Thursday, December 23, 2010

Reg Weaver Jumps on the Wrong Bandwagon

Reg Weaver Jumps on the Wrong Bandwagon

Reg Weaver Jumps on the Wrong Bandwagon



Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, has joined the gainful employmentopposition bandwagon. For those of you who may not be regular Q&E readers, and who aren’t familiar with my colleague Ben Miller’s posts on the topic, the proposed gainful employment regulations would determine for-profit colleges’ eligibility for federal financial aid based on whether their students 1) can reasonably expect to repay their loan debt, based on expected earnings and total debt load and 2) whether students actually do repay their debt, based on student loan repayment rates.

In his op-ed in Ed Week, Weaver starts out with a promising, if often heard, argument that college is too expensive and too many students are priced out of higher education. Then, he asks “Can we honestly tell our children that debt from college, which often stretches to more than $100,000, is going to be worth it?”

“No!” I answer, as I’m reading his op-ed, prepared to read a hearty assault on colleges for not doing more to