The Redgate Read On Online Learning

With the ongoing pressure from the Department of Education, coupled with a recent disclosure by noted investor, Steve Eisman, that he is shorting private education stocks and that for-profit education is the new sub-prime, the sector as a whole has taken a serious hit.  For example, Apollo is trading at a 52 week low and other stocks are trading well below their moving averages. 

This volitility will continue for the foreseeable future and a deep plunge for some education companies is a distinct possibility.  This uncertainty will continue until the industry, and specifically some of the “bad apples” within the space, come to grips with aggressive recruiting tactics, sub-par academic protocol, and burdensome debt load of their students.

 

Recently, I met with officials from a university who had requested to talk with me regarding my experience in online education.  The institution they represented was a fairly well respected state school that was located near two large metropolitan areas.  It had also been dabbling in online programs for a number of years, first offering them within their community to adult learners and then expanding them regionally.  Total enrollment numbers for their online programs were not significant.

What I found interesting about the conversation was that the three individuals I met with had been conducting “research” and visiting other schools for six years.  That’s right — six years!  What I tried to convey to them was that, in the ever expanding and evolving world of post-secondary online education, SPEED WINS.    Read the rest of this entry »

I know many people including family and friends who are just unwilling, within reason, to try new things and establish new goals.   I am no philosopher or sociologist, but life at times just sucks the wind out you.  This battering, if ongoing and relentless, can produce this unwillingness to step out to achieve new goals or at least experience new things. 

This is true with folks who know that completing their degree will mean a better life and more self confidence but can’t take that first step.  Some have let life knock them down and they refuse to get up.  Others have established a personal “comfort zone” and don’t want to venture outside it.  With the advent and acceptance of online learning, the goal of earning or completing a degree is more within reach than ever before — for any adult, no matter how young or old.

I shared this quote by Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx, with my family last week.  It really illustrates this point.  I hope it will mean as much to you as it did to the Redgates:

“Something in human nature tempts us to stay where we’re comfortable.  We try to find a plateau, a resting place, where we have comfortable stress and adequate finances.  Where we have comfortable associations with people, without the intimidation of meeting new people and entering strange situations.  Of course, we all need to plateau for a time. We climb and then plateau for assimilation.  But once we’ve assimilated what we’ve learned, we climb again.  It’s unfortunate when we’ve done our last climb.  When we have made our last climb, we are old, whether twenty, forty, or eighty.”

 

 

In the movie City Slickers, Billy Crystal plays a radio advertising salesman going through a mid-life crisis. He and his friends deal with the humdrumness of life by participating in a cattle drive from New Mexico to Colorado — an experience that turns out to be a kind of epiphany for all of them. At the end of the movie as they prepare to return to New York and the familiar routine, Billy Crystal explains to one of those friends the concept of a “do-over.” Do you remember, he says, when you used to play ball as a kid? Sometimes when you fouled things up, you would get a “do-over.”  Simply, it was a second chance to swing at the pitch.

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This is the first time I have really had legitimate concerns over this form of policy movement of the Department of Education:

Officials of For-Profit Colleges See Department’s Proposed Rule Changes as ‘Aggressive’

By Jennifer Gonzalez

Washington

 

Any thoughts that the U.S. Department of Education planned only to tweak existing regulations that affect for-profit colleges and other higher-education sectors were dashed on Monday when the agency released a draft of proposed revisions to a panel of negotiators. Many people in higher education, especially those in the for-profit sector, were taken aback at the substantial changes proposed, with some calling the move “aggressive” and “surprisingly strong.” The panel, whose members include federal officials and representatives of institutions and associations affected by the regulations, has been charged with re-examining 14 rules in a process known as negotiated rule-making.

 

Among the department’s proposed changes are eliminating the 12 “safe harbors” adopted in 2002 to clarify a ban on incentive compensation for student recruiters. The safe harbors specify types of compensation plans that do not violate the ban. Other proposed changes deal with assuring the integrity of “ability to benefit” testing procedures, defining a high-school diploma, and determining how institutions ensure gainful employment for their students.

 

Ripples in the Markets

By far, the most significant change to come from the department is the proposal to eliminate the safe harbors.

Consumer advocates and admissions officers from traditional colleges have urged the department to do away with the safe harbors, arguing that the exemptions, which allow colleges to pay enrollment-based commissions under certain circumstances, encourage recruiters to sign up unqualified students. Officials of for-profit colleges and lobbyists favor keeping the safe harbors, saying they provide much-needed clarity on whether specific types of payments are in compliance with the law. Read the rest of this entry »