First, the bad news: census jobs have been fading out as the task of counting all individuals residing in the U.S. is wrapping up. 121,000 jobs were lost in August, while 67,000 jobs were gained in the private sector for a total loss of 54,000 jobs. The result is a rise in the unemployment index to 9.6 percent from July’s 9.5 percent. Experts long complained census jobs were artificially propping up the economy, as these positions are not permanent and distort the image of U.S. labor strength. In total, roughly half a million individuals were put to work to count this country’s population. In July, 143,000 census workers were let off government payrolls.

But the payroll jump caused by the census can be compared to retailers and service providers hiring temporary staff to fill employer seasonal needs. An index used to measure teenage employment reveals the summer has been a blessing for their pockets, as their job presence has jumped to nearly 18 percent for the summer months. Last year, the winter shopping season added 100,000 new temporary positions. Even though temporary employment is a fixture in the U.S. job market, observers isolated the boost in jobs the census created likely because they viewed it as a federal jobs program. Allegations of politicizing the census jobs were not difficult to find. However, it is deceiving to the public to criticize census jobs alone, as they addressed a need in service not unlike the summer and winter jobs splurge.

As for the more clear-cut good news, the August jobs report beat speculation. Analysts polled by Reuters feared a total jobs drop-off of 100,000 and only 41,000 new private sector jobs created. Earlier in the week, manufacturing reports indicated the industry is on a 13-month expansion binge. This coincided with similar growth in China, suggesting the world’s second largest economy has a domestic consumer market that is hungry for U.S. and other international goods. While jobs in manufacturing dropped by 27,000, export orders are up and capital raised for machines has also increased—indicators that support the notion gains in manufacturing are here to stay. The influential Institute for Supply Management said their manufacturing index rose to 56.3 from July’s 55.5. A value of 50 indicates industry growth.

Of course manufacturing no longer makes up a third of this country’s job force, and for the labor market to correct itself within five years, 300,000 new jobs must be added each month. Federal prophylactics to encourage hiring have been considered, but the election season makes many Democrats hesitant to tack on more spending measures.  Non-spending alternatives include a payroll tax holiday that is being mulled over by the White House. According to the CBO, cutting payroll taxes results in relatively more private spending than tax credits for the middle class. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is still considering what it can do encourage investment, like promising long-term low interest rates and buying up troubled bonds. August marks the first time since the start of the recession that the unemployment rate has increased year-on-year.

“If I had known this was against the law I wouldn’t have done it,” she told a Dallas TV station regarding the matter.

And how often has that defense worked with the police or in a court of law?

Then she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 that she was too busy to review each scholarship application personally.

“I have not dwelled on figuring out how to give my grandchildren $1,000 a year,” she told CNN.

Which is true, because in actuality a total of 23 of the scholarships Johnson’s office has awarded in the last five years, totaling $31,000, have gone not only to two grandsons from Austin, but also to two great-nephews from Plano, and two children of a top aide in Dallas, according to the Dallas Morning News.

One gets the sense that Johnson -- who, like other members of Congress, earns $174,000 a year -- isn’t really going to give a straight answer on this matter, even though she says she accepts full responsibility for what took place.

But here’s a question that we think would be difficult for Johnson to answer in a way that doesn’t further damage the reputation she is trying to protect.

That question -- fair game for any grandmother of a family full of scholarship-winning kids -- is: How proud and surprised were you when you found out that four relatives won scholarships awarded from your office?

We don’t know how proud she may have been in seeing her grandkids and great-nephews “win” so much money for college. But she could hardly have been surprised.

Just before 9 a.m. Thursday morning, the Vermilion Oil Rig 380 exploded. Unlike the Deepwater Horizon rig, this one was located in shallow waters. By late afternoon, a sheen of oil had been spotted, spreading a mile long from the burning rig; but by Friday morning the Coast Guard was saying the that was a mistake—there was no sheen.

Mariner Energy, the company that owns the well, said the fire burned off the oil used to power the well and was out by 3 p.m. The rig had seven actively producing oil wells, but they were quickly shut off after the fire began.

Media coverage and the spill

After more than four months of worry over the BP oil spill, the entire political apparatus—politicians and journalists, activists and lobbyists—shot into action at the news of the fire.

