Higher Ed Watch

By Ben Miller and Stephen Burd

As individuals on the "‘front lines" of the financial aid process, financial aid administrators offer an important perspective on the credit crunch's daily effects on student loan availability. As such, the results of a recent survey that the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators conducted of its members provide some interesting ground-level impressions of the credit crunch. Unfortunately, this viewpoint is almost entirely clouded by the 30,000-foot spin the organization's leadership has put on it. Needless to say, the association's close ties to the student loan industry remain firmly evident.

On its face, the survey suggests that immediate federal loan availability concerns have been largely satisfied, though worries remain about discriminatory lender practices (i.e. banks refusing to lend to students at community colleges and for-profit trade schools) and the long-term fiscal health of the student-loan market. The vast majority of respondents, for example, said actions that Congress and the Bush administration have taken in recent months have "eased the student loan crunch problem" for now. And only a relatively small proportion of aid administrators (about 25 percent of those surveyed) are worried enough that they have put contingency plans in place to prevent any disruptions in loan availability for their students.

Is the U.S. Department of Education deliberately trying to undermine a new program created by Congress to encourage students to pursue careers in the public service?

That question came to mind as we reviewed the Education Department's proposed regulations for enacting the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that Congress created in September as part of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRA).

Under the program, the federal government will forgive the remaining debt of Direct Student Loan borrowers if they make 120 payments on their loans while holding a low-paying, full-time public service-oriented job. Borrowers with loans through the competing Federal Family Education Loan program can take advantage of this benefit by consolidating their debt into Direct Lending.

The program is a reaction to reports that student loan borrowers are increasingly shying away from pursuing public-service careers, such as teaching and social work, and is designed to provide incentives to get college graduates to enter these fields and reward them for their service.

It is a sad reality that many colleges do not treat their athletes as students, but rather as semi-professionals, for four years before dropping them into the real world without a meaningful degree or workforce-ready skills. Particularly at Division I basketball and football schools, colleges use their athletes to win championships and gain national prominence but too often leave them woefully unprepared for life away from the gridiron and hoops.

As I argued last week, the commercialization of college sports has gone too far. In this post, I will lay out the steps that I believe the NCAA and Congress should take to make sure that colleges aren’t allowed to lose touch with what really matters in higher education: graduating students with meaningful degrees.The first step toward reforming college sports is requiring greater transparency about the academic outcomes of athletes. Without better information, neither the NCAA nor Congress will be able to isolate and target academic abuses. The NCAA must also step up to the plate and fix flaws with its current academic monitoring and penalty system, as well as with its eligibility rules.

Dept. of Ed Requests Emergency Survey on Credit Transfers

Few Colleges Join TEACH program

New Repayment Program for Borrowers May Not Help All Who Need it, Report Says

By Robert Mackey

In 1944, Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the “Servicemen’s Readjustment Act,” what would be commonly called the “GI Bill.” It was a model of success, educating future presidents, Nobel Prize winners, writers, poets, musicians, and teachers, as well as a generation of mechanics, farmers, and technicians. By the time it expired in 1956, it had changed the face of American higher education and boosted a generation into the middle class.

On June 30, President Bush signed into law the newest version of the GI Bill, legislation that promised to reward the service of the men and women who have worn the uniform since September 11, 2001. This measure, which would significantly expand higher education benefits for veterans, has won bipartisan acclaim, with only a slight ripple from those concerned that the recipients of said governmental largesse will flee from the military in droves, cash in hand, ready to actually go to college.

These critics need not worry because, despite the hype, this bill is not really a new version of the World War II bill at all, but in many ways a repackaged enlistment benefit meant to tie the individual servicemember to the military for decades before full privileges are earned.

The original GI Bill was simply a reward for service. It was intended to ensure that troops coming back from World War II were able to get an education, move into the middle class, and contribute to the system, in stark contrast to how veterans had been treated since the American Revolution (a small "separation" pay if you were lucky, your likely ragged uniform and out the door). Most importantly, the original bill was not tied to future service—you didn’t enlist to gain the benefits; your past service was the only deciding factor. And the actual amount of money involved could be substantial: full tuition, books, room and board were covered until 1952, when an amendment to the act changed it to a simple stipend ($110 a month, the equivalent of about $900 in 2007).

What do an appendix, plica semilunaris, and student-loan guaranty agency all have in common? They're all vestigial structures whose original purpose is no longer necessary. But unlike the first two examples, guaranty agencies are desperate to show -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- that they are still relevant.

