Pacific Progressive

Drowning In Debt: The Sad State of Student Loans

This material was created by Campus Progress.

by Jon Christian

After Alan Collinge earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in aerospace engineering at the University of Southern California in 1998, he consolidated $50,000 of student loans with Sallie Mae—an education finance corporation which, at the time, he believed was part of the U.S. government.

Collinge found work as an aeronautical research scientist at the California Institute of Technology the next year. But as his cost of living rose, he started having difficulty making loan payments. In what he now acknowledges was one of the worst mistakes of his life, he quit his research position at the university hoping to land a more lucrative job in the defense industry.

But he wasn’t able to find employment quickly enough. His loans approached default, and he felt like his life was falling apart. In a financial sense, it was. By his early thirties, he found himself slapped with more than $100,000 of debt and penalties, yet unable to qualify for an economic hardship forbearance.

At the same time, he says, he was subject to increasingly aggressive harassment by collection agencies. In his 2009 manifesto, “The Student Loan Scam,” he says he was “verbally assaulted, intimidated, and humiliated,” by collection agents.

Student Veterans and For-Profit Colleges: A Match Made in Hell?

This material was created by Campus Progress.

by Emily Crockett

After serving in the Army for 16 years, former Staff Sgt. Jon Elliot wanted to pursue an education and found ATI Career Training Center.

Recruiters falsely assured Elliot that the program was covered under his Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, so he enrolled. But it wasn’t covered and, four short months later, Elliot dropped out and was hit with a $9,600 tuition bill.

Elected officials say Elliot’s story highlights disturbing new findings revealing how for-profit schools exploit veterans.

Led by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), several members of the Senate addressed the issue during a hearing on the issue Thursday.

The crux of the problem is clear: Many for-profit colleges are aggressively marketing their programs to veterans, who, after paying for the education with funds from the Post-9/11 GI Bill, often discover too late that their education was worthless and their benefits were used up.

(Read More For-Profit Coverage from Campus Progress)

Obama Administration Offers First Details on No Child Left Behind Waivers

Laura ClawsonFollowforDaily Kos Labor

As promised, the Obama administration has started providing some details of the No Child Left Behind waivers it will be issuing to states:

Senior administration officials said waivers will be awarded to states that adopt academic standards that ensure their high school graduates are ready for college or a career, measure school performance not merely by test results but by student improvement over time, and evaluate teachers and principals using a variety of measures, including but not limited to student test scores.

States will be required to launch “rigorous” campaigns to turn around their lowest-performing schools — the bottom 5 percent. And they will have to devise ways to focus on students with the greatest needs in another 10 percent of schools with low graduation rates or large achievement gaps between students of different races. States will also have greater flexibility with about $1 billion in funding for schools attended by poor children.

States will still be required to test all children in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school and report results by subgroups — including race, English learners and students with disabilities — so it is clear how every student is faring.

The plan drew a positive response from the National Education Association:

The Progress Report - Tuesday Sept 27 - Eric Cantor, This Will Go Down On Your Permanent Record

By ThinkProgress War Room

This material was created for the Progress Report, the daily e-mail publication of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Click here to subscribe

What Does the GOP Have Against American Jobs, Kids?

President Obama is in Colorado today touting his plans to put Americans back to work modernizing our aging schools and to make sure there are plenty of teachers to fill those schools.

Here’s the rundown of the president’s plan and why Republican opposition to it is so shocking.

WHAT:

• A $30 BILLION plan to put hundred of thousands of Americans to work modernizing at least 35,000 schools across the country.
• A $35 BILLION plan to save the jobs of 280,000 teachers, police, firefighters, and other first responders.

THIS OR THAT:

 We can put hundreds of thousands of Americans back to work, keep 280,000 more Americans like teachers and cops in their jobs, and modernize one-third of our nation’s schools for less than what keeping the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will cost us each year.

