For-Profit College Lobbying Group to Hold ‘Grassroots Training’ Today

The Career College Association (CCA), the main trade association for for-profit colleges and universities, held a “grassroots” training in New York City today. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) will be speaking at the event's closing dinner.

The training — one of several the CCA has conducted in the past few months — will include briefings, speeches, and trainings, including one speech titled “a Call to Arms” by CCA board chairman Art Keiser. The attendees will be employees of CCA’s member colleges. “These are institutions whose students have an enormous stake in higher education policy decisions at both the national and local level,”  writes CCA spokesperson Bob Cohen. Students from CCA member schools, like Corinthian Colleges and DeVry University, were not invited to the event, despite the fact that the CCA recently created a “student organization” opposed to proposed Department of Education regulations.

The CCA is holding the workshop, in part, as a response to the increasing scrutiny that the for-profit college sector faces from Congress, consumer, and youth groups, and the Department of Education (ED). “With more attention being paid to our sector because of its rapid growth, and with critics increasing their attacks, our schools have realized that they must engage in more outward education to explain and demonstrate the value proposition,” Cohen writes to Campus Progress.

Judging from the agenda, the basic strategy that the training seems to be promoting is to invite elected officials to “campus visits,” expanding on this relationship to build credibility and develop legislative champions for the for-profit college industry. The event also encourages “solidifying champions through PAC development,” which presumably means campaign contributions. Open Secrets reports that the CCA’s PAC has donated $102,311 to federal candidates so far this year, up from $81,779 for all of 2008.

Though Gillibrand is planning to speak at the event, she does not appear to have ever received campaign contributions from the CCA’s PAC.

When asked what Gillibrand was invited to speak about and whether there would be a transcript or recording open to the public, Cohen wrote in an email that the event is “private,” and that no documentation of the speech would be available.

A spokesperson at Gillibrand’s office however said that she will not be talking about the new regulations that have been proposed by the Department of Education. The new regulations would crack down on aggressive and misleading recruitment efforts and tie financial aid eligibility for career college programs to the ability of their students to pay back their student loans. [Disclosure: Campus Progress Action, the advocacy arm of Campus Progress, has called for these regulations to be strengthened.]

Instead, Gillibrand's office says she plans to speak about her higher education agenda, which includes expanding federal financial aid and tuition tax credit programs, as well as investing in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. Her appearance at the event should not, according to Gillibrand's spokesperson, be interpreted as an endorsement of the CCA’s advocacy agenda.

Controversy over for-profit schools often focuses on the high student debt levels of their graduates when compared to both their career prospects, and the debt of students in comparable programs at, for example, community colleges:

Recently, press reports and Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigations uncovered questionable or illegal practices at some for-profit schools. Some of these problematic discoveries included:

• Targeting homeless shelters in recruitment efforts, despite the fact that most will be unable to leave the program with anything other than debt;
• Encouraging students to misrepresent their financial situation on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA);
• Helping recruits cheat on “ability to benefit tests,” which are administered when a potential student lacks a high school diploma and GED to determine whether they are ready for college work;
• Using high pressure and misleading recruitment practices, and not letting students speak to financial aid officers until after they enroll.

The GAO documented some of the practices using a hidden camera and undercover investigators:

Pedro de la Torre III is a former Advocacy Senior Associate at Campus Progress.