Driving Student Success in Sunny Florida
Posted by John Gilani
Last week, the OrgSync team travelled to sunny Florida to exhibit at the Florida Association of Post-Secondary Schools and Colleges (FAPSC) annual conference, a couple of months after our visit to the annual APSCU conference in Grapevine.
FAPSC was the second career college conference OrgSync has ever attended and we are grateful to have had the opportunity to meet with both administrators and faculty to share how our 200+ campus partners are benefitting from using OrgSync. We demoed OrgSync (using our cool new iPad 2’s I might add) to show career colleges how we can help their campuses build an online community for their students and faculty. The feedback was absolutely tremendous as attendees viewed our community management solutions as a key component to their retention, communication and alumni initiatives moving forward.
With a theme of “Driving Student Success” we visited with these passionate administrators and witnessed the high level of commitment the Florida colleges make to their students on a daily basis. I was able to attend the breakout sessions during breaks in our exhibit times and learn more about some of the amazing things the campuses in attendance are doing. For example, Dade Medical College has committed to providing more than 50 scholarships throughout the community. Also, Ashley McMillion from Daymar Colleges Group shared a number of creative ways she is improving engagement with her students and faculty. The keynote speakers offered perspectives on the state of career colleges and a bright outlook and challenges facing everyone in the industry today.
All in all, FAPSC was a great conference, and I look forward to reconnecting with our new friends in Florida to learn how OrgSync can make an impact on their career college moving forward.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: DeVry CEO backs regulation
By Daniel Malloy
The CEO of one of the country’s biggest for-profit college companies told the Senate on Thursday that the industry should be regulated based on student outcomes.
DeVry Inc. CEO Daniel Hamburger said that schools’ eligibility for federal funding should be contingent on their ability to graduate students and place them in jobs without sinking them in unmanageable debt.
The Obama administration has taken a crack at that goal with recent controversial “gainful employment” regulations that the for-profit college industry has fought in the courtroom and elsewhere. Mr. Hamburger’s testimony, though, broke with the industrywide view.
Downtown-based Education Management Corp., which owns the Art Institutes and other schools, enrolls the second-most students of any for-profit higher education company.
The industry’s primary congressional inquisitor, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, convened a roundtable discussion Thursday featuring Mr. Hamburger, the CEO of the Regency Beauty Institute, an official from the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and advocates to explore possible laws governing the industry. He has heavily scrutinized for-profit colleges for the past year by giving whistle-blowers and critics a forum to discuss evidence of fraud in an industry that relies on federal grants and loans for the vast majority of its funding.
“We are going to look at making changes,” Mr. Harkin said. “I want them to be meaningful.”
But the obstacle to any new legislation was plain in the empty Republican chairs: GOP senators have boycotted all hearings on for-profit schools in protest. Republicans argue that Mr. Harkin is unfairly targeting the for-profit sector when student loan debt and low graduation rates are seen in public and nonprofit higher education, as well.
The recent scrutiny has targeted the “career” section of higher education, as policymakers argue that those programs are designed to lead directly to employment in certain fields, as opposed to a liberal arts education, where outcomes are tougher to judge.
But when Mr. Hamburger pressed the point of enforcing standards across all of higher education, Mr. Harkin replied, “You’re exactly right.”
Some advocates argue a new law is the only way to bring true reform. Barmak Nassirian, of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers, criticized the recent gainful employment regulations for being weaker than those initially proposed, due to a furious industry lobbying effort.
“Procedural regs are not going to do the trick,” Mr. Nassirian said. “What you want to do is you want to have very meaningful requirements that tie the outcomes for students and taxpayers to company managers and shareholders.
The CEO of one of the country’s biggest for-profit college companies told the Senate on Thursday that the industry should be regulated based on student outcomes.
DeVry Inc. CEO Daniel Hamburger said that schools’ eligibility for federal funding should be contingent on their ability to graduate students and place them in jobs without sinking them in unmanageable debt.
The Obama administration has taken a crack at that goal with recent controversial “gainful employment” regulations that the for-profit college industry has fought in the courtroom and elsewhere. Mr. Hamburger’s testimony, though, broke with the industrywide view.
