By M.H. Miller
The community college portion of the federal student-funding pie is being threatened by provisions in a House bill that would eliminate a major restriction on proprietary schools’ access to federal student aid.
The House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and the Workforce revisited the thorny issues surrounding for-profit colleges in a hearing last month, during which incidents of fraud and abuse at proprietary colleges were discussed, as well as how such infractions might affect the whole sector’s eligibility for federal student aid.
The bill’s sponsors, including committee chairman John Boehner, R-Ohio, want to make it easier for proprietary schools to qualify for federal student aid by removing a 1992 provision known as the “90-10” rule and by simplifying the definition of “institution of higher education” to place for-profit schools on par with nonprofit colleges regarding federal-aid eligibility.
David Rhodes, president of the School of Visual Arts and chair of the Federal Affairs Committee for the Association of Proprietary Colleges, said all schools of higher learning that grant associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees and doctorates, and which have been accredited by accrediting agencies, “should be recognized as institutions of education by Congress,” he says.
“There is a notion sometimes expressed that for-profit institutions are somehow less worthy of governmental support than public or not-for-profit institutions,” Rhodes says. “This is a deeply ingrained prejudice, but one that I hope you would agree is wrong. It is the institution’s programs, and their outcomes, which determine whether an institution is recognized as a member of the higher-education community.”
Rhodes told the panel that student-aid programs call for competition between all schools: “Those with robust proposals will use the funds best, regardless of whether they’re public or private.”
