New Law Bans Use of Federal Student Aid for Foreign Colleges' Online Programs

From today's news in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Here is a link to the letter that the DOE sent to foreign institutions about the new changes.


http://www.ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/GEN0611.html


This is a crock, Congress actually worried about a student's educational experience!!! PLEASE!!!

This sounds like a for-profit (cough UOP cough!!) got their hands on a few Congressmen.

 

Wow. This is bad news.

 

...whereas when the student does NOT, due to the unavailability of fin. aid, take a distance-education class through a school in London, for example, he is enjoying true and genuine international experience! This is the silliest rationalization I have ever heard. (Becides, weren't fin. aid was supposed to be about providing access to EDUCATION not "experience"?) Why would the public believe such nonsence?

 

Personally, I don't see a problem with it. They see federal tax dollars going to foreign institutions and want to keep the money state-side. It's like the SBA giving loans to open a Kwikie-Mart in France...doesn't make sense.

The inconsistency is if I went to Oxford ground campus in UK and still got financial aid from US.

I don't have a problem with it if they would just be consistant about it.

 

Sounds like a bunch of anti-intellectual right-wing Congressmen dreamed up a really good conspiracy theory and then passed a law on something they know nothing about.

 

Re: Re: New Law Bans Use of Federal Student Aid for Foreign Colleges' Online Programs

If being Anti-Ward Churchill makes me an anti-intellectual right-winger, sign me up.

How does a desire to keep US taxpayer money in the US make one anti-intellectual?

 

Just a point or more perhaps a question. How does this law sit with free trade agreements? Australia, for example, has signed a free trade agreement with the US. Wouldn't this law be inconsistent with this agreement?

Australian Universities have students in the US. The imposition of this law will no doubt affect some of them. Could this be viewed as an "artifice" to restrain the Australian Universities?

It is difficult to accept that it is anything other than a "restraint of trade" mechanism. This is fine, then why sign free trade agreements? The effect of closing the door on one economic sector encourages countries to close the door to the US on other sectors.

The students may be the losers because of the lack of competition to encourage innovation. I have often argued that US universities, by entering the market here, would make Australian Universities become more consumer focussed.

I note that a rather large Indian Universiy is entering the waters here with a distance education centre which may give the place a shake up. Australian students will be the winner.

I would be interested to hear what those in commerce or law have to say about the situation. I don't pretend to be an expert in this field and have raised the questions for those more qualified to comment.

 

How is it a subsidy for schools if students have to pay the loans back?

Tuition is just payment for services rendered, and for that matter, the tuition usually isn't nearly what it costs to provide the education. For example, Brit schools are primarily funded by Brit taxpayers and/or alums. The tuition is just a fraction, and of course, the whole shooting match is paid back to the federal government, with interest, by the student.

I'm a right-winger, but I don't agree with the expressed rationale for this legislation at all. I, too, thought it was about education, not experience. I don't think this has much to do with anything other than a little xenophobia, a little election-year pandering to vague anti-international feelings among the electorate, and just a lot of good old fashioned legislative blundering.

 

I checked it out, and while it was part of a bill that passed with overwhelming Rep support and underwhelming Dem support, it's impossible to tell whether this part of the bill was favored or disfavored by members of one party or the other. It was a conglomeration of bills that were entitled the Deficit Reduction Act, and this was just one tiny bit of the whole thing. It touched on tons of stuff--just a big honking bill.

It involved decreases in the rates of the increases of spending, which is actually an increase in spending. This was predictably reported as "massive cuts". It always is, and it's always a lie. But in any event, I probably would've signed the bill myself if it were sitting on my desk at the Oval Office, but I would have held my nose vis-a-vis this silly foreign financial aid provision. It just makes little sense.

Boy, I wish we had a line item veto amendment to the Constitution.

 

It may not be subsidy, but certainly is a marketing edge when the students can get loans. Obviously, significant numbers of students will have difficulty with tuition without the loan. This must limit market access for those providers who don't have that ability.

I know a similar thing operates here in Australia with government owned or controlled universities. The student can get a loan from the government to attend. The private universities charge fees which are not available for loans from the government. I have often wondered why this is not viewed as anti-competitive.

My view is that is the student should be the focus of the government, not the institutions. The diversity of opportunity will bring down the cost of education and, therefore, the access will open up. It will also produce, in theory, a better educated, innovative workforce because of increased diversity and access.

I suspect that the average joe in the US is probably not much different from here. The distance learning student base is usually young marrieds, both working, with children and big mortgages. Time and money count. The loan is critical.

Low cost education is even more critical for creation of opportunity. Is access to education access to opportunity? Most I think would say yes. Presumably then, the wider the access to education, the greater access to opportunity.

What is to stop an online US university importing educational product in courseware from off shore and having adjuncts teach from the courseware at reduced rates? This does not mean, of course, that the US student gets the reduced tuition cost.