Chilean Students Give Up Academic Year for Free Education

by Monse Sepulveda, Waging NonViolence

In Chile the movement for education is nothing new, as Luisa Trujillo eloquently explains on this site. I first heard about it in 2006, when a friend knocked on my door, shouting that I should come out to join the march heading to a plaza downtown. I rushed out.

Throughout my life, and that of my parents, we have watched students year after year assemble in city plazas to march for reforms concerning bus passes, school infrastructure, or for more scholarships. Sometimes it’s the high school students, as in the “Movement of the Penguins” (in allusion to high school uniforms) in 2006; other times, it’s been only university students; most times, we’ve cooperated with each other, understanding that whether we’re in our teens or our 20s, we strive for a common goal. This is not a movement; it has been the movement in Chile for nearly four decades.

This continuity is what powers the movement this year. Most of the university students who are now leading the movement (Camila Vallejos, Giorgio Jackson, amongst many others), five years ago were marching with the “penguins.” On that occasion, the protests were called off when Michelle Bachellet’s government conceded to the reforms demanded by the students. Now, those same students, and most of the population, realize the reforms were, at best, political demagogy, and at worst, a political maneuver meant to suppress the movement. The students are disillusioned and won’t stop marching, singing, and dancing until real changes are achieved.

Unequal Aid - Discriminatory Treatment of Gay and Transgender Applicants and Families Headed by Same-Sex Couples in the Higher Education Financial Aid Process

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Crosby Burns

Download this report (pdf)

Download the introduction and summary (pdf)

Read the report in your web browser (Scribd)

See also: Fact Sheet: LGBT Discrimination in Higher Education Financial Aid by Crosby Burns

Financial aid for higher education often represents the lifeline that allows students to acquire a postsecondary education in our country. Access to higher education is the gateway to economic prosperity for many Americans. Individuals with higher education have higher earnings than those who do not, and that holds true across race, ethnicity, and gender. Similarly, those with higher education degrees experience lower rates of unemployment and poverty, as well as have fewer health issues than those who do not or cannot attain a postsecondary education. And those with college degrees exhibit higher rates of civic engagement—they are more likely to vote, donate blood, and volunteer.

Union Busting from the Bench: Judge Acting as Strikebreaking Advisor in Tacoma Teachers Strike?

by Steve Singiser, Daily Kos Labor

As many readers (particularly those in the Pacific Northwest) were already aware, teachers in Tacoma have been on strike for over a week.

The crux of the dispute, as opposed to the more common discrepancies over salary and benefits, seems to revolve around the procedures by which teachers can be dismissed or reassigned. The district headed to court and won a round in court when Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff issued a restraining order against the union.

Where this story gets a bit disconcerting is what happened after the union, predictably, voted to keep striking. Judge Chushcoff decided to shift from arbiter of legal standards in the case, to wartime consigliere for the district. Check this out:

A Pierce County Superior Court judge said in court [Monday] he might authorize the Tacoma School District to hire replacement workers if striking teachers do not return to work as he ordered Wednesday. In the meantime, it was announced that there will be no school for Tacoma students again Tuesday.

Judge Bryan Chushcoff suggested such an authorization might convince the vast majority of the teachers, who have not shown up to work since Sept. 12, to return to their classrooms while their negotiators try to reach a contract agreement with the district.

The Importance of Unionization Benefits for the Child Care System in California

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Sarah Jane Glynn, Ann O'Leary

Child care providers are an essential component of the California economy. Working parents without care for their children miss out on work and on the pay needed to keep their families thriving and keep our economic engine humming.

Many working parents who work long hours outside of the regular business day rely on family child care providers, small family-run businesses, to care for their children when they work the night shift or must be at work at 5 a.m. to open the store. Yet last year alone, the number of licensed family child care providers in California decreased by 14 percent, in part due to the inefficient state reimbursement system that has had some providers waiting months to get paid by the state for the subsidized care they provide for low-income children. A lack of timely reimbursements is just but one problem plaguing family child care workers—little access to training and uneven quality standards also frustrate those providing care.

