From the U.S. Department of Education:

“The U.S. Department of Education today released the official FY 2009 national student loan cohort default rate, which has risen to 8.8 percent, up from 7.0 percent in FY 2008. The cohort default rates increased for all sectors: from 6.0 percent to 7.2 percent for public institutions, from 4.0 percent to 4.6 percent for private institutions, aContinue Reading »

One of the under-appreciated techniques of investigative journalism is indictment via strategic use of paragraph breaks. Like this, from a Chronicle of Higher Education story about the University of Northern Virginia, an unaccredited for-profit college that was raided by the Department of Homeland Security for suspicion of exploiting foreign students:

In an interview in March, Mr. Ho [thContinue Reading »

See any similarity in these arguments?

…Neither Whitmire nor Rhee seems aware that social science research has demonstrated for many years that what families do, and the advantages or disadvantages that family income confers, have even more influence on academic performance than what teachers do. — Diane Ravitch

“The single best predictor of a student’s likelihood oContinue Reading »

The much-anticipated gainful employment regulations, which include important changes to how for-profit colleges are held accountable, were finally released today (for more on gainful employment see this ES report from 2010).

There’s grumbling on both sides about the final regulations. Proponents are upset over added leeway given to the colleges. And the for-profit sector, despite wContinue Reading »

Blogger Mrs. Lipstick, on the tough realities of being in kindergarten: “The kindergarten class where I spend most of my time is 5 going on 15. They are obsessed with Justin Bieber, Hannah Montana, boys, dating, and anything that makes them teenage-like.  It’s really pretty sad. However, apparently in the midst of all their teenage drama no one bothered to tell them that before yContinue Reading »

William Perez Writing in the New “Conditions of Education In California” Blog: “A report on K-12 education spending released last month by the Pepperdine University Davenport Institute highlights the need to examine California’s education finance system. The study suggests a wide disparity in per-student expenditures as well as with the percentage of money spent directly Continue Reading »

Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with the leaders of a large chain of beauty schools for a conversation about rethinking accountability for for-profit colleges. They presented an interesting proposal that would judge colleges by setting clear and universal definitions on a few key metrics, improving the ability of accreditors to audit and verify that information, disclosing that infContinue Reading »

For the last two weeks, Higher Ed Watch has been running guest posts from Neil Raisman, the former chancellor at Briarcliffe College, which is owned by the Career Education Corporation. (You can read both posts here and here.)

So far, the posts have mostly talked about the compensation models at for-profits (I’m hoping that later ones will talk about the academic side), but this poContinue Reading »

Laura Bornfreund on the Shortcomings of Teacher Preparation Programs: “In our own independent research, we’ve found preparation programs that train teachers for placement in the early grades to be lacking coursework in the developmental sciences, family and community engagement, and content. Clinical experiences are too few and opportunities to teach students are separate from pedagogContinue Reading »

It’s not a good start to the year of the rabbit for for-profit colleges, or any colleges that care about the new 3-year default rate measure. The 2008 3-year cohort default rate data released by the Department of Education today shows that three-year default rates have increased across the board, and most rapidly among for-profit colleges.

Below is the summary from the Department oContinue Reading »