APSCU: Private Sector Instiutions Prepare the High-Demand Professional for Tomorrow

April 24, 2015
By APSCU Communications 

Private sector institutions prepare students and provide them with relevant skills in high demand career fields. Since 2001, the number of credentials awarded to students attending private sector institutions increased by 165 percent. This means that each year, more and more students are receiving the skills they need to work in high demand fields that boost their earnings potentials.
As seen in the infographic below, private sector institutions award the majority of all allied health and culinary arts credentials earned. Private sector institutions also play a significant role in teaching the skills required to be an electrician or a vehicle maintenance and repair technician.

Private sector institutions provide new traditional students with opportunities to further their educations and obtain skills in career-relevant fields. These new traditional students, who are over the age of 25, have financial dependents, and/or are employed full-time while enrolled, have been vastly underserved by traditional institutions of higher education. Private sector institutions are well equipped to meet the needs of these new traditional students through flexible learning options that public and private nonprofit institutions typically do not provide.

In the infographic below, you can see that private sector institutions are increasingly preparing the high-demand professionals of tomorrow.

Direct link to article: http://www.highereducationforall.com/private-sector-institutions-prepare-high-demand-professionals-tomorrow/#.VT5Nr5OHeJ9

FAPSC: What you won't read in the Miami Herald this weekend

 

FLORIDA ASSOCIATION OF POSTSECONDARY SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES 150 South Monroe Street, Suite 303 Tallahassee, FL 32301 Phone: (850) 577-3139 | Fax: (850) 577-3133 www.FAPSC.org

Higher Education Stakeholders,

Critics of private sector institutions continue to rely on dated anecdotes to portray our institutions in a negative light. These reports overlook the fact that private sector institutions are opening doors of opportunity for traditionally underserved students and creating a more skilled and educated workforce across the country.

One-sided portrayals of our sector are not only misleading, but they are damaging to the more than 500,000 students who have graduated from a Florida Career College in the last 5 years. Many graduates who are able to accelerate their careers and improve their lifetime earnings by attending our institutions, as well as their communities and employers. This reality is backed by recent studies (such as those presented by Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce) demonstrating the value of a postsecondary education for students over their lifetimes.

In and out of Florida, our sector is opening doors that traditional higher education institutions have not.
In 2013, private sector institutions educated 296,578 students, or 18 percent of the total enrollment in the state of Florida. Of these students, 65 percent were female, 35 percent were veterans, and 30 percent were African American. All of these figures were higher for private sector institutions than the average of all universities in Florida.

Private sector institutions continue to enroll and educate a higher proportion of new traditional students than public and private non-profit universities. Private sector institutions do a better job of meeting the needs of these students by offering flexible course options and specific student services. New traditional students are also more likely to rely on federal financial aid, be older than the average student, work while attending class, and/or support a family. As research shows, relying on student debt anecdotes in an attempt to represent the landscape of student debt distorts the reality of the situation. The actual average borrowing debt for students who graduated in 2012 was $29,400, while the average borrowing debt for students featured in news articles was $85,400. Horrifying stories of debt may make for good click-bait, but they fail to represent the reality of the situation and overshadow the myriad benefits that so many individuals, from students, to local economies, to taxpayers receive from private sector institutions.

Private sector institutions are also more responsive to the needs of employers. Specifically, private sector institutions are awarding more credentials in high demand fields, such as business, computer and information sciences, engineering, and health professions, than public and private non-profit institutions.
• 60% of all Healthcare graduates in Florida
• 60% of all Information and Technology graduates in Florida (Sources: USDOE data at http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/and the Florida Commission for Independent Education)

As the demand for middle skills grow and the skills gap becomes larger in the modern U.S. economy, private sector institutions are already responding by educating more students that can fill these roles. As a result, private sector graduates are more likely to have a career in their degree field than the average student. Additionally, these institutions provided jobs to 16,085 full time equivalent employees in Florida in 2013. In Florida alone, our institutions provide significant economic outcomes as well. In 2013, private sector colleges and universities generated a total economic impact of over $3.5 billion. This activity also generates $198.11 million in state and local revenues.

Contrary to what many headlines would have you believe, our institutions are saving taxpayer money. Without private sector institutions, states would either need to contribute significantly more taxpayer dollars each year to satisfy the demand for postsecondary education, or deny access to individuals seeking to continue their educations. In 2012, taxpayer savings in Florida amounted to $261 million according to Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (Source: Jorge Klor de Alva and Mark Schneider, Nexus Research and Policy Center)

We stand ready to work with all stakeholders that want to advance policies that improve student access and opportunity. We will not stand silent when our work and success is misrepresented.

Sincerely,

Florida Association of Postsecondary Schools and Colleges

ACCESS| ACCOUNTABILITY| CHOICE| INTEGRITY| PROFESSIONALISM

APSCU Blog: Higher Education For All - Private Sector Institutions Are Equipped To Meet The Needs Of New Traditional Students

April 14, 2015

By APSCU Communications

Private sector institutions play a critical role in providing opportunities for new traditional students who have been largely overlooked and underserved by traditional institutions of higher education. New traditional students are more likely to rely on federal financial aid, be older than the average student, work while pursuing their credential, support a family, and/or be financially independent. By enrolling, educating, and graduating these students, private sector institutions offer individuals the opportunity to further their education and acquire in-demand career skills. Many of these individuals would likely not be able to have these opportunities without private sector institutions.

