Obama pakt beunhazen aan
New York Magazine meldt, dat “in the waning days of the Obama administration, the government may take its boldest step yet to hold schools like the University of Phoenix accountable for their questionable business practices — and questionable business model. Indeed, Obama’s Department of Education plans to issue a rule that would forgive billions of dollars in loans granted to hundreds of thousands of students at for-profit schools that have defrauded or misled them. The government is also planning ways to make the schools pay for the debt relief. Critics hope the rule will ultimately persuade the government to quit funding loans for troubled colleges.”
“This is a potentially decisive way to drive bad operators out of business,” zegt David Halperin, die de lobby trekt voor ‘for-profit-college reform’ met een zeer brede coalitie van betrokkenen en getroffenen: vakbondskoepel AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers, the NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens, en zelfs the Vietnam Veterans of America.
Kwijtschelding in drie gevallen
Het blad legt uit wat de explosieve achtergrond hiervan is: “Unlike public universities backed by taxpayers, or private nonprofit ones dependent on endowments, for-profit colleges are at the mercy of their shareholders. The business strategy has been one of open admissions and expensive tuition that requires recruiting students who can’t afford college and are dependent on loans from the government. This dependence has long been a concern, and during the Clinton era these schools were prohibited from getting more than 90 percent of their revenues from federally backed student loans. But that has led to another problem: widespread abuses in targeting veterans by taking advantage of a loophole that excludes their student grants from the 90-10 calculation.”
Obama heeft hier al ingegrepen, maar wil nu veel verder gaan. Dat zou leiden tot ‘blanket debt forgiveness to students who’ve attended fraud-plagued colleges’. Het Department of Education zal hoogstwaarschijnlijk een nieuwe regelgeving uitbrengen deze maand. Het Office of Management and Budget heeft voor het ministerie een aanpak uitgewerkt die er als volgt uit zou gaan zien: “relief would be provided under three circumstances: if a judgment was entered against the school, if the school made substantial misrepresentations, or if it breached its contract with students.”
De betrokken particuliere instellingen hebben de strijd al aangebonden tegen zo’n “unprecedented new set of student rights that could create massive liability for taxpayers; give unilateral fiscal power to the federal education department; and result in the bankruptcy of countless U.S. colleges and universities, devastating higher education.”
Toch niet voor Trump U
Overigens zouden alumni van Trump University hier niettemin geen baat bij hebben. Deze instelling beschikte over geen enkele adequate accreditatie en kon daarom niet meedoen in de regelingen voor ondersteuning van studenten bij deelname aan het onderwijsaanbod. Hoe nijpend de zaakniettemin kan zijn blijkt uit een net uitgekomen studie van het National Bureau of Economic Research. “It found that students from nonprofit schools earn less after they attended them than before they went.”
Lobbyist Halperin pleit dan ook voor strenge standaarden voor HO-tegemoetkomingen. “In the end this will save the taxpayer a lot of money. If there is a finding or a settlement that relates to deception, or the department itself makes a finding, then all students should be presumptively and automatically entitled to full discharge of their loans unless the student checks a box saying I don’t want loan forgiveness.”
Hoe men de schulden kan kwijtschelden en vervolgens terug vorderen van de beunhaas-aanbieders, heeft de regering Obama ook uitgewerkt. “Covering the loans could bankrupt many of them. In its initial proposal, the Department of Education said it planned to require that problem colleges show that they have the money to repay the loans or post a letter of credit anywhere from 10 percent to 50 percent of the amount it received in federal loans during the prior year, with the amount dependent on the likelihood of debt relief.”