Downtown-based Education Management Corp., which owns the Art Institutes and other schools, enrolls the second-most students of any for-profit higher education company.
The industry’s primary congressional inquisitor, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, convened a roundtable discussion Thursday featuring Mr. Hamburger, the CEO of the Regency Beauty Institute, an official from the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and advocates to explore possible laws governing the industry. He has heavily scrutinized for-profit colleges for the past year by giving whistle-blowers and critics a forum to discuss evidence of fraud in an industry that relies on federal grants and loans for the vast majority of its funding.
“We are going to look at making changes,” Mr. Harkin said. “I want them to be meaningful.”
But the obstacle to any new legislation was plain in the empty Republican chairs: GOP senators have boycotted all hearings on for-profit schools in protest. Republicans argue that Mr. Harkin is unfairly targeting the for-profit sector when student loan debt and low graduation rates are seen in public and nonprofit higher education, as well.
The recent scrutiny has targeted the “career” section of higher education, as policymakers argue that those programs are designed to lead directly to employment in certain fields, as opposed to a liberal arts education, where outcomes are tougher to judge.
But when Mr. Hamburger pressed the point of enforcing standards across all of higher education, Mr. Harkin replied, “You’re exactly right.”
Some advocates argue a new law is the only way to bring true reform. Barmak Nassirian, of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers, criticized the recent gainful employment regulations for being weaker than those initially proposed, due to a furious industry lobbying effort.
“Procedural regs are not going to do the trick,” Mr. Nassirian said. “What you want to do is you want to have very meaningful requirements that tie the outcomes for students and taxpayers to company managers and shareholders.
REUTERS: For-profit colleges sue Dept of Education over new rule
REUTERS
Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi
An association of for-profit colleges in the United States has sued the Department of Education to block the implementation of a controversial rule, saying the rulemaking process was flawed and the agency was overreaching in its capacity to frame such rules.
The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU), representing more than 1,650 colleges, filed a lawsuit in the federal District Court in Washington DC seeking to block the department's final 'gainful employment' regulations.
In June, the department finalized the rule which threatens to cut off federal aid -- a key source of revenue -- to colleges if they do not meet certain student debt criteria.
The final version of the rule is a much softer one than the draft published earlier as the industry fought back the strict rules through lobbying.
The rule is part of a larger package of regulations framed by the Obama administration to reduce student debt at for-profit colleges and make them more accountable for the taxpayers money they get to fund student loans.
"By issuing the gainful employment regulations, the Department of Education has clearly exceeded its statutory authority," APSCU's interim CEO Brian Moran said in a statement on Wednesday.
The department could not be immediately reached for a comment.
The group had sued the department in January over a different set of rules, and had won one claim while losing two.
APSCU members include Career Education Corp, Corinthian Colleges, DeVry Inc, Education Management Corp, ITT Educational Services and Lincoln Educational Services.
Sector leader Apollo Group is not a part of APSCU.
The colleges, accused of having high student default rates, had made changes to their admissions policies as they braced for a more stringent set of rules, leading to sharp declines in enrollment numbers. They had also cut jobs and scaled back on expansion plans.
The case is Career College Association vs Arne Duncan, secretary of Department of Education, and the department, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, No. 11-cv-01314. (Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
--
Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi
An association of for-profit colleges in the United States has sued the Department of Education to block the implementation of a controversial rule, saying the rulemaking process was flawed and the agency was overreaching in its capacity to frame such rules.
The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU), representing more than 1,650 colleges, filed a lawsuit in the federal District Court in Washington DC seeking to block the department's final 'gainful employment' regulations.
In June, the department finalized the rule which threatens to cut off federal aid -- a key source of revenue -- to colleges if they do not meet certain student debt criteria.
The final version of the rule is a much softer one than the draft published earlier as the industry fought back the strict rules through lobbying.
The rule is part of a larger package of regulations framed by the Obama administration to reduce student debt at for-profit colleges and make them more accountable for the taxpayers money they get to fund student loans.
"By issuing the gainful employment regulations, the Department of Education has clearly exceeded its statutory authority," APSCU's interim CEO Brian Moran said in a statement on Wednesday.
