Recently in Higher.Education Category

Source: Jeff Chirico, CBS Atlanta, May 10, 2012

...For-profit colleges are widely accused of using high-pressure recruiting tactics, offering sub-par educations and burying students in debt. ...Long said taxpayers should be furious with what he calls a waste of taxpayer dollars. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, for-profit colleges took in $32 billion taxpayer dollars through federal financial aid in the 2009-2010 school year. Students who attended for-profit colleges are defaulting on their loans more often than students who attended public and private nonprofit schools. According to a recent congressional investigation, 44 percent of all student loan default comes from for-profit colleges, although their students make up only 10 percent of students pursuing higher education...

Source: Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, April 23, 2012

...Curtis and Glasper said that they decided to speak out based in part on recent discussions among the presidents of institutions that are members of RC-2020, an invitation-only group of urban community colleges that periodically come together for private meetings. The emerging sense in that group, Curtis and Glasper said, is that discussions of community college financing need to be based more on realism than on mourning political trends. Glasper said that Maricopa's high point in terms of state share of its budget was in 1986, when Arizona provided 27 percent of the funds.

Curtis shared a table, showing the evolution of the Community College of Philadelphia budget between 1977-78 and 2010-11. Officially, Pennsylvania policy calls for the budgets of community colleges to be shared equally by three parties: state government, local government and students (through tuition). The table shows the gradual but clear path Pennsylvania has taken away from that philosophy....
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Privatization in and of Higher Education in the US
Source: D. Bruce Johnstone

Source: Leonard Gilroy and Harris Kenny, Reason Foundation, April 30, 2012

Now in its 25th year of publication, Reason Foundation's Annual Privatization Report is the world's longest running and most comprehensive report on privatization news, developments and trends.

Annual Privatization Report 2011 (APR 2011) details the latest on privatization and government reform initiatives at all levels of government. The individual sections of APR 2011 include:

Federal Privatization
State Privatization
Local Privatization
Air Transportation
Surface Transportation
Education
Telecommunications
Corrections and Public Safety

Source: Ben Wieder, Stateline, April 18, 2012

...While some for-profits have attracted federal attention in recent years for higher borrower default rates and questionable marketing practices, states are only more recently taking a harder look at the sector, according to a report released last week by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Jack Conway, Kentucky's attorney general, is leading a multi-state investigation into the business practices of for-profit colleges. Additionally, he has sued three for-profit colleges in his state, charging violations of consumer protection laws and illegal student recruitment practices. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan also brought suit against the for-profit Westwood College this January, according to the report. ...
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Changing Dynamics in State Oversight of For-Profit Colleges
Source: Thomas L. Harnisch, American Association of State Colleges and Universities, Higher Education Policy Brief, April 2012

Source: Allie Grasgreen, Inside Higher Ed, March 26, 2012

Georgia State University's decision this month to replace its counseling center staff with outsourced employees is worrying those in the field, who say such moves are extremely rare and will likely prove detrimental to the mental health services available to students.

The shift is doubly troubling because a number of former staff members (as well as others in the field) are accusing the university of outsourcing services as a retaliation for their complaints that some university policies involving the counseling center had the potential to hurt students. While the outsourcing was announced shortly after the complaints were made, the university says there was no relationship between the two developments.

Source: Brian Martinez, Orange County Register, March 21, 2012

UC Irvine is hiring custodians, who currently work on the campus through an outside contractor, into 94 full-time positions as the final step of an in-sourcing process agreed to by university and labor union officials.

As employees of UCI, the custodians' salaries will be similar to what they are now - starting at $13.70 an hour - but their health insurance options, retirement benefits and sick leave are likely to be more favorable, according to university officials. They will also receive official UCI uniforms and identification cards.

Source: Larry Abramson, NPR, Morning Edition, April 5, 2012

Hundreds of thousands of veterans have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, eager to get an education under the new post-Sept. 11 GI Bill.

Many vets looking for a school find they are inundated by sales pitches from institutions hungry for their government benefits. Now, lawmakers are looking for ways to protect vets without narrowing their education choices....Some members of Congress are worried that for-profit schools are ripping off the government by luring students into programs that seldom lead to good jobs..

.....Concern about the lead generators' sales tactics has prompted Congress to explore tighter limits on the public funds that can go to for-profit colleges. But Sweizer says limiting government funding would just hurt the schools that are trying to deal honestly with vets. Instead, he says, schools that don't deliver what they promise should be punished.

Source: Kevin Kiley, Inside Higher Ed, April 10, 2012

...For institutions that can take on more debt -- those that have low debt loads or are growing enrollments and revenues, typically flagship universities -- the financing change will have little impact on their bottom lines. They might have less money to spend on other priorities, but most expect revenues to keep pace with the amount of debt they're assuming.

But other public institutions aren't so lucky. Many can't issue cheap debt, either because they've run up against statutory limits or because their internal finances won't let them....

...Other institutions have tried to find ways to continue to grow and pay for renovations without taking on as much debt. The most prominent avenue for this has been to strike public-private partnerships, whereby private developers get the capital to construct facilities and then universities strike long-term leases to occupy the space. It also allows for alternative uses of space, such as for-profit ventures, that might be prohibited under tax-exempt bond funding.

According to a 2010 report, the University of California has about 60 such partnerships....The University of Maine system's Board of Regents recently asked system administrators to give board members an accounting of the space that could be removed either through sale or demolition, and the space that will become available soon.

Source: Bob Sechler, Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2012

Ohio State University wants to drop out of the parking business. In an era of stagnant or declining state support for higher education nationwide, the university is seeking investors who might pay hundreds of millions of dollars to lease its parking system of nearly 36,000 spaces. The university--one of the nation's largest, with a nearly 57,000-student main campus in Columbus--is also considering privatizing a roster of other assets that could make a midsize city envious, including two 18-hole golf courses, a small airport and a power grid....The University of Kentucky announced plans in December to transfer control of its dormitories to a private company in exchange for up to $500 million in upgrades and new construction. Portland State University in Portland, Ore., signed a deal with American Campus Communities Inc. in 2010 to build a $90 million, nearly 1,000-bed dorm on campus that is scheduled to open this fall...

Source: Melissa Freeman, Policy Mic, February 9, 2012

...While tuition is rising all across the nation, the University of California (UC) system serves as a great case study for understanding what is broken about public higher education in the U.S. and the problem with how we are trying to fix it. Tuition increases are not only reflective of states' budget crises, but a change in the attitude that a good public education should be funded by the state. The recent move toward privatization by using alternative sources to fund public higher education, such as tuition and private endowments, is the wrong step in finding a permanent solution. Instead, we need to guarantee funding from the state through a constitutional amendment that would institutionally prioritize higher education.....
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Research and the Bottom Line In Today's University
Source: Sarah Bonewits and Lawrence Soley, American Academic, June 2004