Protest Obama at Notre Dame, and Receive a Pink Slip?

Kathleen Gilbert of LifeSitenews.com is asking whether or not it is a coincidence that the only administration member to protest President Obama’s visit to the University has abruptly been terminated.   

A top pro-life professor at the University of Notre Dame is calling into question the motives of the university after Bill Kirk, a long-time member of the Notre Dame community and the only administration member to join a protest against President Obama’s appearance on campus, was abruptly terminated.

In May 2009, Kirk boycotted the official graduation ceremony at which President Obama was giving the commencement address and receiving an honorary law degree, and instead attended an alternate graduation ceremony held by pro-life graduates protesting Obama. Bishop John D’Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend, whose diocese includes the campus, also opted to attend the alternate ceremony.

The Observer newspaper reported Thursday that Father Tom Doyle, Notre Dame’s new Vice-President for Student Affairs, had terminated Kirk from his position as Associate Vice-President for Residence Life.

Doyle praised Kirk’s “thoughtful and caring” service as Student Affairs administrator, but said he had been fired “in anticipation of a restructuring that I want to do.”

A Notre Dame spokesman refused to comment to LifeSiteNews.com about the reasons behind Kirk’s termination, saying only that the university does not discuss personnel issues…Continue reading Notre Dame Abruptly Sacks only Admin Member to Protest Obama >>

CCAP Discusses For-Profit Education

Dr. Vedder, Adam Lucchesi, Chris Matgouranis, and Andrew Cadamagnani discuss For-Profit Education.

Do we need to cut the fat from the top down in higher education?

Todd Zywicki, of The Volokh Conspiracy, talks about Administrative Bloat at Universities:

…The acid test, of course, will be whether the financial downturn will lead to the scaling back of these bureaucratic empires. Ironically, it appears that one of the Obama Administration’s priorities is to funnel more money into higher education–which will reinforce exactly the sorts of pressures that Greene highlights. Higher education almost perfectly converts subsidies (whether direct or aid to students) into higher prices. With no real reason to expect that those subsidies will be used to promote better substantive outputs instead of internal agency costs…(MORE)

College or Bust?

Iza Wojciechowska reports on Inside Higher Ed this morning, on public higher education’s boom and bust cycle:

Students will have to dig deeper into their wallets this year to pay for college” has been a popular lede in newspaper articles over the past few months, as many public universities are increasing their tuitions by upwards of 15 percent.

To deal with struggling economies and large budget cuts, governing boards all over the country are giving public institutions the authority to institute large tuition hikes, and many universities are taking the maximum allotment. The Florida Board of Governors set a mandatory increase of 8 percent and allowed each university to add up to a 7 percent bump at their discretion. All 11 public universities opted for the maximum 15 percent tuition increase, and many are raising fees by an unprecedented 15 percent as well.

In Alabama, where further reductions are anticipated after the November elections, budget cuts are likely to have a “dramatic impact” on state universities, said Gregory Fitch, executive director of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education. “Even though some of our regional universities are going to be 8 or 9 percent higher, the average is going to be double digits across the board,” he said. Alabama A&M University will see the highest tuition increase in the state this year, with a 25.4 percent hike.

Disturbing as they may be to students and parents, tuition increases of this sort have become a familiar part of public higher education’s boom and bust cycle, in which legislators and public college leaders respond to big budget cuts by jacking up tuition even higher…Continue reading Paying the Price >>

Cato’s McClusky: Politicians are the problem for Higher Ed

Neal McClusky had an essay on the Cato Institute blog last month, explaining he believes that politics, not the market, are the primary problem right now in higher education.

In a recent hearing — the first in a promised series — members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee began an inquisition into for-profit higher education, suggesting the sector exploits vulnerable Americans.

“Congress has a responsibility to ensure that … opportunity is real, and not just false hopes pedaled on a billboard or pop-up ad,” declared HELP Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, in his opening statement, setting the hearing’s tone.

So what’s wrong with federal politicians calling for-profits to the carpet?

