Governor Paterson on Tuesday released his proposed 2010-11 Executive Budget, which included proposals to reduce all TAP awards by $75 and cut the maximum TAP award for all students in two-year degree programs from $5,000 to $4,000.

Where will students find college funding?

TAP funds are available to income-qualified students who would otherwise not be able to afford and attend college. The governor’s actions mean college will not be an option for many of New York’s neediest students, primarily those who have the academic qualifications to attend college, but not the financial means. Additionally, APC questioned the rationale for cutting funding for two-year students only. These students must be supported because they earn degrees and find quality jobs more quickly.

“The governor is saying ‘no’ to students who have the will and the grades for college, but lack the funds. TAP funds are investments in New Yorkers, helping the state’s most needy students achieve the dream of attending college and launching a rewarding career,” said Stephen Jerome, APC president and president of Monroe College in the Bronx and New Rochelle. “We know the governor agrees that an educated population is important to New York’s future economic vitality. However, any reductions in TAP funding work against that belief. With TAP and a degree, students become earners and taxpayers, and therefore part of the state’s economic solution. TAP is a smart investment in New York’s future.”

The Association of Proprietary Colleges represents 26 tax-paying, degree-granting colleges located on 39 campuses across New York. Proprietary colleges are one of the four sectors of higher education in New York. APC Colleges offer degrees in more than 60 associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs, including business, health care, hospitality management, graphic arts and technology.

Permalink: http://readme.readmedia.com/Governors-TAP-Cuts-Target-New-Yorks-Most-Financially-Needy-Students/1056307

How does this effect HEOP?

HEOP is funded through several funding programs. One of the big and long time supporting funding program is TAP (Tuition Assistant Program). Tap generally provides up to $4000 in scholarship for students (based on academic year). Depending on what the tuition is for the institution, this could be a huge chunk of funding that a student can get. Since HEOP has already faced much cutbacks from the funding, how much more cuts could they really handle? There have been rumors that several HEOP institutions are now cutting down the number of accepted and incoming students from 40 to 15. That a cut back of 62.5%. If the government does cut more funding, that number might decrease even more. Eventually, there will be barely any funding left for any institute to have the Higher Education Opportunity Program.

How to help stop the funding cuts

Below is an e-mail I received from Deborah M. Stendardi Vice President of Government & Community Relations at the Rochester Institute of Technology with some ways students can help fight this budget cut.

The recently released proposed State Budget for FY 2011 by Governor David Paterson includes a $75 cut in Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) awards for every student who benefits from this program to help them meet their tuition costs.  While this may not seem as dramatic a cut as we have been faced with in some previous years, the impact on individual students is nevertheless significant, particularly in light of the challenging economic circumstances facing many of our students and their families.  Moreover, State funding for the Tuition Assistance Program has stagnated for the past ten years, while the federal government is increasing its commitment to students.  We believe that it is critical for New York State to continue to invest in and maintain its commitment to its future workforce by sustaining TAP at its current funding levels.   More than 3,500 RIT students receive $8 million in TAP support, making this program one of the key foundations in making an RIT education affordable for low and middle income New York State students.

We encourage members of the RIT campus community (faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends) to make your voices heard and to encourage your elected State officials to reject the Governor’s proposed cut in TAP.  You can do so easily by linking to the following website:  http://capwiz.com/cicu/home/, and clicking on the box that says “take action”.   Key messages that you might considering including are:

• The proposed cut in TAP would hurt students and families who are already struggling due to the economy;
• The State’s investment in TAP is an investment in our future workforce at a time when it is critically important to keep and retain our students and our graduates in New York State;
• The TAP cuts would have a disproportionately harmful impact on economically and educationally disadvantaged students, such as those enrolled in HEOP, who have already been impacted by prior year cuts in that program
• As a taxpayer and voter, you believe that higher education access should be a top priority even in light of the difficult choices and decisions that the State has to make this year;
• Finally, any personal experience you may have with the TAP program and/or the impact that the program has had on RIT students would be important to include.

by Ronald Roach , December 21, 2009
Permalink: http://diverseeducation.com/article/13280/obama-s-higher-education-agenda-may-lead-to-expanded-federal-role.html

President Barack Obama, speaking at Macomb Community College in Warren, Mich., in July, proposed a multibillion-dollar investment in the nation’s community colleges.

