Sources: National Center for Education Statistics, New Deal 2.0, Nation of Change Total student loan debt in the U.S. in 2012: $1 trillion. Total student loan debt in the U.S. in 2011: $830 billion. Total credit-card debt in the U.S. in 2011: $826.5 billion. Total value of the federal student loans taken in 2010: $100…
One of the things that those of us who teach in public institutions, particularly those granting two-year degrees, have long known is that students get a better value from us than from the for-profit institutions that have been pushing so hard to compete with us. Now, with growing online opportunities from state institutions, the difference…
In August, Aaron Barlow, the editor of Academe and the Academe Blog, posted a piece on the blog addressing the possibility that electronic technologies might have the same impact on higher education as they have had on journalism. Aaron made the case that academia is fundamentally different than journalism in enough ways that our individual…
About a year ago, the Department of Education released its highly-anticipated “Gainful Employment” rules, which were meant to solve the problem of students spending a lot of money on job-preparedness programs that didn’t actually prepare them for jobs. The basic idea was that if too many of a school’s graduates were left unable to pay…
Student Veterans of America (SVA) is a national organization dedicated to helping veterans “succeed in higher education and following graduation.” The SVA has a strong emphasis on student leadership and building connections between veterans in higher ed to help them adjust to life out of the military and in school. That’s why SVA leaders were…
The debate over for-profit colleges could be coming to a theater near you. Aaron Calafato, an actor who also spent time working for a for-profit college in Ohio, wrote and stars in a new one-man play, For-Profit, about the industry. The play takes a harsh look at the industry, from the perspective of a recruiter talking…
Sometime in the last few weeks, a new website has gone up that monitors for-profit education. It’s called ForProfitU, and it’s a project of the Service Employees International Union. According to the website’s About page, “For-Profit U aims to educate students, parents, press and the general public on the dangers of for-profit colleges.” On February 2,…
This week, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) introduced a bill to cut back on for-profit exploitation of veterans. I wrote about this problem a few months ago, and it’s great to see a high-ranking member of congress taking action on it (Durbin is the #2 Democrat in the Senate). I’m happy to say that Durbin’s proposal…
The issue of for-profit colleges is a hot political debate, but until now, for-profits haven’t been mentioned in the presidential election (though they were a major issue in last year’s race for attorney general in Kentucky). But now, a leading candidate for the Republican nomination has injected himself into the debate on for-profit costs and…
In June, the Department of Education released its new rules about for-profit colleges. The regulations are known as the “gainful employment” rules, because they seek to ensure that graduates are adequately prepared for the workforce (and prepared to pay off their student loans) once they leave school. The final rules were weaker than those originally…