Thomas Edison College President: Proposed Higher Education

[Saharapost]

I just watched (half of )the below video in which the president of TESC "kicks against" a regulation in the brew were some regulators seem to be calling for a change in online learning and the number of students that a college could graduate at a time... I would have to re-watch this video again because I hardly was able to finish it when I had to post this link.

Thomas Edison State College President Dr. George Pruitt said that some of the regulations that are being proposed for higher education are not rational.

[video]http://video.pbs.org/video/2365216342/[/video]

[soliloquy]

This is pretty interesting and pretty absurd. There has to be a way to keep the for profits from abusing the system without putting burdensome and harmful regulations in place that would threaten the productivity and growth of colleges who have not abused the system.

Our Congress should be forced to return to college to engage in a series of critical thinking courses.

[sanantone]

What I don't understand is why every college needs to become licensed in every state in which they offer online courses. Every school that is legally in existence is already authorized to operate in at least one state, so they are being regulated. While states have varying rules, regulations from every other state would mostly be redundant. This hurts the public and non-profit schools more than it hurts the for-profits. The large for-profits have the cash on hand to become licensed in every single state. Small non-profits would have to find a way to raise the money, and public universities would have to beg their state legislatures/taxpayers for more funding. This just reduces the number of non-profit options for students and leaves them mostly with just the few in-state options and the most abusive for-profits for distance education.

Texas will not allow any out-of-state program that has an internship or practicum requirement. I can somewhat understand the reasoning for this, but this does nothing to 99% of the for-profit programs out there. I'm sure Texas didn't make this rule to go after for-profit colleges, but the intention of the federal government was for state regulations to affect for-profits.

Dr. Pruitt's main focus was the regulation requiring that a certain percentage of students graduate within a certain period of time. According to him, 60% of college students are now non-traditional (over the age of 25). Of course, many of these people are working adults and/or have children and are attending part-time. It takes twice as long to finish when you attend part-time.

The solutions to reign for-profits are simple, but some of these solutions would affect non-profit and open enrollment schools. First, the federal government could put pressure on the accreditors to require admissions standards. The federal government was already successful is pressuring the HLC to raise its standards. Second, the federal government could lower the cap on undergraduate student loans for independent students. For-profits and some non-profits charge as much as they do because they can. They know that students can get enough aid to cover their tuition and fees. Another option would be quite drastic and controversial, but it would only affect the for-profits. The federal government could just flat out refuse to use taxpayer dollars to make for-profit colleges billion dollar companies. I wasn't a business major, but other than maybe defense contractors that are also controversial, what other industry has mega companies that get more than 90% of their profits from public money? This is corporate welfare.

[bricabrac]

I would guess this explains the changes that are being made at the college: Associates & BA capstones, added course requirements, exclusion of fema, etc.

[corpsole2]

I'm glad I finished my degree when I did, before it got too complicated.

Dr. Pruitt is fighting the good fight here, and alumni and students should back him up. Now, none of my state's congressional delegation serve on the committee, but those of you who see your congressman on the list, please let them know your feelings.

United States House Committee on Education and the Workforce - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[soliloquy]

I'm glad I'll be finished this summer before the complicate things further.

[topdog98]

Our Congress should be forced to return to college to engage in a series of critical thinking courses.

Maybe I am not understanding this correctly, but at the end of the video he seemed to say that these regulations are coming down from the Department of Education (in other words, the "administration") and not the Congress. He said the Department of Education has shown that they are not willing to listen to their concerns, and that is why they were appealing to Congress.

... Okay, I checked on this. It did come from the Dept. of Education. The regulation is called "program integrity" and requires institutions to acquire authorization from each state for students to take online/correspondence courses.

[soliloquy]

Maybe I am not understanding this correctly, but at the end of the video he seemed to say that these regulations are coming down from the Department of Education (in other words, the "administration") and not the Congress. He said the Department of Education has shown that they are not willing to listen to their concerns, and that is why they were appealing to Congress.

... Okay, I checked on this. It did come from the Dept. of Education. The regulation is called "program integrity" and requires institutions to acquire authorization from each state for students to take online/correspondence courses.

Then include the executive branch in the critical thinking course...and while you're at it...add the judiciary as well.

Seriously, thank you for explaining that. I still don't have a lot of confidence in Congress to put a stop to this tomfoolery.

[topdog98]

The include the executive branch in the critical thinking course...and while you're at it...add the judicial branch as well.

Yeah, it looks like the Federal courts are having their say in these regulations as well. The D.C. Court of Appeals is making the Department of Ed. rework some of the regulations.

If this is coming from the administration, I don't know what the Congress can do about it... besides hold hearings.

[sanantone]

Congress won't do anything unless the for-profit college lobby is complaining. If they aren't complaining about these new regulations waving their billions of dollars around, then the legislature won't care.