Almost a year after assuming leadership, the administration of Barack Obama has taken on enormous tasks in confronting the recession that has gripped the U.S. economy. Americans have watched tentatively as the president has extended federal powers into handling corporate bailouts, overseeing the rehabilitation of banks and General Motors, laying the groundwork for reshaping national energy and climate change policy, and leading the charge for national health care reform.

Experts say the administration’s ambitious approach to federal intervention and national policy reforms has proven no less determined in what it has prescribed for American higher education. Last February, Obama announced to a joint session of Congress that “by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.” Introducing a national community college initiative this past July, Obama invoked the lofty legacy of federal involvement in U.S. higher education.

“Time and again, when we have placed our bet for the future on education, we have prospered as a result…. That is what happened when President (Abraham) Lincoln signed into law legislation creating the land grant colleges, which not only transformed higher education but also our economy. That is what took place when President (Franklin) Roosevelt signed the GI Bill, which helped educate a generation – and usher in an era of unprecedented prosperity,” Obama told an audience at Macomb Community College in Warren, Mich., during the announcement of the American Graduation Initiative.

Scholars, academic administrators and higher education policy officials have largely interpreted the administration’s pronouncements, more than $100 billion in education stimulus funding and the community college-focused American Graduation Initiative, as markers of a significant shift in federal higher education policy and the making of a credible push for an expanded federal role in American higher education. It’s also significant that the “Race to the Top” initiative, the administration’s K-12 education reform effort, focuses on school districts getting more students prepared for college, experts note.

“The federal role has been traditionally to support economic access through need-based student aid, through loans and grants, and through some categorical programs. But it’s not had a policy role, particularly around the agenda of (college) completion and increasing overall attainment,” says Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability.

“They’re talking about more access, more degree completion. It’s a tremendously important extension of where the federal government has been historically.”

Adds Dr. Michael McPherson, president of the Chicago-based Spencer Foundation and co-author of Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities, “Shifting the goal to not just getting in, but getting through, or ‘crossing the finish line’ does suggest some adjustments in how education programs will work.”

“I don’t think that means some spectacular changes in the federal role, but (means) ways of rewarding institutions or states that have greater success and ways of weaving together research efforts and demonstration programs to try to find things that work in getting people through school successfully,” McPherson says. “These, I think, are roles that are going to expand for the federal government.”

Historic Interventions

The establishment of the GI Bill in World War II’s aftermath is commonly regarded as a highly acclaimed federal intervention and marked the federal government’s pioneering move into facilitating college access. The 1940s through the 1960s saw the federal government substantially ramp up scientific research at major universities, helping make U.S. institutions the world’s premier research universities.

“The federal role in higher education, in terms of financial aid, really started with the GI Bill right after World War II. The financial aid role, both with the GI Bill and eventually the Pell Grant, was to provide more access, or opportunity, to go to college,” says Stan Jones, president of the Washington-based Complete College America organization.

Jones says the move by the Obama administration to develop and implement a college-completion agenda is “substantial and unprecedented.” He believes the agenda has considerable symbolic cache that may help administration officials justify the lofty rhetoric, including comparisons to the GI Bill, they have used in talking about national college-completion goals.

“(Obama’s) call for at least one year of college for everybody moves up the threshold from public education being kindergarten through grade 12 (to) raising that threshold to include one year of college for everybody. I think that’s symbolic,” Jones says.

Dr. Carl Bankston, chair of the Tulane University sociology department, says it’s notable that Obama has urged making the attainment of at least one year of postsecondary education in addition to having a high school diploma the education standard for all Americans. It’s significant for a federal executive to lead the effort in establishing a standard that may become as much of a social and cultural norm as one meeting economic needs for American prosperity, according to Bankston.

“It wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s that earning a high school diploma was seen as a universal goal for American citizens. I don’t know that federal officials took the lead on helping make that a social norm,” says Bankston, an expert in the sociology of education.