The department could not be immediately reached for a comment.
The group had sued the department in January over a different set of rules, and had won one claim while losing two.
APSCU members include Career Education Corp, Corinthian Colleges, DeVry Inc, Education Management Corp, ITT Educational Services and Lincoln Educational Services.
Sector leader Apollo Group is not a part of APSCU.
The colleges, accused of having high student default rates, had made changes to their admissions policies as they braced for a more stringent set of rules, leading to sharp declines in enrollment numbers. They had also cut jobs and scaled back on expansion plans.
The case is Career College Association vs Arne Duncan, secretary of Department of Education, and the department, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, No. 11-cv-01314. (Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
--
NPR: Must All Colleges Show Their Graduates Found Work?
NPR
by LARRY ABRAMSON
Now that the Education Department has released "Gainful Employment" rules for for-profit schools, some would like to see similar standards for non-profit colleges and universities. With student debt increasing, they say it would be useful for students to know what their job chances are. MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
This next story also involves debt. It asks what American students get in return for their student loans. And that leads to a deeper and older question: What is the purpose of an education? For-profit universities face new federal rules requiring them to prove their graduates are getting jobs and earning enough to repay their loans. Now non-profit and public colleges could face pressure to apply the same rules, and that has dismayed educators who argue that it's hard to put a dollar value on education.
NPR's Larry Abramson reports.
LARRY ABRAMSON: For-profit career colleges fought tooth and nail against these new rules. But now that they are in place, Brian Moran, acting president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, says he'd like equal treatment.
Mr. BRIAN MORAN (Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities): I guess we look for a little consistency. For those who would think these regulations are beneficial, then why not have them applied to all of higher ed?
ABRAMSON: The Department of Education focused its crackdown on career colleges because their students take out the biggest federal loans. That leaves taxpayers on the hook if students default. But with the average debt of all graduates at nearly $25,000, why not ask the same for all of higher ed?
Mr. MARK KANTROWITZ (Publisher, FinAid.org): Most students think of college as the pathway to a good job.
ABRAMSON: Mark Kantrowitz publishes FinAid.org. He says, sure, students go to school for lots of reasons - to broaden their horizons, to become good citizens, but most, he says, do expect a return on their investment. Kantrowitz says graduates of the best schools do earn enough to repay their loans.
Mr. KANTROWITZ: A college that has a 70 or 80 percent loan repayment rate, which is typical of the Ivy League institutions, is going to show up as a much better institution than a college that has a 25 or 35 percent loan repayment rate.
ABRAMSON: But don't expect to see your local college displaying these numbers any time soon on the front of the catalog. Few do. And Sandy Bowne(ph) of George Washington University says there's a good reason: success can't easily be measured with a single number.
Ms. SANDY BOWNE (George Washington University): If you're a women's college, your graduates are going to make less than if you're a co-ed institution. If you are a liberal arts institution, you may be educating a lot of people who are going off to graduate school and will take a long time to earn money.
ABRAMSON: Schools can't completely control who attends and how they do when they leave, Bowne says. And that's exactly what career colleges have argued. We attract lots of low-income students looking for a second chance. Don't penalize us for that, they say.
Terry Hartle of the American Council on Education says that's the problem with the idea of coming up with a single set of numbers for such a diverse industry.
Mr. TERRY HARTLE (American Council on Education): We have about 6,000 institutions of post-secondary education in the country. They run from three-month vocational programs to enormous research universities. And that heterogeneity that is such a key characteristic of American higher education is the very thing that makes it hard to come up with a single indicator.
ABRAMSON: But Anthony Carnevale, who studies education in the workforce at Georgetown University, says we don't need to settle this debate. He says parents and students should be able to make up their own minds.
Mr. ANTHONY CARNEVALE (Georgetown University): It's not so much that you suppose people will always choose the degree that gets them the most money. It's that they have a right to know what they're getting into.
ABRAMSON: Right now, savvy parents can track down some numbers on their own, like the average debt load at certain schools. But few traditional schools display this kind of nuts and bolts information right there in the catalog the way career colleges have to. Carnevale says no school and no program should be ignoring the big question: Can your students get a job?