As parts of a system known for its complexity and confusion (the Federal Family Education Loan Program, otherwise known as FFEL), guaranty agencies are the ultimate amorphous entity, branching out into numerous roles that are completely unrelated to their original purposes.

Soon after Congress created the FFEL program in 1965, it authorized the involvement of guaranty agencies (many of which were already in existence in the states), to encourage lenders to offer student loans by providing default insurance. Congress also gave the guarantors important oversight responsibilities, such as ensuring that only eligible students obtain federal loans, and that lenders make a concerted effort to keep delinquent borrowers from defaulting.

While it made sense for guaranty agencies to occupy these roles at a time when technological limitations made it difficult for solely the federal government to oversee FFEL, the program's current setup and recent oversight failures make it clear that guaranty agencies should not be the ones to carry out these functions.

I've been a huge fan of college sports for as long as I can remember. If I had to pick my all-time favorite activity for a Saturday afternoon, it would be attending a college football or basketball game. But in recent years, I started to realize that college athletics is not exactly the idealized extracurricular activity of talented students that I had imagined as a child.

When I entered the higher education policy world as a writer for Higher Ed Watch two years ago, I wanted to learn more. What I found was not pretty, and I was soon struggling to figure out how college sports had lost its way, and how policymakers could steer it back in the right direction.

Now, my time on the sports beat at Higher Ed Watch is drawing to a close. Before departing the higher education blog world, I wanted to revisit my recommendations for reforming college athletics. I understand that change will not come quickly or easily, but I do believe that demanding greater accountability from colleges for the academic performance of their athletes could significantly improve the way sports programs currently do business.

My Changing View of College Sports

When I set out to investigate the nexus between college athletics and academics, I quickly found myself immersed in appalling graduation rates and stories of academic corruption. It wasn't difficult to lay bare the dirty, profit-driven side of the college athletics world. But as visible as the problems were, few people seemed to care. Outside of isolated exposés and a few dedicated professors, there weren't very many serious efforts at reform.

California Halts State Oversight of For-Profit Colleges

Ties Between Sallie Mae and Guarantee Agency Come Under Renewed Scrutiny

Student Loans Still a Problem, Says Outgoing Ed. Dept. IG

If the events of the last two years have taught us anything, it's that the U.S. Department of Education's oversight of the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program has been unconscionably lax. The recent revelations that the Department had inadvertently allowed convicted felons to become eligible FFEL lenders is just the latest example of the agency's negligence.

Why then, despite all evidence to the contrary, does the Government Accountability Office (GAO) no longer consider the FFEL program to be at a "High Risk" for waste, fraud, and abuse?

Every two years the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, puts together the "High Risk" list, an official compilation of federal programs it considers to be the most vulnerable to exploitation. Started in 1990, the goal of the list is to help set the oversight agenda for each new Congress. For 15 years, the federal student aid programs stood at the top of the list, along with other notorious trouble areas such as the Defense Department's contracting practices, and the IRS's efforts to police tax law violations.

Among the government's financial-aid programs, the GAO expressed the most serious reservations about the FFEL program. For instance, a January 1999 update to the report noted that the guaranteed loan program was "particularly vulnerable because of its size, the large number of participants, and the federal guarantee under which the federal government bears most of the risk when students default on their loans."

Yesterday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) unveiled plans to rewrite federal bankruptcy laws to make it easier for financially-strapped senior citizens, military families, and individuals suffering medical emergencies to get relief from debilitating debts. While we are pleased that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is proposing to overhaul the 2005 bankruptcy bill, which was a glaring example of politicians putting corporate interests over regular people, we urge him not to forget another group who desperately needs help -- borrowers who have taken on unmanageable levels of private student debt and now find themselves in severe financial distress.

As we have noted previously, Congress tucked a provision into that bankruptcy bill making it extremely difficult for borrowers to discharge private student loans. That special provision was added in a secret conference committee, without any public debate or notice.

For most unsecured debt, a borrower who runs into difficulty can file for Chapter 7 liquidation or Chapter 13 reorganization, so a judge can sort out the appropriate treatment of various loans. But there is a short list of debts that the law subjects to a different status, allowing discharge in only the most extreme circumstances. The government, for example, makes it nearly impossible for people to escape child support responsibilities, overdue taxes, and criminal fines.

Federal student loans also can't be discharged. There's at least some justification for providing federal loans that status since they are backed by taxpayer dollars and come with borrower protections in cases of economic hardship, unemployment, death, and disability. But there is no good reason for private loans to be accorded the harshest bankruptcy status.