Bankston, however, characterizes Obama’s college-completion agenda as “less a matter of changing the relationship of the federal government to higher education than continuing a line that has been in progress through various administrations, both Democratic and Republican, that is increasing the federal role in education at all levels.”

“(What) you might call the ‘federalization’ of education is something that’s been happening at least since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and probably you can date it back to the late 1950s when the Eisenhower administration first started investing in education,” Bankston says. “It seems to me, in general, less of a change than continuing along a line of ever-increasing involvement by the federal government.”

With community colleges taking center stage in the administration’s college-completion agenda, experts say this emphasis represents a radical shift in federal higher education policy, which many characterize as having been traditionally focused on four-year institutions. In the proposed American Graduation Initiative, the administration wants to spend $12 billion on community colleges over the next decade to support facility improvements, work-force development programs and an expansion of online instruction so students have access to courses whenever they need them.

“The fact that (the administration is) setting federal goals and national goals is in itself innovative. They’ve also been the first administration that I can think of ever that has put their highest-funding priority around the institutions that serve the majority of low-income students,” Wellman says. “One of the biggest performance problems we’ve got in higher education, which isn’t talked about enough, is the huge degree of stratification. We have a handful of rich institutions and an awful lot of poorly financed institutions that serve the majority of the students.”

In recent years, community college certificate and degree completion rates as well as transfer rates have come under national scrutiny. Nearly 60 percent of students entering four-year institutions earn a bachelor’s degree in six years, while only 31 percent of students who begin their academic careers at public community colleges complete either an associate or a bachelor’s degree in six years, according to U.S. Education Department data. With community colleges typically seeing lags in degree completion rates when compared to four-year institutions, public officials and foundations, such as the Gates Foundation, have stepped up efforts to improve the capacity of community colleges to better help their students attain educational success.

“There needs to be a focus on how community colleges can improve. One of the biggest problems, and leaders of community colleges will tell you, is the very low success rate,” McPherson says “I would emphasize with the evidence we have (in Crossing the Finish Line) that as community colleges work now, it’s a pretty tough road to start from a high school level education and make it to a bachelor’s degree after starting at a community college. The evidence is that people with the same background and qualifications have a lot better shot at actually completing a bachelor’s degree starting out at the four-year school.”

The Long Journey Ahead

Experts say community colleges have not occupied the policy spotlight. Dr. William Kirst, professor emeritus of business administration and education at Stanford University, says the shift to putting community colleges in the forefront of the administration’s college-completion agenda reverses the emphasis of federal policy away from four-year institutions. Since World War II, the emphasis on college access and developing research capacity has favored public four-year institutions over public two-year schools, according to Kirst.

“Community colleges have been politically weaker than the four-year colleges. They don’t have as powerful a lobby four-year and research institutions have traditionally had in Washington,” Kirst says.

Dr. Lorelle Espinosa, director of policy and strategic initiatives at the Washington-based Institute for Higher Education Policy, has cautioned that policy officials, researchers and advocates should focus on not losing sight of the college access issue. U.S. higher education institutions are facing a future where they will have to recruit students who are of first-generation, low-income or minority backgrounds, she notes.

“I worry there’s too much dichotomizing of access from college success in the discussions of policy and research officials. There will be a challenge facing higher education in making sure access remains a high priority given that we’re seeing significant demographic shifts in the coming years,” Espinosa says.

Enormous political challenges face the Obama administration over its higher education policy priorities. Experts worry whether administration officials will be able to develop an effective political strategy that builds political consensus in Congress and among state officials around the effort to focus on college completion as well as strengthen community colleges.

“I think the single most important thing (the Obama administration) can do is to extend the conversation to the policy leaders in the states who are going to have to drive this bus,” Wellman says.

One early test for the Obama administration will be whether it can persuade Congress to pass the Student Assistance and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA).  Major funding for Obama proposals would be made available through SAFRA, which has passed the House and was pending before the Senate earlier this month. SAFRA includes $3 billion for a college access and completion fund along with $2.5 billion for community college facilities and $630 million in other grants to community colleges.