What’s wrong is the entire higher education system — not just the proprietary part — is broken, and it’s the politicians’ fault…Continue reading Politicians Are the Problem for Higher Ed >>

We need more college graduates! Oh, wait…

George Leef wrote on The Pope Center last week that, “A hefty new study purports to prove U.S. needs more college graduates, but flops”:

…Before getting into the substance of the paper, it’s worth a moment to explain why this matters. With the American economy struggling like a swimmer fighting against a strong undertow, it’s now especially important to make wise use of resources. If we devote more money and manpower than necessary to education (or anything else) at this point, we’ll make our bad economic situation even worse.

Not only that, but if, as I’ve argued, the more we expand higher education the more we degrade educational standards, following the paper’s advice will also make a bad educational situation worse.

The authors begin by arguing that the government’s official source of information about the labor force (the Bureau of Labor Statistics) misleads the public about the extent to which jobs in the future will require college education. “Ultimately,” they write, “the official data misinforms the educational choices and career plans of individuals and their counselors.” The BLS doesn’t show that the nation is facing an acute shortage of workers who have a college education. That has the authors upset.

I doubt strongly that anyone makes educational choices on the basis of BLS projections, but let’s put that cavil aside and proceed to the crux of the matter: Will future labor force conditions increasingly necessitate and reward college education?  Continue reading This Paper Refutes Itself >>

Mayor Daley of Chicago Calls for End to Open Admissions

Fran Spielman, at the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Chicago Mayor Daley wants to close “open-door” admissions at city colleges to save on costs:

…The amount of money spent on remedial courses represents six percent of the system’s $457.5 million budget. But, the price tag of bringing students up to speed is almost certain to rise.

With layoffs and pay cuts mounting, City Colleges have become an attractive alternative for students and families seeking to reduce the skyrocketing cost of a college education…Continue reading Mayor Daley: Close ‘open-door’ admissions at Chicago City Colleges >>

Hat-tip: Inside Higher Ed

Why do people REALLY go to school?

Mike Rose has an essay on Inside Higher Ed today, explaining that many students seek higher education for reasons that pure economics.

…Over the past eight years I’ve been studying the cognitive demands of physical work. That includes comparatively high-end jobs such as surgery and physical therapy, but mostly blue-collar and service occupations, such as plumbing and hair styling — the kind of occupations the people we just heard from hope to enter. Our society tends to make sharp and weighty distinctions between white collar and blue collar occupations, between brain work and hand work, “neck up and neck down” jobs, as one current aphorism has it.

But what I’ve found as I’ve closely examined physical work is its significant intellectual content. This content is no surprise if we consider the surgeon, but the carpenter and the hair stylist and the welder, too, are constantly solving problems, applying concepts, making decisions on the fly. A lot of our easy characterizations about work just don’t hold up under scrutiny. Hand and brain are cognitively connected.

While doing this research, I’ve spent a lot of time in high school and college vocational programs watching people gain expertise. These observations have given me a valuable perspective on current economic and education policy aimed at getting young and no-so-young people back to school, particularly those who are academically underprepared and typically come from a lower-middle class to working-class backgrounds.

People, affluent as well as poor, go back to school for all kinds of reasons, but our current policy incentives and the rhetoric that frames them don’t capture this rich web of motives…Continue reading More than a Paycheck >>

Diversity Schmiversity

Timothy Larson has a piece on Inside Higher Ed today, explaining how some in higher education feel religion and academics don’t mix:

I had lunch this summer with a prospective graduate student at the evangelical college where I teach. I will call him John because that happens to be his name. John has done well academically at a public university. Nevertheless, as often happens, he said that he was looking forward to coming to a Christian university, and then launched into a story of religious discrimination.

John had been a straight-A student until he enrolled in English writing. The assignment was an “opinion” piece and the required theme was “traditional marriage.” John is a Southern Baptist and he felt it was his duty to give his honest opinion and explain how it was grounded in his faith. The professor was annoyed that John claimed the support of the Bible for his views, scribbling in the margin, “Which Bible would that be?” On the very same page, John’s phrase, “Christians who read the Bible,” provoked the same retort, “Would that be the Aramaic Bible, the Greek Bible, or the Hebrew Bible?” (What could the point of this be? Did the professor want John to imagine that while the Greek text might support his view of traditional marriage, the Aramaic version did not?) The paper was rejected as a “sermon,” and given an F, with the words, “I reject your dogmatism,” written at the bottom by way of explanation.

