Department of Ed Rule will Limit Access for Black Students

breitbart ^ | 7/23/10 | PRNW

[Nachum]

Gainful Employment limits options for students

WASHINGTON, July 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In response to the Department of Education issuing a "Gainful Employment" rule today that would make certain career college programs ineligible for Title IV financial aid and effectively eliminate the opportunity for lower-income students to attend career colleges, Harry Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce issued the following statement.

"Gainful Employment will disproportionately harm low-income and minority populations by discriminating against students who must borrow the needed tuition to attend college. Without financial aid, access to higher education will be limited for thousands of students. At present, Black students make up 18% of enrollees in for-profit colleges and universities – many of them would find it impossible to pursue higher education without this financial aid. Many of these private sector schools are the solution to our education challenges, not the problem."

[Nachum]

Law of unintended consequences

[HiTech RedNeck]

Sounds like workfare, not a bad idea in itself but it has a prime season, and times of involuntary job scarcity isn’t it. This klutzy Bummer gummit has to eat everything up and then get in its own bloated way, doesn’t it. Or so it seems.

[melonkali]

Interesting. Thanks for posting this. I googled and found a fairly detailed description of the “gainful employment” rule, its history and recent revisions, opinions pro and con, followed by a fairly active comment section, at the following link:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/07/23/gainful

I wish I could close this reply with a reasoned opinion, but it will take me a while to digest the problem(s) this rule is supposed to correct (of which I was unaware), the potential effectiveness and/or harmful effects of the GE rule and the methodology proposed in it, compromises made from the originally proposed version of the GE rule, reasons given for supporting or opposing it, and alternatives which have been suggested.

I’ll be interested in reading other replies to the original post.

Thanks again for bringing this to our attention,
rebecca