Other measures include $2.5 billion for minority-serving institutions and a $1,350 increase in the maximum Pell Grant over the next decade. To finance these investments, SAFRA would do away with bank-generated student loans in favor of less expensive, government-backed Direct Loans. Officials have estimated the federal government can save $9 billion annually by eliminating loan subsidies for private banks.

SAFRA’s passage will be critical, but the administration’s long-term success in higher education policy will depend on how well it builds a consensus with states on making college completion a high priority, Wellman says.

“I think this is a national agenda not just a federal agenda. And using the federal government to define the terms of a national conversation is hugely important,” Wellman says. “As far as I am concerned, I think that the United States has been complacent and not been paying attention to what our country needs by way of increased attainment.”

Side note ***

Many public and private institutes are facing fundings for programs such as music. Organizations such as VH1 and MTV are fighting for the benefits of music education.

1. Won’t need to be purchased. Rental textbooks are already popping up at campuses around the country. Purchasing textbooks will become a thing of the past with rentals costing 40 to 70% of the purchase price. Publishers like this option because they can make money off each rental rather than only the first sale, ensuring that more and more titles are likely to become available in the near future.
2. Like a guide book. Textbooks as the authoritative resource is likely to be a thing of the past. Instead, textbooks may become more like guidebooks, or be printed as small pocket versions that include the highlights and links to Internet resources for the bigger picture. One professor likened this idea to a recent trip to Egypt where he took the Lonely Planet guidebook to help him know what he wanted to learn about, then was able to come home and look at more authoritative resources to expand his knowledge.
3. E-textbooks. Like DigitalOwl, a software company in Florida that is sending e-textbooks to some Florida schools, many are already beginning to make the transition to electronic books. Usually electronic books are read on computers and ebook reading devices. While some older studies indicate that reading comprehension is better on printed paper, with technological advances continually improving the quality of ebook reading devices, the chance of e-textbooks pushing ahead looks promising.
4. Virtual textbooks. One way students of the future could get their reading material is from virtual textbooks on the Internet, like Smarthistory. Not only could the virtual textbook contain much more information at a fraction of the cost, students could also see Flash animations demonstrating concepts that are better conceptualized visually. These virtual texts could also incorporate questions and other forms of feedback to ensure the students are engaged.
5. Constantly evolving. Static information that remains in texts for years will no longer be the norm. When information is discovered that outdates what is in the text, it can quickly and easily be replaced when texts are in digital format. With the cost of updating digital texts being only a fraction of the cost involved with updating printed books, material will stay current at a lower price.
6. Interactive. When textbooks go digital, the possibilities of having the texts be interactive are wide open. Hyperlinks connecting directly to the sources, integrated quizzes testing students’ knowledge that can be emailed to the teacher, and interactive diagrams are just a few of the potential opportunities with interactive textbooks. This type of interface is more engaging for students and opens up more learning possibilities than static paper texts can provide.
7. Wiki-like interface. An online textbook could be open to input from others, along the lines of Wikipedia, creating a stronger text. Imagine a textbook where mistakes are flagged, experts can expand on knowledge already included in the text, and the ability for other to contribute elements such as additional practice problems are considered the norm. Like Wikipedia, there would be moderators who monitor the incoming information and maintain the integrity of the content in the textbook.
8. Open textbooks. Like the wiki idea, open textbooks are available online, are customizable, and have the added bonus of being completely free of charge. Open textbooks can be textbooks already in existence that professors find online or can be authored by the professors themselves. The idea of open textbooks is appealing to many professors as the content can be more aligned with their personal teaching style. The concept is appealing to students because these texts come free of charge.
9. High tech. Future textbooks may be in the form of smart phones and ebook reading devices. Some schools are already handing out iPhones, iTouches, and Kindles to their students so they will have access not only to digital texts, but in the case of smart phones, homework alerts, announcements, and more from the school. The flexibility and portability of these devices is appealing to many students and administrators alike.
10. Student-authored. This idea upsets the whole paradigm of traditional education–a student writing the text. However, some recent research has shown promising results from student-authored textbooks. The students who write the text are more engaged and feel they have gained more than they would have just reading textbooks. The content of the books are also more relevant to students, with less rhetoric, more diversity, and are more engrossing.

