t choose to attend them. The choice of where to attend college will remain in the hands of students. What the Department of Education is saying with these regulations is that it doesn’t want to invest taxpayer money from Pell Grants and federally subsidized student loans in schools that aren’t producing graduates who can get a job and pay off those student loans. These regulations will also require some colleges to disclose more information to prospective students on the likelihood that they will, upon graduation, actually be able to get a job and repay their loan debt. In other words, the government is proposing to require colleges to provide more information to consumers to allow students to make a better choice on where to get their degree.
Gainful employment is in no way about taking away choice for students. Instead, it’s about helping consumers make better informed choices and its about spending taxpayer money–your money–responsibly.
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5/11/2012 | U.S. News & World Report highlights ideas from "Moving On Up: How Tuition Tax Breaks Increasingly Favor the Upper-Middle Class." 
5/11/2012 | In Diverse, Steve Burd comments on the Obama administration's plans to address student debt. 
5/11/2012 | Kevin Carey talks to Salon about the government's role in rising student debt.
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There is a rule called 90/10 that states that universities can only receive 90% of their funding from federal dollars. 10% has to be in the form of cash which generally ends up being in the form of student loans. This federal rule creates an environment where private colleges HAVE to increase tuition to 10% over the limit of federal eligibility of their students in order to stay complainant. Because they deal primarily with low income cohorts they generally don’t’ get “cash payers” or students with mommy and daddy flitting the bill.
If you want to look at “subsidies” turn to your state run institutions. The average state and federal subsidy for a public student is over $15,000 for one year. The subsidy for a private college student is a little over $800 for a year. And yet they come out of college with the same levels of debt. That is the REAL story here. Hold the public universities to the same standard and then watch the chaos.
A Private College Grad
Let’s apply all the same regulations and rules consistently across ALL of higher education. Public and private. Government schools and market driven.
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