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Archive for September, 2011

– The House of Representatives has proposed a cut in certain federal student aid funding in fiscal 2012, potentially hurting for-profit colleges.

The House has sought significant cuts in the Pell Grant funding — federal aid to mainly low-income undergraduates — from the 2011 levels in the Labor, Health and Human Services Funding bill.

A BMO Capital analyst note said the reduction is about 7 percent of the total estimated Pell Grants received in fiscal 2011.

The proposal, which was released late Thursday, seeks to stop Pell Grants for students attending school less than half time and for students who do not have a high school diploma.

Cutting Pell Grants would negatively impact the for-profit schools, where a majority of students are in the low-income category.

Colleges like Corinthian Colleges, Lincoln Educational Services and Career Education are the most exposed to these students, compared with other schools in the post-secondary education industry.

Though news of the cuts upset post-secondary stock prices, it is far too early in the process to discount what Budget will be passed given the political conflict in Washington, said Trace Urdan, an analyst with Wunderlich Securities.

The bill also looks to block the state authorization rule, which was finalized last year. This could prove to be a positive for the education companies.

The state authorization rule sets minimum standards that U.S. states must follow while approving or monitoring which schools get federal student aid.

Shares of education companies were down slightly on Friday morning. The education sector index was trading down 2 percent. (Reporting by Megha Mandavia in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

JURUPA VALLEY, Calif. – A murder-suicide in the parking lot at Patriot High School, which forced a three-hour school lockdown and alarmed some witnesses, involved a school volunteer and her husband.

Maria Aguirre, 61, of Riverside, was pronounced dead at a local hospital after Wednesday’s shooting, the Riverside County Coroner said Thursday. Her husband, Donaciano Aguirre, 64, died in the parking lot.

Investigators have not released a motive.

“She’s my sister. She is a beautiful person,” Robert Salitre told the Riverside Press-Enterprise at the hospital. He said the couple appeared to have a good relationship.

About a dozen people, including some students, saw the shooting at the beginning of the school’s first lunch period.

Zachary Wisdom, 18, had just driven into the school parking lot to deliver lunch money to his brother, he told the Press-Enterprise.

He said he heard and saw a man shoot a woman twice as she sat in a car.

She fell out of the car and the man stood over her and fired another round at her chest, Wisdom said. The gunman then pointed the gun at his mouth and pulled the trigger.

“It looked like it was from a movie. I couldn’t believe it,” Wisdom said. “Right now I’m still in shock about it. I’m shocked how he reacted so calmly. He really didn’t act scared or mad or anything.”

Jurupa Valley is about 50 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

– The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) identified a “serious vulnerability” in distance education programs due to frauds committed by students and recommended a stricter enrollment process for colleges.

Stocks of for-profit colleges, which mostly offer online programs, fell on fears of further decline in enrollment and profit.

In the letter dated September 26, the OIG said it identified increasing number of cases involving large and loosely affiliated groups of individuals who conspired to defraud Title IV programs — a type of federal loan — as there were no requirements for verification of student identity.

The letter was available on the department’s website only on Thursday.

The OIG asked the department to require colleges to confirm student identity before disbursing funds and collect IP information for the students enrolling in online programs.

It said the department could also limit funds to students enrolled in online programs to avoid cost of room and boarding that are not incurred.

Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom said the recommendations could result in higher costs for the for-profit colleges as they will have to spend more on monitoring and screening for potential fraudsters.

They could also be forced to lower tuition fee if federal aid for these programs falls, he said.

“The bigger impact would be on the margin that the for-profit school can earn,” Wahlstrom said.

The OIG said the findings follow numerous investigations conducted over the past six years.

Since 2005, 215 distance education fraud ring participants from 42 different fraud rings have been criminally convicted due to the investigations but this does not represent the full scale of the fraud rings, the OIG said.

The department said it will form a new team and will give priority consideration to actions that can be taken under existing laws and regulations.

Shares of Corinthian Colleges, Bridgepoint, ITT Educational Services and Apollo Group fell about 3 percent in regular trading. The sector index closed down 1 percent.

(Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi and Megha Mandavia in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel)

CHICAGO – Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services on Thursday revised the outlook on the AA-minus general obligation bond rating of the Chicago Board of Education to stable from negative.

“The outlook revision reflects the cost reduction measures and other steps taken by the board and its new management team that helped improve the general fund balance in fiscal 2011 and close a large budget gap in fiscal 2012,” said S&P analyst John Kenward in a statement.

