US DOE Proposal to Take Over Higher Education

I've been keeping up with this development, at least somewhat. I think it's an attempt to fix something that isn't broken and don't see any good coming from it.

 

I'm not sure about the credit hour definitions and other matters, but I do think the removal of the 12 safe harbors of incentive compensation is a positive action. The safe harbors had the effect of completely undermining legislative intent, and I am glad to see them go.

 

Good luck on finding a lender for private loans. The schools in most cases lack the capital to do the lending themselves, and student loans are just too risky to be profitable for the majority of students. Additionally, why would I go with a private loan at one school at 10-15% interest when I can get 6.8% with all of the flexible repayment options at another?

Also, this doesn't even touch the issue of grants. A school would be hard-pressed to give up Title IV funding because students could not receive Pell grants.

 

Ultimately, I have more faith in guidelines that are loose, revised and improved upon periodically and enforced by a government body than I have in accreditation bureaus staffed by academics responsible for justifying and approving academic programs. However, I don't trust a government body to know anything about quality of an academic program.

As long as the government sets guidelines for what the minimum standards are for a program and moves to set a standard for credits such that it eases transfer requirements and pre-requisites, while the accreditation bureaus still determine quality, I'm alright with this.

If the point is to usurp the accreditors then this will end badly.

 

This administration is a huge government take over, so why is anybody surprised that government wants to take over higher education?

 

The forefathers of the United States wrote the Constitution to regulate and control the growth of the Federal government, which relegated it to the defense of the country. In the 20th and 21st Centuries, the growth of the Federal government has done exactly what the framers of the Constitution feared e.g. it has become a behemoth money gobbling giant. The U.S. government used around 3% of the GDP for the first 150 years of the nation, but now it's up to about 28% with no end in sight to this exponential growth.

The Constitution does not support the tentacles of social security, nor the Federal Department of Education. Constitutional freedoms are being given away for a "take care of me" attitude. There is no end in sight to the growth of the Federal government.

 

Well, the DOE has done such a marvelous job with primary education since it's inception. I think this is a wonderful idea....uh no

 

+1. Look at the bang-up job the federal government has done with the postal service, Amtrak, Fannie/Freddie, social security, medicare, medicaid..............................................................................