Thereafter, John could never get better than a C for papers without any marked errors or corrections. When he asked for a reason why yet another grade was so poor he was told that it was inappropriate to quote C. S. Lewis in work for an English class because he was “a pastor.” (Lewis, of course, was actually an English professor at Cambridge University. Perhaps it was wrong to quote Lewis simply because he had said something recognizably Christian.) Eventually John complained to the department chair, who said curtly that he could do nothing until the course was over. John took this to mean that the chair would do nothing and just accepted the bad grade.

I suspect that many readers are already generating “maybe …. ” scenarios that fill out this story so that John was actually treated fairly. Blaming the victim is a familiar response to reports of discrimination. Maybe John is just one of those uppity believers who don’t know their place…Continue reading
No Christianity Please, We’re Academics >>

Preparing the Scapegoats for Slaughter

The president of an online school watches the government’s unfolding campaign against schools that seek profits, and is aghast.

The Obama administration, working with congressional Democrats, has rolled out a concerted effort to change American postsecondary education.  As with health care and finance, the administration has a consistent method: Focus on a felt need, find a scapegoat, and use the full force of coercive state power to effect radical change. 

Today’s scapegoats are the proprietary higher education companies. In addition to offering online education, some of those firms are starting to purchase near-bankrupt nonprofit colleges and convert them into platforms for Internet-based courses. If they are allowed to proceed in that, American higher education will become more diverse, less expensive, and more consumer-oriented.  But the Obama administration apparently believes that profits are resources better distributed by government agencies than by the marketplace. 

The U.S. Department of Education has begun a multi-pronged attack on for-profit schools.  One offensive consists of proposed regulations. The “gainful employment” rule, for example, would cut off proprietary colleges from access to federal tuition assistance unless they can show that their graduates earn enough to pay off student loans. Another thrust is to prevent accrediting agencies from allowing for-profit investors to purchase traditional schools (even when those schools are failing financially). We are already seeing a response to that pressure from the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

Yorktown University, which I head, has followed these unfolding developments with acute interest. We are accredited by the Distance Education and Training  Council (DETC), a national accreditor. We hope to obtain regional accreditation as well, so that our students can transfer the credits they earn at Yorktown to regionally accredited institutions; these schools will not accept transfer of credits from schools that have “only” national accreditation. 

In April, I attended a seminar conducted by the Higher Learning Commission. This was the second such seminar I have attended in order to prepare Yorktown for applying for regional accreditation.

Until recently, the Higher Learning Commission was a trendsetter, the only regional accrediting association willing to accredit institutions that teach mostly or entirely over the Internet; until 2008, no excessive barriers to accreditation were placed on Internet-based applicants. A few months before the election of President Obama, however, Sylvia Manning became president of HLC, and the policy changed. 

At the April 2010 seminar I attended, Karen L. Solinski, vice president for legal and government affairs, informed the seminar that not only must all accredited institutions be incorporated in one of the states in the region but they must have a state license in each state in which they have a “substantial presence.”

During the break I asked Ms. Solinski to specify what constitutes “presence” in a state. In good lawyer-like fashion she asked me, “Do you have representatives in any states?” I said “no.” Her raised eyebrows suggested that I did, and I thought, well, we do have instructors who reside in and instruct our students from states other than Colorado, where Yorktown University is incorporated.

She then asked, “Do you have proctors in states?” I replied, “Yes, but surely you aren’t saying that the use of a proctor triggers a state licensing requirement?”  She said that it would. Proctors supervise the exams taken by students in online courses. Solinksi seemed to be saying that merely having a student taking an exam, and thus having a proctor monitor it, whatever the state, would require the university to have a license in that state. In addition to the cost of multiple state licenses, each state has its own regulations. Some states require annual fees, others require a hefty surety bond, and Virginia even taxes authorized shares of stock companies.  Keeping track of them would be costly, time-consuming, and difficult.