The result is a population of previously underserved individuals who are earning credentials in fields with high returns and increasing their lifetime earnings.

As explained in the infographic below, private sector institutions are particularly well-equipped to provide students with flexible schedules and career-focused educations.

APSCU Blog: Report: Institutions With The Fewest Low-Income Students Get The Most Taxpayer Support

07 Apr 2015 /By APSCU Communications 

 

From federal grants and loans to state funding for public colleges, taxpayers support higher education in a variety of ways, most often with the goal of boosting access to postsecondary education for all students. However, a recent report by the Nexus Research and Policy Center found that taxpayers provide significant support for institutions in ways that may not be readily apparent, such as tax breaks for high-endowment private non-profit institutions.

The report found that private non-profit institutions gain huge advantages from government tax exemptions, compared to all other schools. Accounting for these breaks, taxpayer subsidies to the ten wealthiest private non-profit institutions averaged $41,000 per student, or more than three times the amount their states provide for public education per student.

The issue is that these institutions have acceptance rates as low 6 or 7 percent and are far less likely to educate low-income and new traditional students. Meaning they do very little to boost access to higher education or address the opportunity gap in our country.

It turns out that this relationship extends beyond private non-profits. Across all sectors, the highest subsidies are going to schools serving the fewest middle-to-low-income students. In other words, institutions that serve the highest proportions of low-income students receive the least taxpayer aid.

The report’s authors stated, “In short, the unequal distribution of endowment wealth and the unequal enrollment of low-income Federal Pell grant recipients lead to a pattern where, quite literally, the rich schools get more than their less affluent private and public counterparts, who are bearing the lion’s share of the education of America’s working- and middle-class students.”

This is another example of the gap between our national higher education goals and the reality of how we fund them. Taxpayers are disproportionately supporting institutions that restrict access, particularly for low-income students, at a time when postsecondary education is more important than ever for our workforce and economy.

APSCU Blog: The 90/10 Rule Hurts Access to Postsecondary Education for Traditional Students

06 Apr 2015 /By APSCU Communications 

 

Students who borrow to earn a postsecondary credential do so because the lifetime benefits of an education far outweigh the costs. Often the students who rely the most on federal student aid are the ones who need postsecondary education the most. Rules that limit institutions’ ability to provide education to students who borrow to fund their education result in denying access to opportunity.
The 90/10 rule is one such rule. It specifically targets private sector institutions, which serve more new traditional students than other sectors. The rule requires that 10 percent of private sector revenues come from sources other than federal student aid. This means that private sector institutions need to ensure that they enroll enough students who do not need to borrow to pay for their credentials. In other words, since supply is limited, these institutions need to limit the number of people they educate who are low income.

This has the clear effect of limiting access to education for the students who need it most. Mark Kantrowitz studied the effects of the 90/10 rule and found that institutions that enroll more students from low income families (adjusted gross income less than $50,000), are more likely to be in violation of the rule. Additionally, institutions that charge less than $8,000 in tuition are more likely to be in violation of the rule.
The inverse relationship between tuition and difficulty complying with the 90/10 rule causes a conflict with a component of the Department’s gainful employment regulation. Institutions that lower their tuition to attempt to stay compliant with the gainful employment regulation, will run the risk of violating the 90/10 rule as more low income students enroll.
It is a common attack that institutions in violation of the 90/10 rule must be offering a worse education, because not enough students are willing to pay out of pocket to attend. This critique entirely misses the point. Federal student aid is designed to allow students who do not have the means to pay for postsecondary education have access to its benefits. Institutions that serve lower income students are more likely to have more students borrowing.
This critique would also be an indictment of other types of institutions. President Obama’s free community college proposal would mean that students will not have to apply their money toward the cost of an education. Using the logic behind the 90/10 rule, that means community colleges offer a lesser product, because students are not paying to attend.
As Mark Kantrowitz notes, “For most colleges, the percentage of revenue from federal student aid measures the extent to which the college serves low-income students, not the students’ willingness to pay for their education.”
The access-slashing effects of the 90/10 rule are exacerbated by the fact that they only apply to private sector institutions. These institutions have a track record of serving students that are often not afforded access to postsecondary education by institutions in other sectors. Targeting these institutions means targeting their students, who may not have anywhere else to go for a postsecondary credential.
In his report, Mark Kantrowitz found that the majority of public colleges, including 80 percent of community colleges, would fail the 90/10 rule. Additionally, the true costs of public institutions are higher than the true costs of private sector institutions once direct appropriations are accounted for. All of these facts, when taken together, demonstrate that the 90/10 rule is yet another example of a regulatory attempt to arbitrarily limit the important role that private sector institutions have in providing access to postsecondary education.

Direct link to article: http://www.highereducationforall.com/9010-rule-hurts-access-postsecondary-education-new-traditional-students/