How the Sausage Is Made
WASHINGTON -- Tensions between for-profit institutions and their foes came to the fore as a panel of concerned parties convened here Monday afternoon to begin the multi-month process of working out new regulations governing the integrity of federal financial aid programs.
It was the first day of a four-day session (to be followed by two more four-day sessions, one in December, the other in January) of negotiated rule making, intended to help the Department of Education craft regulations on a series of issues that the department can use to oversee institutions that receive federal financial aid under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965.
Among the issues up for discussion are incentive compensation for recruiters, the alleged misrepresentation of information to students, and how to disburse financial aid to programs that offer instruction in modules or compressed timeframes, rather than typical semesters. All are controversial issues in the world of for-profit colleges. The audience of the open-to-the-public event included dozens of for-profit lobbyists and staffers.
So, as could have been anticipated, the first real discord in the process came in finalizing just who would serve on the panel. The department selected committee members who “represent the interests significantly affected by the topics proposed for negotiations,” but gave just three of the panel’s 28 spots to representatives of private, for-profit institutions. After the meeting started, a fourth -- Michale S. McComis, executive director of the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges -- was added without objection as an alternate.
Elaine Neely, the only primary negotiator representing for-profits, proposed the addition of two more primary negotiators: Jeff Arthur, of ECPI College of Technology and co-chair of the Career College Association’s regulatory affairs committee, and William Leach, of Lincoln Educational Services. “It’s important that we have other members of proprietary schools at the table given the number of issues and … students we represent,” she said.
The most vocal opposition came from Margaret Reiter, a lawyer and the primary negotiator representing consumer advocacy organizations. In 2007, as a California deputy attorney general, she filed suit against Corinthian Colleges, Inc., and won a $6.5 million settlement for the state. She said the group was already large enough with 14 primary negotiators, all with alternates, and should “go forward with the size group we have.” Pressed for further explanation of her position, Reiter said she thought the panel was already “a well-balanced group representing a variety of constituencies.” Adding more representatives of for-profits, she said, would make the conversation “a little more weighted” and do so unnecessarily since “the proprietary schools tend to have a fairly consistent view among them.” [Inside Higher Ed]