During a break, I asked Solinski, “Do you mean that HLC intends to enforce state licensing regulations?” She said, “Yes.” This means that HLC, a private organization, is taking on the responsibility of enforcing regulations promulgated by the state. Not only is this inappropriate but it is probably unconstitutional.

I called to Solinski’s attention a Federal Trade Commission finding that it is a restraint of trade for states to require out-of-state optometrists to be licensed if they sell contact lenses in the state. The example seemed to be exactly parallel. To my comment, Ms. Solinski replied, “Education is a special responsibility of the states.” Okay, education has historically been responsible for education (the U.S. Constitution doesn’t mention education), but regulating private companies from other states is not a recognized state responsibility, whether the companies are in education or not.

During this seminar I was sitting at a table along with two representatives of an institution also accredited by DETC. They were shocked by this exchange.  I explained to them that the inspector general of the Department of Education had informed the Higher Learning Commission last December that its charter could be revoked. According to InsideHigherEd.com, HLC had endangered its status “because it granted accreditation to a for-profit university despite a single flaw that the inspector general deemed to be serious.”

Apparently, HLC has decided that by promoting and emphasizing state licensing, it is making clear that it will no longer accredit solely Internet-based distance-learning institutions.  That may save it from censure or revocation of its charter by the Department of Education.

But it will also harm numerous institutions, both profit-making and non-profit. There are two methods of attaining regional accreditation:  earn it or buy it. In June, the Higher Learning Commission denied the application for change of ownership to two proprietary companies that were seeking to purchase regionally accredited institutions, Dana College in Nebraska and Rochester College in Michigan.

The message is coming through loud and clear that the Department of Education simply doesn’t want for-profit institutions to exist.  On April 28, Robert Shireman, deputy undersecretary of education, gave a speech emphasizing the large amount of federal aid that is channeled to the for-profits.

And on June 30, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Il) gave a speech to the National Press Club in which he stated that purchasing colleges for their accreditation should be banned, and he outlined a comprehensive plan for reining in proprietary education companies. 

Sen. Durbin referred to testimony by Wall Street arbitrager, Steve Eisman, that proprietary education companies are analogous to mortgage companies that created the subprime credit crisis. Since then, it has become known that short-sellers, a group to which Eisman belongs, have been working with Durbin—and probably others, including the Department of Education—to discredit for-profits in order to reap the rewards of declining share prices.

Durbin then outlined a broad plan to attack for-profits, by the following steps:

• Denying access to federal grants and loans to schools that have defaults of 30 percent over three years or 40 percent in one year
• Restricting “institutions that receive federal student aid from paying their admissions recruiters on the basis of enrollment numbers”
• Instituting “new regulations that would require for-profit colleges to disclose job placement rates”
• Relating student loans to “gainful employment.”  If degree programs do not lead to good jobs that enable student to repay student loans, then the institutions offering those degree programs will lose access to federal tuition assistance programs (this regulation has been proposed).
• Lowering the 90-percent threshold that allows schools to receive up to 90 percent of their income through federal programs
• Restricting the use of federal financial aid dollars that can be used for  ”slick advertising,” such as “billboards, television commercials, and advertisements on the sides of buses”
• Controlling how much these institutions lend to their own students
• Stopping the practice of buying accredited institutions.

Sen. Durbin’s assault raises severe constitutional questions. Restricting normal advertising violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Requiring state licensing of companies not domiciled in that state violates the commerce clause of the Constitution. And singling out for-profit education for using Title IV funds without including non-profit colleges violates the due process clause.

On these constitutional grounds alone, the Obama administration attack on for-profit education should be rejected.

But other consequences are equally objectionable. By deterring the purchase of accreditation, for example, the administration will challenge the ability of marginal nonprofit institutions—including institutions with large minority populations—to survive. And whether the for-profits can survive this assault is an unanswered question. My worst fear is that for profit education delivered via the Internet will experience the fate of the nuclear power industry after Three Mile Island.

The adage that “federal money brings federal control” is proving to be true. It confirms the suspicion of some that President Lyndon Johnson knew that if he could control the financing of higher education he could control the content of higher education. That control is now in federal hands.

Also on The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy

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