Written by / Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
MAE 2010 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 (February)
GAO Calls on DoE to Improve Student Aid Oversight
In a recent report to the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning and Competitiveness, Committee on Education and Labor, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the students who attend for-profit schools are most likely to default on loans made available by the Department of Education (DoE). Entitled Stronger Department of Education Oversight Needed to Help Ensure Only Eligible Students Receive Federal Student Aid, the report was based on in-depth analysis of recent student loan data.
Academic researchers found that higher default rates at for-profit schools are linked to the characteristics of the students who attend these schools. These students tend to be individuals who come from low income backgrounds and from families who lack higher education.
Borrowers who are not successful in school and drop out also have high default rates. Ultimately, when student loan defaults occur, both taxpayers and the government, which guarantees the loans, are left with the costs.
GAO is therefore recommending that the DoE strengthen its monitoring and oversight of federal aid eligibility requirements. Specifically, GAO recommends DoE improve its monitoring of basic skills tests and target schools for further review; revise regulations to strengthen controls over basic skills tests; and provide information and guidance on valid high school diplomas for use in gaining access to federal student aid.
VA Pushes to Accelerate GI Bill Education Benefits
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reached out to student vets, servicemembers, university officials and other partners to meet its commitment to an aggressive processing goal of February 1, 2010, the date a large number of spring payments were due. By mid-January the VA had processed over 72,000 of the approximately 103,000 spring enrollments it had received.
VA has sent letters to university presidents and school certifying officials, state Veterans affairs directors, and has notified veteran service organizations, congressional members and other education stakeholders emphasizing the importance of timely submission of school enrollment information.
VA recently hired 530 employees, who have been working mandatory overtime since August to help address the high volume of claims received for the new Post-9/11 GI Bill. Since the new program began last year, VA has paid over $1.3 billion in benefits to more than 170,000 students. It also released a “Hip Pocket” guide and checklist with helpful tips to assist veterans in the application process. The guide and checklist can be found on college campuses and VA’s GI Bill Website, www.gibill.va.gov.
Digital Repository Publication Considers Open Access
A recent publication by the Primary Research Group entitled The Survey of Higher Education Faculty: Use of Digital Repositories and Views on Open Access, offers data on how higher education faculty in the United States and Canada view the growing digital repository/open access movement.
The report includes the results of a survey of more than 550 higher education faculty in the United States and Canada. Data is presented in the aggregate and for 12 criteria, including academic field, size of college, type of college, academic title and other factors.
Some of the findings note that:
• Only 13 percent of the faculty ever used a college’s institutional digital repository for scholarly research purposes.
• About 28 percent said they would try to help by providing open access to their research materials as much as they can.
• Compared to tenured faculty, untenured faculty are roughly twice as likely to have contributed an article to a digital repository.
• Approximately 75 percent of the faculty understood the meaning of the term “open access.”
• Individuals on the left wing of the political spectrum were more likely than those on the right wing to understand this term.
CGS and GRE Assess Rise in Graduate Enrollment
According to a recent survey by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and the Graduate Record Examinations Board (GRE), applications for admission to U.S. graduate schools increased 4.8 percent between fall 2007 and fall 2008.
Business, engineering, and social and behavioral sciences accounted for the largest numbers of graduate applications in the fall of 2008. The increase in graduate applications in fall 2008 was slightly larger than that seen over the past decade.
Between fall 1998 and fall 2008, graduate applications grew at an average annual rate of 3.8 percent. Over the past decade, increases occurred in graduate applications in all broad fields. The average annual increases were greatest in physical sciences, engineering, and health sciences.
In addition, more than 428,000 students enrolled for the first time in graduate certificate, education specialist, master’s, or doctoral programs for the fall term in 2008 at the institutions responding to the survey. Nearly two thirds of all first-time graduate students were enrolled at public institutions, about one-third were at private, nonprofit institutions, and the rest were at private, for-profit institutions.
The fields of education, business and health sciences enrolled the largest numbers of first-time graduate students, with about half of all firsttime students enrolled in one of these three broad fields. The majority of all first-time graduate students in fall 2008 (85 percent) were enrolled in programs leading to a master’s degree or a graduate certificate.
Sixty-two percent of all first-time graduate students were enrolled full-time in fall 2008, and about 59 percent of them were women. Among firsttime graduate students whose citizenship was known, 82 percent were U.S. citizens and permanent residents and 18 percent were temporary residents. Nearly one-quarter of all first-time graduate students were members of U.S. citizen and permanent resident racial/ethnic minority groups.
Much of the growth in first-time graduate enrollment over the past decade has been the result of growth among temporary residents, but fall 2008 marks the first time since fall 2004 that year-to-year growth among U.S. citizens and permanent residents outpaced that of temporary residents.
Education Abroad Influenced by Global Economic Crisis
The Forum on Education Abroad, a global membership association of nearly 400 institutions and organizations that represent about 90 percent of the U.S. students who study abroad, found in a recent survey that 66 percent of respondents from 110 institutions/organizations report that the global economic crisis has negatively impacted their education abroad programs. Eighty-four percent of public universities and 57 percent of private universities and colleges report a negative impact. Eighty-seven percent of U.S.-based provider organizations, 62 percent of internationally-based provider organizations and 60 percent of international universities report a negative impact. ♦