(Reporting by Karen Pierog)

LYNCHBURG, Va. – Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on Wednesday told Christian students at Liberty University in Virginia “don’t settle” for easy personal and political choices in life.

During a half-hour address to some 10,000 students at Liberty’s weekly campus-wide convocation, she briefly tied a message mostly about personal values and responsibility to an appeal to reject President Barack Obama’s agenda, including his health care reforms.

She made no mention of her GOP primary rivals in a talk laced with Scripture that took on the tone of a sermon.

Badly trailing front-runners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney and struggling in national polls, Bachmann sought a breakout moment with her base of support — Christian conservatives.

Liberty’s chancellor, Jerry Falwell Jr., said Bachmann won a recent student straw poll over the GOP field, largely because of her evangelical roots.

Bachmann evoked a few standing ovations and an occasional amen in speaking of her conversion to Christianity and how she would set her alarm for 5 a.m. as a teen so she could wake and read the Bible.

“Even though I hadn’t been a drinker, even though I never did drugs … even though I hadn’t been chasing around, it didn’t matter. I was a sinner,” she said. “I radically abandoned myself to Jesus Christ.”

She called abortion “the watershed issue of our time,” noting that she had five children of her own and that she and her husband, Marcus, who joined her onstage, had taken in 23 foster children. She used it to pivot into a broadside against Obama’s health care reforms.

“Obamacare is the first time in the history of our nation that we have taxpayer-subsidized abortions,” she said. “When it comes to Obamacare — and I have been involved in this fight for some time now — I will tell you, unless we repeal (it) in 2012, we will have socialized medicine for the United States’ future.”

And the applause lines kept coming.

The leader of the House’s Tea Party Caucus said conservatives have to stand against federal takeovers of U.S. industries, including the automotive, banking and insurance industries the government bailed out during the recession.

“And we can’t settle when it comes to America standing up for our greatest ally in the world, Israel,” Bachmann said.

The “don’t settle” theme has become the dominant message of Bachmann’s campaign in recent days. She hit it hard in appearances in Iowa on Monday.

Bachmann spent part of Wednesday campaigning in South Carolina. In a radio interview in Greenville, she criticized Perry’s financial dealings, comparing the Texas governor’s use of a state economic development fund to Obama’s support for a now-defunct California solar energy company that received a $ 528 million loan from the president’s stimulus program.

“Gov. Perry set up a fund in Texas and he gave $ 35 million and a grant to a private company and there were donors in that private company. And that company said they’d create 5,000 jobs. They didn’t create any jobs,” she said.

A similar charge was made by Perry’s Democratic opponent during last year’s race for governor. Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner dismissed Bachmann’s criticism and said, “She’s just throwing garbage at the wall to see if it will stick.”

Miner said the Texas Enterprise Fund is a national model that’s created 59,000 jobs and investments worth $ 4.7 billion with taxpayers putting up $ 439 million. If companies don’t deliver promised jobs, they pay the state back with interest.

“It’s completely off base,” Miner said of Bachmann’s charge. “This is a proven job-creation tool.”

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Associated Press writer Jim Davenport in South Carolina contributed to this report.

LYNCHBURG, Va. – Michele Bachmann on Wednesday told Christian students at Liberty University in Virginia “don’t settle” for easy personal and political choices in life.

During a half-hour address to some 10,000 students at Liberty’s weekly campus-wide convocation, she briefly tied a message mostly about personal values and responsibility to an appeal to reject President Barack Obama’s agenda, including his health care reforms.

She made no mention of her GOP primary rivals in a talk laced with Scripture that took on the tone of a sermon.

Badly trailing front-runners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney and struggling in national polls, Bachmann sought a breakout moment with her base of support — Christian conservatives.

Liberty’s chancellor, Jerry Falwell Jr., said Bachmann won a recent student straw poll over the GOP field, largely because of her evangelical roots.

Bachmann evoked a few standing ovations and an occasional amen in speaking of her conversion to Christianity and how she would set her alarm for 5 a.m. as a teen so she could wake and read the Bible.

“Even though I hadn’t been a drinker, even though I never did drugs, … even though I hadn’t been chasing around, it didn’t matter. I was a sinner,” she said. “I radically abandoned myself to Jesus Christ.”