Gov. Brown could take a critical step toward improving the provision of child care in California by signing Assembly Bill 101. A.B. 101 gives family child care providers a voice in determining the rules and regulations that govern their work. The bill would allow these child care providers to form a union in order to participate in negotiations with the state about the child care industry—including how and when they are reimbursed for subsidized child care.

What Skills Shortage?

Written by John Schmitt   

From CEPR Blog at the Center for Economic and Policy Research

I remember well the gas shortages of the 1970s. Long lines at the pumps, and gas prices through the roof. Higher prices are, of course, the textbook free-market response to a shortage.

Some economic analysts argue that an important reason we have high unemployment today is because we have a shortage of skilled workers. Employers have good jobs to fill, but they can’t find qualified workers to fill them.

If there really is a shortage of skilled workers, though, we’d expect to see skilled workers’ wages rising. Back in the late 1990s, for example, when the economy experienced four years of sustained low unemployment, and employers really were beating the bushes to fill vacancies, inflation-adjusted wages for workers at all skill levels rose faster than they have during any period in  the last three decades.

Journalist David Wessel has posted a magnificent graph at the Real Time Economics blog that shows almost the exact opposite of what we’d expect if there were a shortage of skilled workers.

Source: Matthew Slaughter via David Wessel.

Schools in Disrepair

by Mark E Andersen for Daily Kos Labor

Not long ago I published "A trip to the school library," in which I documented how the lack of funds into a local school library has had devastating results.

The lack of funds is not only impacting learning materials, it is also impacting our nation's education infrastructure.

*The American Society of Civil Engineers, in its 2009 infrastructure report, gave the country’s school buildings a grade of ‘D.’

*About one-fourth (28 percent) of all public schools were built before 1950, and 45 percent of all public schools were built between 1950 and 1969, according to theNational Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities. The average age of public schools is 40 years old, according to the 21st Century School Fund.

*Though there is no current comprehensive nationwide data on the condition of the country’s school buildings, estimates to bring schools into good repair range from a low of at least $270 billion to more than $500 billion.

Our schools are literally falling apart, yet politicians like Wisconsin's Scott Walker want to give our tax dollars to private schools in the form of vouchers. As the president said last week in his speech to the joint session of Congress "How can we expect our kids to do their best in places that are literally falling apart? This is America. Every child deserves a great school—and we can give it to them, if we act now..."

The Progress Report - Sept 19 - What if the Tea Party Wins?

By Ian Millhiser 

This material was created for the Progress Report, the daily e-mail publication of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Click here to subscribe.

This weekend, the Constitution celebrated its 224th birthday. Yet, despite the fact that our founding document has served America well for more than two centuries, the Tea Party now wants to cast its principles aside and replace them with a radical anti-government manifesto. Despite the fact that the Constitution has been amended many times to make America more democratic and more responsive to We the People, the Tea Party believes that we have an authoritarian constitution that prohibits everything they disdain and requires nearly everything that they support.

THE END OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE: Last April, the House GOP voted almost unanimously to phase out Medicare and shift crippling medical costs onto seniors and their families. Yet this slow death of Medicare appears downright moderate compared to the Tea Party agenda of simply declaring our entire safety net for America’s seniors unconstitutional. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) claims Medicare and Social Security “contradict the principles of limited, constitutional government that our founders established to protect us.” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) mocked President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for calling upon the federal government to provide “a decent retirement plan” and “health care” because “the Constitution doesn’t give Congress any of those powers.” Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), who engineered the House of Representatives’ dramatic reading of the Constitution earlier this year, claimed that Medicare and Social Security are “not in the Constitution” and are only allowed to exist because “the courts have stretched the Constitution to say it’s in the general welfare clause.” And Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) believes that Medicare is “a family responsibility, not a government responsibility.”