Interested in starting your own online book business? Well you can get started by buying a Dell PowerEdge servers host your site.

The above article was adopted with permission from OnlineSchool.Net.

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College Students are New York’s Best Investment
Act now to protect student financial aid from mid-year reductions

The mid-year budget cuts that have been proposed by Governor Paterson include, among other proposed cuts in higher education programs, a reduction of $120 in Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) awards for all current TAP recipients in this academic year.  While we appreciate the serious financial difficulties facing New York State, we believe that college students should not have to shoulder this additional burden with a mid-year reduction in their financial aid support.  More than 3,500 RIT students currently receive TAP awards.  The proposal would reduce overall support to our students by over $400,000.

Although the Governor and Legislature have yet to agree on a mid-year budget reduction plan, it is likely that some mid-year cuts will be made when the Legislature returns to Albany again next week.  Therefore, we need your help to ensure that the voices of our students and the RIT campus community are heard to protect against the proposed reduction in TAP awards.  Now more than ever it is important for the State to invest in its future workforce as represented by our college students.

You can help by sending a message to your state elected officials via the following link:  http://capwiz.com/cicu/home/, and urging them to reject a mid-year reduction in TAP awards.

Our legislators have always been very supportive of student financial aid, and specifically the TAP program.  However, in light of the current budget situation it is important to remind them how important this program is and why it should remain a priority for the State.   Please take a few minutes to voice your interest in this matter to your State legislators.   Thank you.

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What would you do if you could generate a return of $8 on a $1 investment, especially if you were absolutely certain that it is legal, ethical and moral? This would be an attractive investment at any time, but in tough financial times like these it makes even more sense. For the past four decades, New York’s leaders have had the wisdom to make exactly this investment through our nation-leading Opportunity Programs, including the Arthur O. Eve Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) hosted by independent colleges and universities, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) hosted by the State University of New York, and Seeking Education and Elevation through Knowledge (SEEK) hosted by the City University of New York. Together these programs have graduated more than 5,000 people every year since 1969, so there are now more than 200,000 alumni participating in the economy as taxpayers, homeowners, employers and employees, entrepreneurs, and more.

While the exact causes of the current recession may be debated for decades, one factor that is absolutely clear here in New York State is that we have been over-reliant on Wall Street and the financial sector of the economy. Of course the financial sector will always be important to our economy, but it is also abundantly clear that it makes sense to diversify so our overall economy is more resilient and therefore more stable. Educating people to participate in a diverse economy just makes sense in both the long and short term, especially when the alternative is to leave them in poverty.

We all know New York ’s state budget is in serious trouble, and we all know we must pull together to make needed changes that will improve things for us all. The Governor has proposed cuts totaling about $5.3 million across HEOP, EOP and SEEK in the face of an estimated $38 billion shortfall over the next four years. Enacting the proposed cut would result in an immediate, and insignificant, deficit reduction of less than 1.5%. Much more significant though would be the lost return on that investment. In fact, since we know program graduates contribute back $8 for every $1 invested by the state, this cut will in fact magnify the very deficit it tries to reduce. This cut is the worst thing we can do now. We know we can’t add more resources at this time, but at least let’s not make things even worse.

Besides the clear economic consequences of enacting this cut, there are also moral consequences. A cut of this magnitude means we must deny hundreds of potential teachers, entrepreneurs, health care workers, and engineers access to the kind of education and training they need to realize their potential. No one enters these kinds of fields without higher education, and New York State cannot afford to throw them away. Not now, not ever. Making these cuts will slam shut the door of opportunity, locking out the kind of talent we need right when we need it the most. In these difficult times we may either open the door to creativity, energy and talent in the expectation that many hands make light work, or we can close the door and leave them in the cold and expect fewer people to shoulder the work of recovery.

Whether one considers the question from an economic perspective or a moral one, the answer is perfectly clear. Closing the door won’t close the gap.

Title: Ferreting Out Financial Aid Fraud
Author: Doug Lederman
Publication Date: October 15, 2009
Perma-Link: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/10/15/gao

Photo: Government Accountability Office. (Click to enlarge)

WASHINGTON — Rumor had it, in the days leading up to Wednesday’s hearing before a House of Representatives committee, that officials from the U.S. Government Accountability Office were preparing to screen a video for lawmakers that showed officials at an unidentified for-profit college giving would-be students the answers to a test designed to gauge whether they have the “ability to benefit” from a higher education.

