Community Colleges Need More Help
A new policy brief from the nonpartisan Brookings Institution calls on the federal government to double funding for U.S. community colleges, from $2 billion a year to $4 billion, and provide such schools with at least half of the $2.5 billion designated in the 2009– 2010 federal budget for supporting state efforts to help more low-income people graduate from college.
The policy brief, written by Professors Sara Goldrick-Rab and Douglas Harris of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Brookings senior fellow Alan Berube, argues that more federal support of community colleges is critical if the Obama administration hopes to achieve its aim of re-establishing the United States with the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.
The authors claim that greater vigilance by the federal government is needed to ensure that the wealthier four-year colleges and universities don’t employ their lobbying forces to gain more federal support than they deserve. While enrollment at community colleges is rising at twice the rate of four-year colleges, close to half of community college students fail to achieve some type of credential within six years of starting college.
“Research suggests that as their enrollments increase, colleges dilute the amount of resources spent on students and instruction, which in turn contributes to low completion rates,” according to the brief. “These institutions are often losers in the battle for scarce state resources, a situation that state budget crises are likely to exacerbate in coming years.”
Along with boosting funding in community colleges, the government should establish national goals for postsecondary education as well as a system for measuring whether those goals are being met, according to the policy brief.
In addition, more investment in community college resources is needed, including campus infrastructure; technology; and faculty, particularly in the areas of nursing, allied health and the science, technology, engineering and math fields.
The policy brief is based on a larger report by Goldrick-Rab, Harris, Christopher Mazzeo of the Consortium on Chicago School Research and Gregory Kienzl of the Institute for Higher Education Policy. The brief, full report, video interviews and more on the topic—developed as part of Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program—are available at www.brookings.edu/metro.
White House Proposes Eliminating FFEL Program
The 2010 budget proposed by the Obama administration includes a plan to eliminate the Family Federal Education Loan (FFEL) program starting next summer, creating what the White House says will be about $94 billion in savings that could be used for additional loans to low-income students.
Instead of using the private student loan industry to distribute about $85 billion a year in student loans that are provided at a subsidized rate to students and backed by the government in case of default, as is now the case with FFEL, the White House proposes eliminating the program and providing the loans directly to students, saving about $94 billion in administrative costs over 10 years, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office. That savings would then be used for additional Pell Grants, for low-income, post-secondary students.
Sallie Mae, the largest of the approximately 2,000 companies currently providing loans through FFEL, is lobbying Congress against the proposed elimination of FFEL and promoting an alternative plan that proposes, among other things, giving schools a choice of whether to arrange for student loans via private lenders or directly through the Education Department; converting all loans to one common set of borrower interest rates, terms and conditions; and using multiple contractors selected through competitive bidding to administer the loans.
Democrats in the House generally favor the White House proposal, according to various media reports, while some Republicans question whether expansion of direct loans by the federal government would create added delays and other bureaucratic hassles for students. A previous effort to reform the student loan industry during the Clinton administration resulted in the creation of a direct loan program with the Education Department.
This year the Education Department is providing about $15 billion in student loans, compared with about $59 billion provided through FFEL, according to the Congressional Research Service.
VA Nursing Program Adds Five More Schools
Five additional collegiate nursing programs recently joined a program created in 2007 by the Department of Veterans Affairs to increase enrollment and education of nurses nationwide.
Joining the program, which now has 15 participants, are Western Carolina University in Asheville, N.C.; the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Ala.; the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu; Pace University in New York; and Waynesburg University in Pittsburgh. Under the five-year, $59 million program, the VA Nursing Academy, as the program is called, funds staff development with the ultimate aim of increasing total student enrollment by about 1,000 and creating new innovations in nursing education.
Mainly because of a lack of staff and facilities, nursing schools in 2007 turned away more than 360,000 qualified applicants despite a general shortage of nurses in the United States, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
Other schools in the programs include VA medical centers connected with the University of Florida at Gainesville; San Diego State University; the University of Utah; Fairfield University in Connecticut; the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston; Loyola University of Chicago; the University of Detroit Mercy and Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan; the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences; Rhode Island College in Providence; and the University of South Florida in Tampa.
More information on the program may be found at www.va.gov/oaa. ♦