New Financial Aid Award Letters Should Be Mandatory - They Need to Be Comparable to Be Effective

This  material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Julie Margetta Morgan

The Department of Education will convene a public meeting to discuss the development of its model college financial aid award letter as required by the Higher Education Opportunity Act. This is the department’s first step toward creating a model financial aid notification format that could help prospective students better understand their options for paying for college.

The decisions students make based on their financial aid award packages can saddle them with debt that will follow them the rest of their lives. That’s why it’s so important to improve the format of financial aid letters. A new model letter has the potential to help students and parents make more informed, financially sound choices about where to go to college. But the Department of Education must make good choices about what belongs in these letters, and congressional leaders must work to make them mandatory.

Right now, colleges can format their financial aid letters in any way they choose. The letters vary so much that it is very difficult to compare them across colleges.

Protecting the Federal Investment in Higher Education: The Gainful Employment Rule

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Download this fact sheet (pdf)

The Department of Education is in the process of finalizing a gainful-employment rule that will hold career-education programs responsible through a simple proposition: A career education program should only receive federal financial assistance if upon graduation students can earn enough money to pay off the debt they accrue. In short, a program is worth the federal investment only if the price of the education is justified by its outcome (as measured by the salary of its graduates). The Center for American Progress strongly supports this rule, which is critical to ensuring that the federal government, taxpayers, and students get the most out of their investment in higher education through financial aid.

Why do we need this rule?

Each time a student enrolls in college his or her family takes on a significant risk, using savings or earnings as well as student loans to invest in the promise of a bright future. In career education programs in particular (both for-profit and not-for-profit schools), there is a direct relationship between the program a student chooses and the future occupation he or she expects to achieve.

The problem is that the easy, no-questions-asked accessibility of federal loans has allowed the institutions to use a business model where there is no relationship between the cost of running the educational programs, the price students pay, and the likely outcomes in the job market. Whether students succeed or fail, colleges get paid.

Ensuring Gainful Employment: Protecting Students and Taxpayers Is Not an Either-Or Situation

This article was published by the Center for American  Progress.

By Julie Margetta Morgan 

Politicians love false dichotomies. Remember “You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem” and “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”? Positioning two nonexclusive alternatives as an either-or situation is a cheap rhetorical trick, but when House members used it to prevent the Department of Education from implementing a regulation on career education programs, it became very expensive—for taxpayers and for students.

The House of Representatives last week passed an amendment that would prevent the Department of Education from implementing a regulation called “gainful employment.” The proposed rule would require career education programs—primarily at for-profit colleges—to prove that their students are able to pay off the debt they incur after they graduate. Members like Rep. John Kline (R-MN) argued that the amendment was necessary because for-profit colleges are an important part of our higher education system, particularly when it comes to low-income and minority students. Others argued that the gainful employment regulation was a bad policy because all colleges must be regulated more tightly, or because its effects must be studied, or because students need information to make better decisions about choosing a college.

Recruiter’s Experience at one For-Profit University Suggests Reform Efforts Will Face Hurdles

by Sharona Coutts ProPublic

When Ryan Richardson took a job as a recruiter at Grand Canyon University last summer, he was no novice to the business of for-profit colleges.

He had worked as an enrollment counselor at the University of Phoenix, the biggest school in the sector, for years before leaving to pursue his dream of playing professional baseball.

Richardson had heard that Grand Canyon was a good place to work: that it treated employees well and that—as a Christian university—it did not use the high-pressure sales tactics that had made him uncomfortable working at the University of Phoenix. But within days of starting at the school, Richardson said, he had a growing sense of disillusionment at the techniques the university was using to recruit students.

“I remember calling my Dad and telling him it was just like the University of Phoenix, except they’d implemented God into the mix,” Richardson said.

Richardson says he became so dismayed that he decided to record meetings, training sessions and conversations with Grand Canyon managers and other staff during the four months he stayed on the job, ending when he quit last October. The recordings, as well as other documents and internal e-mails that Richardson provided to ProPublica, give an unflattering inside view of how one team of recruiters at the school was seeking to bring in students.