The offshore university may seek to enter the US market by developing courseware for the US university. The US University may be in a better bargaining position than the offshore competitor to negotiate the price of the courseware. The student, of course, does not have direct access to the courseware provider because of the inability to finance study with them.

Distance learning at the present time appears to me to be artificially priced. The technology is not that expensive, the buildings and associated costs are very low, and the heavy reliance on adjuncts pushes the prices down. More competition may push the cost down to a real market value (not to be equated against an educational value).

 

Federal Tax Dollars....

"Personally, I don't see a problem with it. They see federal tax dollars going to foreign institutions and want to keep the money state-side. It's like the SBA giving loans to open a Kwikie-Mart in France...doesn't make sense."

It's not federal tax dollars...in most cases, it is federally-backed student loans that the student pays back. In essence, it is the student's money going to foreign institutions.

Here's what it amounts to: We'll loan you money, and we'll tell you where to spend it.

 

I do know of a few DL programs in the US that offer the option of attending a face-to-face class session or "attending" class using an Internet video feed. Maybe foreign online programs could offer the same option, thereby getting around this law?

 

Re: Re: Re: New Law Bans Use of Federal Student Aid for Foreign Colleges' Online Programs

Ward Churchill is not an intellectual nor do I care what kind of winger he is. Quite frankly, he is a fool (as anyone else would be) for calling the 3,000 dead from the World Trade Center "Little Eichmanns" without having any support for his assertions. If he could show evidence that Eichmann did this and the 3000 Little Eichmanns from the World Trade Center from 9/11 did that and that is how they are the same, then the analogy would have held up. But his outrageous statement was unsupported by the evidence. Moreover, he faked his ethnicity to get his professorship. I don't care about his supposed political affiliations ... he's an idiot!

Now as for the anti-intellectuals in Congress passing laws on things they know nothing about, g..d...it, if you're going to be having student financial aid programs, let the student find out how much aid he/she is qualified for and then let him/her tender the aid at whatever school he/she may be qualified for. Besides, how does cutting off aid to otherwise qualified students choosing foreign schools sit with all this stuff the Republicans spew about free trade? How about letting American schools put themselves to the survival of the fittest test ... if they see significant numbers of American students going to foreign schools, let them ask themselves why. Maybe they could start offering more external undergraduate degrees by examination, more dissertation-only master's degrees and thesis-only doctorates that could be done either entirely at a distance or with just a few short visits to campus ... heck, and maybe even in fields other than business, education, and psychology! But, no, rather than listening to their markets, the all-knowing university administrators in America would rather keep doing only what they want to do (like the car companies of the 1970s) and then complain to the most easily purchaseable Congressmen about "unfair" competition from foreign schools and ask them to "do something" about something they know nothing about!

 

Re: Re: New Law Bans Use of Federal Student Aid for Foreign Colleges' Online Programs

Yup, and it's not like cash cow online education schools are making a big fuss about that either.

 

Y'all have to remember also that while the student aid does get paid back, often times the gov't subsidizes the interest on the loans, pays the loans out if the borrower defaults, etc.

It's a government program, if they want to dictate how it gets used, they're completely within their rights. I know it might p*ss some of us off or we think it's unfair, but it is a government benefit. Let's not forget that.

It's no different than telling you that you have to buy Brand X juice with your WIC check rather than Brand Y.

 

???

CargoJon,

It's a benefit given to us by the government...none of us here have forgotten that. But that's not the heart of the issue here, which revolves around OUR right to educate ourselves where we so choose.

This decree, if you will, has the undertone that legitimate foreign education, when delivered through non-traditional means, somehow loses that legitimacy. That makes no sense. It was the same thing here in the states not too long ago, when federal aid was forbidden for use in non-traditional programs here.

As far as the rights of the government is concerned...their soverign status lies in the hand of the public...that's why we are not a monarchy. In theory it's about civil rights - the right of the people, and we live in a society where we're force-fed the idea that the government should always have the best interest of the people at heart.

I know this is a crock of crap, and this latest ruling is only one of many, many decrees which shows that the government doesn't represent the issues of the common man. That, to me, is a far greater problem...a government whose policy is becoming increasingly more isolationist, but also less-reflective of and responsive to its political consituent's needs.

Finally, you can't compare WIC - which is a hand-out, of sorts - to federal student loans - which are paid back, in pertinent part. There's a huge difference in being told what brand of juice to buy versus where you can educate yourself (in terms of legitimate educational opportunities).

Social Security is a government benefit as well...is there any rule dictating how or where those funds, once received, can be spent?

 

Well, it's a change that will mean less $$$ for foreign schools and more business for US schools and I'm not so sure that this is a good thing for students. Major distance learning providers like Nova, top schools with DL arms like Harvard, cash-cow 100% online education degrees from brick & mortar schools and generous credit-for-life-experience schools like Charter Oak will benefit from this new law.