The good news is that the Obama administration seems more inclined than its predecessor to stand up against the abuses of proprietary schools. In May, the Department of Education revealed that it was considering reversing changes the Bush administration made to weaken the incentive-compensation ban. It is also thinking about adding teeth to the rules requiring proprietary colleges to show that graduates are finding gainful employment in their field and cracking down on schools that willfully mislead prospective students. Our overall goal at the Department of Education in post-secondary education is to make sure that students … have the information they need to make good choices, Robert Shireman, the deputy undersecretary of education, told financial analysts and investors during a conference call earlier this year.
For starters, the Department of Education should publish the data that it already collects on the number of students at each school who default over the lifetime of their loans. At the moment, it only releases the number who default during the first two years after leaving college, which is of limited value, not only because this is such a short time span, but also because the rates can be easily manipulated by schools.
As a result, her loan balance has ballooned to approximately $32,000, and she has no idea how she will ever pay it off*
Just publishing lifetime default rates would give prospective students a clearer picture of the risks of enrolling in a particular school. But the impact would be far greater if Congress used this data, along with graduation rates, to weed out abusive institutions; ideally, any school that failed to meet a certain threshold should be kicked out of the federal financial aid programs.
At the same time, Congress should require companies that offer private student loans to give the same kinds of flexible repayment options and consumer protections as are available through the federal student loan program, including allowing borrowers to repay their loans as a percentage of their income. Continue reading “These proposals are a good start, but more steps will be needed”