Feds Pcredit card loansut For-Profit Colleges on Notice: Do Better or Lose Student Aid

By CHRISTINE ARMARIOFormer students in career-training programs at dozens of for-profit institutions have had so much trouble paying off their loans that the schools could lose access to federal student aid if they don’t improve, new data from the Department of Education finds.The Education Department reported that at 193 programs at 93 schools, students were unable to meet any of three measures under the agency’s new “gainful employment” rule. The new regulations, announced by the Obama administration last year, are aimed at making sure students in career-training programs at for-profit, nonprofit and public institutions are able to get a job and pay off their student loans when they graduate.The programs include Everest College’s paralegal training in Salt Lake City and more than 40 other programs operated by Corinthian Colleges (COCO), one of the nation’s largest higher education companies; chef training at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Austin, Texas; and the medical assistant program at Sanford-Brown College in McLean, Va.”Career colleges have a responsibility to prepare people for jobs at a price they can afford,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. “Schools that cannot meet these very reasonable standards are on notice: Invest in your students’ success, or taxpayers can no longer invest in you.”The Education Department considers former students “gainfully employed” if the program they participated in meets one of three metrics: The estimated annual loan payments for a typical graduate does not exceed 30% of his or her discretionary income or 12% of total earnings; or at least 35% of former students are repaying their loans.”These aren’t the strictest standards to live up to,” said Stephen Burd, a senior policy analyst at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute. That there are programs at 93 schools that don’t meet any of the three “should raise alarms, and the fact we aren’t doing anything about them for a long while from now is worrisome.” Currently, 12% of all students in higher education attend a for-profit institution, yet they represent 46% of all student loan dollars in default. While students who attend community colleges usually do not have to borrow money to enroll, the median federal student loan debt for a student earning an associate’s degree at a for-profit was $14,000.Meanwhile, for more than a quarter of for-profit schools, 80% of their revenue consists of federal student aid, the Department of Education said in announcing the finalized rule last year.The department estimated 8% of all career programs would fail to meet the three benchmarks at some point in time, while only 2% would eventually lose student aid eligibility.Related ArticlesObama Orders For-Profit Schools to Stop Scamming Our TroopsThis Bright-Eyed Young Man Was Utterly Demolished By Student LoansEscape from Student Loans! 8 Creative Ways to Ditch Your DebtThe data being released Wednesday covers 3,695 programs in 1,335 schools over a two-year period. Of those, 35% met all three measurements; 31% met two; 29% met one and 5% did not meet any of the three metrics.Burd said many had expected the number who failed all three of the benchmarks to be much higher. Nonetheless, he said the data raises serious questions about the quality of training that students are receiving at institutions that didn’t meet any of the benchmarks.

• 10. University of Texas at Austin
• 9. University of Washington (Seattle)
• 8. University of Georgia (Athens GA)
• 7. University of Florida (Gainesville FL)
• 6. College of William and Mary (Williamsburg VA)
• 5. University of Wisconsin (Madison WI)
• 4. State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton NY)
• 3. New College of Florida (Sarasota FL)
• 2. University of Virginia (Charlottesville VA)
• 1. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill NC)

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  More Galleries on DailyFinance“If we’re seeing they’re failing all three metrics and we’re not taking any action related to that, it’s putting students in harm’s way,” he said.All of the data to be released Wednesday is strictly for informational purposes and to give the schools an opportunity to review and work on improving their student outcomes, the department said. Enforcement will begin this fall, though schools would need to fail for three out of four years in order to lose access to federal student aid.Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.