Digging Deep
Thousands of Georgians attend for-profit colleges, as enrollment has boomed in recent years. But some of those colleges have very troubled histories, and at least two colleges that have operated in Georgia were labeled by other authorities as diploma mills.
To find out how the state was protecting students and taxpayers, the AJC investigated the commission responsible for regulating the schools.
Reporters found that a number of for-profit colleges with troubled histories have been certified by the commission as financially and educationally sound.
Even before that investigation was published Sunday, Gov. Deal filled long-vacant seats on the commission’s board. The commission has become an issue in the gubernatorial election campaign, and this week state lawmakers said they will take a closer look at the agency.
A shakeup may be on the way for the state agency responsible for regulating for-profit colleges after an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found lax oversight.
Gov. Nathan Deal said he met with lawmakers this week about ways to strengthen the Georgia Nonpublic Postsecondary Education Commission, including possibly beefing up its budget. Deal also could appoint new members to the commission’s board.
House Higher Education Committee Chairman Carl Rogers, R-Gainesville, said he will call a meeting soon to discuss the commission, which is responsible for regulating more than 300 private and for-profit schools.
The AJC report found that while dozens of other states and federal agencies have launched investigations of for-profit institutions, the Georgia commission has given them scant scrutiny.
The newspaper found that the commission is understaffed and plagued with inconsistent and haphazard record-keeping, as well as loose regulatory authority. Few students are even aware of the agency, and its lax regulations have left them vulnerable to aggressive recruiting tactics, heavy debt and misleading claims about job prospects, the AJC found.
Longtime agency director Bill Crews has said the agency could do its job better with more resources, and he plans to ask for more money during the upcoming budget process. The extra money, being considered by Deal, would allow the agency to hire more staff to “conduct more thorough evaluations and assist NPEC in the areas of investigations, enforcement and legal matters,” Crews said.
The commission has had a very low profile at the Capitol.
Rogers and Senate Higher Education Committee Vice Chairman Josh McKoon said they have had little or no contact with it despite a stinging 2013 state audit that mirrored the newspapers's findings.
“The commission probably hadn’t reached out enough – just my personal assumption,” Rogers said. “I had met (Crews) one time, a couple of years ago. Obviously his needs weren’t expressed enough.”
McKoon said he has wondered about the regulation of the schools.
“You drive by these places and you know they are there,” he said. “It’s one of those things where you think somebody somewhere is looking after this.”
As a Columbus lawmaker, McKoon always has an eye on the health of nearby Fort Benning, which is ringed by for-profit colleges eager to enlist military personnel as students.
Effective regulation of the schools is important to maintain good relations with the Defense Department, he said.
“If you look at this issue through the lens of what is going to happen in a subsequent round of base realignment and closure, this issue is pretty low-hanging fruit for us to take care of,” McCoon said.
Deal did not give a timeline on when the new NPEC board appointments would be made. He filled three long-vacant posts on the agency board last week ahead of the AJC report.
But he said there was no question that the commission has limited resources and that’s an issue he’ll talk with the Legislature about.
Last year the agency collected about $1.8 million in fees from its regulated schools, about twice the amount of its annual budget. Most of the money it collects stays in the state’s general fund.
“They are like most licensing agencies, they don’t get to keep all the fees they generate through the licensing process,” Deal said. “That’s one of the things we need to talk to the General Assembly about — whether that increase in funding is warranted.”
Deal’s opponent for re-election, Democratic Sen. Jason Carter, criticized the governor for not addressing the problem until the AJC report.
“Nobody is watching the store while serious things are affecting the education system,” he said after a campaign event this week.
Any help will come too late for students like Charles Schwable, a military veteran.
Schwable got an associate’s degree from an Atlanta for-profit college to become a paralegal, but he said he has been unable to find a job in that field earning more than $10 an hour.
He is now enrolled in a much cheaper heating and air installation program at a public school, Atlanta Technical College. But is saddled with $34,000 in debt from his for-profit degree, which he calls “worthless.”
He sees the for-profit industry as predators focused only on the money. “They don’t care about you… I didn’t k now what I was getting into.”
Staff writer Greg Bluestein contributed to this report.
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