Education Dept. Promises Better Policing of Tests Used to Qualify Students for Aid
The Education Department is stepping up its oversight of the basic-skills tests that students without a high-school diploma or GED can use to qualify for federal student aid, a top official told members of Congress on Wednesday.
Testifying before a U.S. House of Representatives education subcommittee, Robert M. Shireman, deputy under secretary of education, said the department has put in place systems to better monitor publishers of the assessments, known as "ability to benefit" tests, and will revisit regulations governing the tests during a rule-making session that starts in November. The department will also consider publishing lists of legitimate institutions and diploma mills to help for-profit colleges differentiate between valid and invalid degrees, he said.
Wednesday's hearing came less than a month after the Government Accountability Office reported it had found that officials administering an ability-to-benefit test at a for-profit college had given out answers and had changed answer sheets so that students would be eligible for federal funds. In its report, the GAO also found that officials at two proprietary schools had helped prospective students obtain invalid high-school diplomas from diploma mills.
The report, "Proprietary Schools: Stronger Department of Education Oversight Needed to Help Ensure Only Eligible Students Receive Federal Student Aid," got the attention of the chairman of the House education committee, who called its findings "extremely troubling." In an e-mail message to Bloomberg News last month, the chairman, Rep. George Miller, Democrat of California, said he would hold hearings on whether for-profit colleges were "gaming the system" to enroll "students who may not be fully ready for college and may be more likely to default" on loans.
Wednesday's hearing did little to answer those questions, though it did give the Education Department and for-profit colleges an opportunity to defend themselves. In his testimony, Harris N. Miller, president of the Career College Association, argued that most of his members "play by the rules" and stressed that the report had not uncovered any "pattern of abuse." [The Chronicle of Higher Education]