Mr. CARNEVALE: So if higher education in America is unable to make people employable, it's very unlikely that it'll complete its other missions.
ABRAMSON: Federal law makes it possible for the Education Department to require that career schools monitor their placement rates. But when it comes to traditional schools, it's up to parents or students to decide whether they demand that information.
Larry Abramson, NPR News.
Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
by LARRY ABRAMSON
Now that the Education Department has released "Gainful Employment" rules for for-profit schools, some would like to see similar standards for non-profit colleges and universities. With student debt increasing, they say it would be useful for students to know what their job chances are. MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
This next story also involves debt. It asks what American students get in return for their student loans. And that leads to a deeper and older question: What is the purpose of an education? For-profit universities face new federal rules requiring them to prove their graduates are getting jobs and earning enough to repay their loans. Now non-profit and public colleges could face pressure to apply the same rules, and that has dismayed educators who argue that it's hard to put a dollar value on education.
NPR's Larry Abramson reports.
LARRY ABRAMSON: For-profit career colleges fought tooth and nail against these new rules. But now that they are in place, Brian Moran, acting president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, says he'd like equal treatment.
Mr. BRIAN MORAN (Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities): I guess we look for a little consistency. For those who would think these regulations are beneficial, then why not have them applied to all of higher ed?
ABRAMSON: The Department of Education focused its crackdown on career colleges because their students take out the biggest federal loans. That leaves taxpayers on the hook if students default. But with the average debt of all graduates at nearly $25,000, why not ask the same for all of higher ed?
Mr. MARK KANTROWITZ (Publisher, FinAid.org): Most students think of college as the pathway to a good job.
ABRAMSON: Mark Kantrowitz publishes FinAid.org. He says, sure, students go to school for lots of reasons - to broaden their horizons, to become good citizens, but most, he says, do expect a return on their investment. Kantrowitz says graduates of the best schools do earn enough to repay their loans.
Mr. KANTROWITZ: A college that has a 70 or 80 percent loan repayment rate, which is typical of the Ivy League institutions, is going to show up as a much better institution than a college that has a 25 or 35 percent loan repayment rate.
ABRAMSON: But don't expect to see your local college displaying these numbers any time soon on the front of the catalog. Few do. And Sandy Bowne(ph) of George Washington University says there's a good reason: success can't easily be measured with a single number.
Ms. SANDY BOWNE (George Washington University): If you're a women's college, your graduates are going to make less than if you're a co-ed institution. If you are a liberal arts institution, you may be educating a lot of people who are going off to graduate school and will take a long time to earn money.
ABRAMSON: Schools can't completely control who attends and how they do when they leave, Bowne says. And that's exactly what career colleges have argued. We attract lots of low-income students looking for a second chance. Don't penalize us for that, they say.
Terry Hartle of the American Council on Education says that's the problem with the idea of coming up with a single set of numbers for such a diverse industry.
Mr. TERRY HARTLE (American Council on Education): We have about 6,000 institutions of post-secondary education in the country. They run from three-month vocational programs to enormous research universities. And that heterogeneity that is such a key characteristic of American higher education is the very thing that makes it hard to come up with a single indicator.
ABRAMSON: But Anthony Carnevale, who studies education in the workforce at Georgetown University, says we don't need to settle this debate. He says parents and students should be able to make up their own minds.
Mr. ANTHONY CARNEVALE (Georgetown University): It's not so much that you suppose people will always choose the degree that gets them the most money. It's that they have a right to know what they're getting into.
ABRAMSON: Right now, savvy parents can track down some numbers on their own, like the average debt load at certain schools. But few traditional schools display this kind of nuts and bolts information right there in the catalog the way career colleges have to. Carnevale says no school and no program should be ignoring the big question: Can your students get a job?
Mr. CARNEVALE: So if higher education in America is unable to make people employable, it's very unlikely that it'll complete its other missions.
ABRAMSON: Federal law makes it possible for the Education Department to require that career schools monitor their placement rates. But when it comes to traditional schools, it's up to parents or students to decide whether they demand that information.
Larry Abramson, NPR News.
Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
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