Our clients and others like them have been the targets of proprietary school abuses for many years. Starting last year, the Obama Administration and Congress started paying more attention to these issues. This included Department of Education negotiated rulemaking sessions on “program integrity.” We issued this brief in January 2010, giving some sense of the enormous growth of the industry and the consequences for students and taxpayers.
There are many excellent reports and articles to read on this topic. Here are just a few:
The U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Commitee held a number of important hearings in 2010 and issued reports on proprietary schools in June, September and December 2010 (military-related issues). Senator Harkin spoke on the Senate floor in December 2010 about the Committee’s invesigation and goals.
There were articles about for-profit education and the military and about recruitment at homeless shelters. You can find many important stories on this topic on the New America Higher Education blog. Analysts at the Quick and the Ed blog also wrote about this issue extensively, including a report on gainful employment and information about proprietary school vs. community college completion rates.
The Education Trust released a report, “Subprime Opportunity: The Unfulfilled Promise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities.” There were also stories in the The New York Times and many other newspapers about the growing problem, including the high student loan default rates at proprietary schools.
