"Many people stop me on the street to ask what's in store for Vermont Student Assistance Corporation, and the Vermonters we serve, in the wake of legislation eliminating our role as a federal education loan provider, writes VSAC President and CEO Don Vickers. "Some things are still in flux, but I wanted to share where we stand as the 2010-11 school year begins."
Federal Work-Study (FWS) is the place where federal aid requirements, employers' needs, students' schedules, and human resources laws all converge. At best it's an administrative headache; at worst, students can miss opportunities for meaningful jobs and lower debt. An Innovative Approach to Work-Study, a recent Transcript article by Gayle Dohrman Young, describes how Central Washington University took control of their FWS program to provide better service, connect students with more career-related jobs, and make the program more manageable.
The Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council (PESC) has posted the latest edition of The Standard, PESC's monthly publication that provides news and commentary on technology and standards in postsecondary education. PESC is a non-profit, community-based, umbrella association of colleges and universities; college and university systems; professional and commercial organizations; data, software and service providers; non-profit organizations and associations; and state and federal government agencies. Through open and transparent community participation, PESC enables cost-effective connectivity between data systems to accelerate performance and service, to simplify data access and research, and to improve data quality along the higher education lifecycle.
"For market pressure to ensure quality and affordability in higher education, consumers must have not only the power to choose colleges, but also the power to compare those colleges on basic measures of cost and quality," American Enterprise Institute reports. "If prospective students lack the information, ability, or motivation to make decisions on the basis of such comparisons, then the market is unlikely to reward high-quality providers and compel others to improve. Compared with other big investments that we make in life--like buying a house or a car--the higher-education market is information-poor for most consumers, at least when it comes to measures of quality and cost."
"Two years ago, the founders of the University of Phoenix announced plans to create an independent, nonpartisan research institute to examine meaty educational issues affecting nontraditional students and for-profit higher education," the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "But for its first report, released Thursday, the Nexus Research and Policy Center has produced a 77-page document that is far longer on advocacy than analysis. The report, 'For-Profit Colleges and Universities: America's Least Cost and Most Efficient System of Higher Education,' sings the praises of the University of Phoenix and other for-profit colleges."
"New Hampshire is getting a $1.5 million federal grant to help increase enrollment in colleges and universities," the Associated Press reports. "The funds are going to programs that target foster children, potential first-generation college students, minorities and students with financial needs. ... The funds come from the Education Department's College Access Challenge Grant."
"In annual rankings of the best places to work in the federal government, the Education Department ranked third from the bottom in the 'large agencies' category, scoring just above the National Archives and Records Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which tied for last," the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
"My experience teaching at a for-profit college suggests that there's a way to further reduce this difference, if not eliminate it entirely," the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "It seems to me that the government could reduce the number of defaults if it mandated that participating institutions prescribe, and enforce, no-nonsense attendance policies. This might cut into the income stream of some for-profit colleges, but it would provide welcome relief to the taxpayers who have to pick up the tab for these bad debts."
"Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson dipped into personal funds to repay the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation about $31,000 for scholarships she awarded to four relatives and two children of an aide, her office said Wednesday," the Dallas Morning News reports. "Records from the foundation show that Johnson awarded 23 scholarships to the six ineligible students from 2005 and 2009, including two grandsons and two great-nephews."
"[A]t least one major for-profit higher education company is going to extraordinary lengths to strong-arm its faculty and staff to lobby against new rules the Obama administration has proposed that would cut off federal financial aid to for-profit college programs whose students take on the most unmanageable levels of debt (in relation to their expected future earnings) and have the poorest record of repayment," Higher Ed Watch reports. "Education Management Corporation (EDMC) has hired DCI Group, a controversial Republican advocacy and public relations firm that is expert in the art of manufacturing grass-roots lobbying campaigns for corporations (otherwise known as 'astroturfing') to contact the company's employees individually to help them craft letters to the U.S. Department of Education opposing the administration's new proposed 'gainful employment' regulations."
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