The alleged misbehavior by the college official had already been made public — it was by far the most explosive accusation made in a GAO report issued last month — but the vision of an ACORN-like video that might live for eternity on Youtube and Metacafe suggested that Wednesday’s hearing could be explosive and make life extremely uncomfortable for for-profit colleges.

The incident at the unnamed for-profit college did get a multimedia airing before the House Education and Labor Committee — in the form of audio, not video — and the apparently egregious violations of federal law had some members of the audience burying their heads in their hands and squirming in discomfort.

But while that aspect of the proceedings might have turned them into a circus that (as many Congressional hearings do) generated far more heat than light, the session was surprisingly substantive and informative — if troubling, at times, in terms of its implications for the future, especially regarding the potentially large pool of non-high school graduates qualifying for federal financial aid and the government’s perceived difficulties in ensuring that distance learning students really are who they say they are. While for-profit colleges were in the spotlight, there was general consensus that the types of fraud identified in the GAO report were not relegated to those institutions.

The audience at Wednesday’s hearing included a larger-than-usual contingent of young men in suits — Wall Street analysts who had trekked down to D.C. on Amtrak or the shuttle in the expectation (and in the case of some of them, the hope) that the lawmakers and government officials who testified would take dead aim at for-profit colleges, since they were the focus of the GAO report. And there is no doubt that the report, which cited several instances of wrongdoing and said the Education Department needed to tighten its oversight of how the colleges gauge the academic preparedness of their students, provided ammunition to critics, as evidenced by the comments of Rep. Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas), who chaired Wednesday’s hearing.

“I am concerned that Congress and the Department of Education have not been providing the appropriate oversight necessary to protect students as they pursue educational opportunities at for-profit colleges and universities,” Hinojosa said to open the hearing. “We have also not done enough to monitor the quality of educational programs offered at some of these institutions despite the growth of the for-profit sector in recent years.”

Image adopted from InsideHigherEd.com

As outlined by George A. Scott, director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security for the accountability office, the GAO report contained some damning information about for-profit colleges — or at least the small number on which the agency focused, especially the Washington-area branch of a publicly traded higher education company at which its investigators found apparently illicit behavior when they visited under cover. On two separate visits to the institution, which agency officials declined to identify because they have referred the case to the Justice Department for possible prosecution, officials administering the “ability to benefit” tests gave answers to the 20-odd students, who needed to pass the test to qualify to receive federal financial aid.

“Yeah, this is correct. Give it a ‘C,’ ” the test proctor told the class (click here to hear it) on the GAO’s first visit, audio snippets of which Scott played during the hearing. “Number one on your answer sheet, that’s a ‘C’. Ok, mark it in. Nice and hard so it will go through that part of the paper people. Everybody got it.”

“Good news, I’m going to help you with the first three,” the test administrator said on a second visit. “More good news. You gotta ‘nail … nail’ 10 of them to pass… I’m going to give you three, that means you’ve got to get to nail seven.”

The GAO investigators also found that their answer sheets had been changed to correct answers they had purposely gotten wrong.

Much of the discussion about the GAO report Wednesday focused on the extent to which its findings reflected broad problems — among for-profit colleges, among all institutions that enroll and give financial aid to students who did not graduate high school, or about the use of “ability to benefit” tests generally.

On the first point, Scott and the Education Department officials who testified, Deputy Under Secretary Robert Shireman and Acting Inspector General Mary Mitchelson, all went out of their way to say that the evidence did not suggest widespread problems among for-profit institutions (a point on which the other witness, Harris N. Miller of the Career College Association, readily agreed). “However, our work has identified potential fraud at a few proprietary schools and significant vulnerabilities in Education’s oversight,” Scott said.

If they were reluctant to generalize about the implications of the GAO report for all for-profit institutions, many of the witnesses and lawmakers seemed genuinely concerned about what the report said about the government’s ability to ensure that students who take ability to benefit tests are capable of taking advantage of a higher education — and about how much federal agencies know, and don’t know, about those who take advantage of the process.

