Dive Brief:
- For-profit supporters and Department of Education officials are sparring over claims that the federal government used its student aid disbursement power to change rules and force the closure of several colleges and universities in recent months, the Hill reports.
- Career Education Colleges and Universities CEO Steve Gunderson says that employment outcomes and debt-to-income standards disproportionately focus upon for-profit trends. “I think there are simply some people within this administration who are opposed to the concept of the private sector being involved in the delivery of education at any level and they want to dramatically reduce or eliminate the sector’s existence," Gunderson told the Hill.
- DOE Undersecretary Ted Mitchell maintains that the government is more concerned with outcomes than tax status.
Dive Insight:
No one doubts that federal and state officials have worked to dismantle systems which promise and award degrees that employers do not value in the marketplace, but the question is if that responsibility falls upon the institutions, or the prerogative of the employers. The lesson for all institutions is finding ways to legitimize or promote credentialing in industry-specific areas, using faculty expertise, corporate partnerships or industry endorsed training methods to increase that credibility.
For-profits, at least those which the DOE finds to be helpful to workforce development, will survive and grow. But will smaller institutions be able to survive the new standard of federal review, and essentially, accreditation tied to access in the federal student aid program?