She called the issue of abortion “the watershed issue of our time,” noting that she had five children of her own and that she and her husband, Marcus, who joined her onstage had taken in 20 foster children. She used it to pivot into a broadside against Obama’s health care reforms.

“Obamacare is the first time in the history of our nation that we have taxpayer-subsidized abortions,” she said. “When it comes to Obamacare — and I have been involved in this fight for some time now — I will tell you, unless we repeal (it) in 2012, we will have socialized medicine for the United States’ future.”

And the applause lines kept coming.

The leader of the House’s Tea Party Caucus said conservatives have to stand against federal takeovers of U.S. industries, including the automotive, banking and insurance industries the government bailed out during the recession.

“And we can’t settle when it comes to America standing up for our greatest ally in the world, Israel,” Bachmann said.

The “don’t settle” theme has become the dominant message of Bachmann’s campaign in recent days. She hit it hard in appearances in Iowa on Monday

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is encouraging students to work hard in their classes, saying the country is counting on them.

Obama was scheduled to speak Wednesday afternoon at Washington’s Benjamin Banneker Academic High School. His back-to-school address will be televised live and carried online.

In his prepared remarks, Obama urges students to pursue an education after high school and says that in tough economic times, the country needs their ideas and passion.

“Whether we fall behind or race ahead in the coming years is up to you,” he says.

Obama also confesses that he wasn’t always the best student and didn’t love every class he took.

“I’ll let you in on another secret: I still don’t always know the answers,” he says. “But if I’d have just tuned out because the class sounded boring, I might have missed out on something that I enjoyed and something that’s still useful to me today.”

Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, a magnet school that opened in 1981, is designed to provide a rigorous academic background in preparation for college.

The White House released the text of the president’s message the night before his speech to defuse any potential charges that he would be giving a political speech to the nation’s schoolchildren. Two years ago, some conservatives accused Obama of bringing politics into the classroom with a similar back-to-school speech.

Last week, Obama announced his administration will allow states to apply for waivers around unpopular proficiency standards in the No Child Left Behind education law. To qualify, states must meet conditions such as setting evaluation standards for teachers and principals and imposing their own standards to prepare students for college and careers.

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Online:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/back-to-school

___

Kimberly Hefling can be reached at http://twitter.com/khefling

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to tell students Wednesday in a back-to-school message that America needs their passion and ideas in these tough economic times.

The White House released the text of the president’s message early to defuse any potential charges that Obama would give a political speech to the nation’s school children. Two years ago, some conservatives accused Obama of bringing politics into the classroom with a similar back-to-school speech.

The president plans to tell students they are the country’s future and that “whether we fall behind or race ahead in the coming years is up to you.”

He encourages the students to work hard in school and to pursue an education after high school.

Obama also confesses that he wasn’t always the best student and didn’t love every class he took.

“I’ll let you in on another secret: I still don’t always know the answers,” he says in prepared remarks. “But if I’d have just tuned out because the class sounded boring, I might have missed out on something that I enjoyed and something that’s still useful to me today.”

Obama is scheduled to speak at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington. The magnet school, which opened in 1981, is designed to provide a rigorous academic background in preparation for college.

The address will be broadcast live on television and online.

Last week, Obama announced his administration will allow states to apply for waivers around unpopular proficiency standards in the Bush-era No Child Left Behind education law. To qualify, states must meet conditions such as setting evaluation standards for teachers and principals and meeting conditions such as imposing their own standards to prepare students for college and careers.

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Online: http://www.whitehouse.gov/back-to-school

_____

Kimberly Hefling can be reached at http://twitter.com/khefling

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Two girls getting on a bus for school Monday were injured when a dump truck rear-ended the vehicle in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale.

Glendale police say the truck driver faces a civil citation for failure to control a vehicle to avoid a collision. Glendale police spokesman Officer Brent Coombs told The Associated Press the dump truck driver was checked and there was no impairment found.

There are conflicting reports as to the extent of injuries to two girls. Earlier reports had the girls facing life-threatening injuries. However, Coombs says the girls were listed in serious condition but with non-life threatening injuries. Coombs added the girls were being kept in the hospital for observation.

The driver of the dump truck did not require hospital treatment.

The bus serves Bennett Academy.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Atlantic Wire – Today in academia: U.S. News has a ready rankings retort, Boston University has its new ad campaign snarked, a UC Berekeley bake sale gets inflammatory and college presidents are an aging bunch.