Shireman of the Education Department did not contest the GAO’s assertion that the department provides too little oversight of the companies that publish ability to benefit tests, which are supposed to regularly analyze patterns in how students score on these tests. Current federal rules also “do not require test publishers to follow up when irregularities are identified, or to report corrective actions to [the] Education” Department, Scott noted. “Given the risks of potential fraud and abuse associated with ATB testing, such weaknesses in Education’s monitoring and oversight leave the ATB test program vulnerable to future violations.”

Mitchelson, the inspector general, estimated that as many as 11 percent of students who receive federal financial aid may have taken ability to benefit tests because they did not graduate high school — a figure that stunned several financial aid experts in the audience, since that would represent 1 million or more students. Neither she nor Shireman said they knew, without further study, whether those students are disproportionately enrolled at for-profit or other types of colleges, though it’s safe to assume that they can be found in larger numbers at career colleges, community colleges, and other open-access institutions.

Shireman said the Education Department is developing a tool that will help it determine which institutions are enrolling significant numbers of students after passing ability to benefit tests, and that the tests were among the issues the department plans to explore in its upcoming negotiated rule making sessions.

Rep. Timothy Bishop (D-N.Y.), suggested that the department consider adopting a proposal, which was dropped at the last minute from last year’s Higher Education Opportunity Act, that would require institutions with large numbers of students who take ability to benefit tests to administer those tests through fully independent entities. Under questioning from Bishop, Scott said that the “independent test administrator” who gave the answers to his under cover investigators was under contract at her for-profit college, though he was unsure if the contract was with the college itself or the publisher of the ability to benefit test in use there.

Miller, the Career College Association CEO, acknowledged the concerns about potential fraud involving ability to benefit tests but said he worried about going too far in limiting such students’ chances of getting a higher education. “Some of them are never going to be successful in passing a GED, and we in society have to make a decision on whether to cut them off from college or not,” Miller said. He said some for-profit colleges have already begun “cutting way back” on the number of students they admit using ability to benefit tests, because of concerns about their cohort default rates and other federal accountability measures that are hurt if high-risk students don’t make it academically.

While the GAO report focused most of its attention on potential fraud associated with ability to benefit tests and high school diploma mills (to which some for-profit college officials sent students to get “degrees” to qualify them for federal aid, GAO said), Mitchelson of the inspector general said she was growing increasingly concerned about an emerging vulnerability: “student eligibility problems associated with distance education.”

As she described it, the Education Department is ill-prepared (largely because of underdeveloped laws and regulations) to ensure “that students [in online programs] are actually enrolled in and engaging in academic activities, and that they are who they say they are.” Recent audits by IG’s office of two online institutions, Capella University and TUI University, Mitchelson said, as well as early findings from two others that are now underway, have revealed evidence that “student aid funds are being disbursed to ineligible students in online programs or to students who have dropped out of these programs,” she said.

This is booming business for the agency, Mitchelson said. “Since 2005, we have initiated 29 distance education-related investigative efforts, 19 of which were identified in the last two years,” she said. “Our ongoing work has revealed that criminals seek to exploit institutions with minimal requirements to establish eligibility for initial and continued student aid disbursements. Community colleges and other low-cost institutions are the primary target of this type of fraud.”

While going trough my daily routine of searching the web for content, on Digg I stomped into a shocking article. Many high school students throughout the world are very smart when it comes to: math, science and geography. But what about politics and history? The Oklahoma Council of Public Affair ran a organized commissioned study to determine the level of basic civics knowledge at Oklahoma High. To their shock this is what they found out:

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Article: 2.8% of Oklahoma High School Students Pass Citizenship Test
Author: Gary Norton
Perma Link: Click Here To Visit Site
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The Oklahoma Council of Public Affair, a conservative public policy research organization commissioned a study aimed at determining the level of basic civics knowledge of Oklahoma High School students. To their dismay the study revealed that only 23% of students knew that our first President was George Washington and only 2.8% of the students scored well enough on the test to be eligible for US citizenship.

• Gary Norton’s diary :: ::