Administration targets working-adult degree programs
Whether a president actually claims the mantel of being the “Education President,” as did George W. Bush, or simply declares education a “top priority,” every recent occupant of the White House has felt the need to tout their education credentials. In his very first speech to a joint session of the Congress in early 2009, President Barack Obama promised that within a decade the U.S. will “have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.”
Strange it is, then, that this administration is moving to dramatically curtail the ability of a major segment of the country’s post-secondary schools to meet the needs of many students often underserved by traditional colleges and universities; namely, working adults and minorities.
In the crosshairs of a new Department of Education proposed regulation are America’s proprietary private colleges and universities.
The variety of degrees offered by proprietary schools, and the number and size of such schools, have grown dramatically in recent years; largely because they fill an important niche in higher education – offering flexible hours and course programs that meet the needs of working adults. As noted recently by Mark Schneider, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, four-year, for-profit schools represent the fastest-growing segment of higher education in the country.
Considering the avowed desire by the president to significantly increase the number of citizens graduating from college, and seeing the success proprietary colleges have enjoyed in helping fulfill that goal, one might conclude that the Obama Administration would be working to ensure