In April, when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, the media was slow to realize how serious a disaster the explosion represented. (The Mulch was as guilty as anyone else: the rig exploded April 20, but on April 23, this column featured the Cochabamba climate conference.) BP's initial estimates of the spill's volume, later increased by thousands of barrels per day, encouraged this impression.

On Thursday, however, the Vermilion story topped the agenda. Groups like the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity blasted out reactions, and as Andrew Restuccia reported at The Washington Independent, drilling opponents like Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) seized on the incident to push their legislative agenda.

"As the U.S. Coast Guard responds to this latest incident, we must redouble our efforts to accelerate the push for clean, renewable energy and end our nation’s dependence on oil," Lautenberg said, in a statement.

Ticking time bombs in the Gulf

It looks like this explosion, unlike the one at BP's Macondo well, will not extract a lasting price from the Gulf. That doesn't mean it's not a problem. Like the BP explosion, the Mariner incident shows the systemic risk that drilling requires. The system would benefit from better regulation and oversight.

Consider this image, from Mother Jones, that shows 33,000 miles of pipeline, 50,000 wells, and thousands of abandoned rigs.

At Earth Island Journal, Jason Marks puts Thursday's explosion into perspective. "Sure, this incident is frightening, and in that sense it’s newsworthy," he writes. "But the fact is that fires, explosions, spills, and blowouts aren’t all that uncommon in the Gulf’s industrial archipelago...accidents happen all the time in the ocean oil fields."

Oil on the mainland

The ocean isn't the only place where the industry presents a danger, either. Grist's Jonathan Hiskes flags a recent spill in North Dakota totaling more than 1,000 barrels of oil. And the Michigan Messenger has been reporting for more than a month on the fall-out from a significant pipeline spill in that state.

It's notable, however, that incidents like these aren't getting as much attention as Thursday's non-spill. They represent real environmental disasters for the communities affected, but because they're more than 100 miles from BP's well, their problems don't raise the same fears.

Follow through

Politicians like Lautenberg who want to clamp down on drilling would do well to keep playing off of those fears, however. By the time Congress was ready to respond to the BP incident, stories about the spill had become so routine as to be easily tuned out. Even if the Mariner explosion has a minimal environmental impact, the specter of Deepwater Horizon could breath new life into legislative efforts to limit drilling.

"The best outcome would be that the only lasting impact is political," writes Change.org's Jess Leber. "Let this incident— "accident" already seems too light —be more than just a reminder that the existing deep water moratorium needs to be in place longer....It should tell our elected officials they need to stop listening to inflated claims by the oil industry, and start looking at the evidence right before their eyes. All offshore drilling, in all its forms, needs to be re-examined at minimum."

Should Obama lift the drilling moratorium?

The Obama administration has been making noise about lifting the drilling moratorium early, but perhaps this new incident will push the White House to reconsider. Over the past few months, president has had terrible timing vis-à-vis drilling: as soon as he made it a keystone of a compromise on the Senate's energy bill, the BP spill happened. Now, just as his team has started making noise about lifting the ban, this explosion triggers memories about how bad the BP spill really was.

What if this explosion had triggered another oil spill? A temporary moratorium on new deep water drilling is not enough to make the entire endeavors of oil extraction a safe one. Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard puts a fine point on it:

The moratorium was put in place so regulators could evaluate whether offshore drilling can be done safely. And despite the outcry from the industry, the moratorium is only temporary (six months), and it's only on new exploratory operations. It doesn't even touch the existing deep water platforms, or drilling in shallow waters. If anything, today's news should be an indicator that we need to take the time to evaluate all offshore operations.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

In a release, NBJC said the event, to be held Sept. 15-18, is expected to draw 100 or more African-American LGBT leaders, including advocates, philanthropists and faith leaders, to Washington, D.C., for four days of leadership training, organizing and outreach.

“NBJC is calling upon all Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) voices to let the powers that be know that Black LGBT people and allies exist, that we are organized and informed, and that we have the ability to move the masses towards an America that is more inclusive of Black LGBT people,” Sharon Lettman-Hicks, NBJC executive director, said in the release. “This historic convening is intended to bridge the gaps and clear up misunderstandings about gender identity and sexual orientation, including the intersectionality with racial equality that may exist with policy makers and key influencers.”

OUT on the Hill events include visits with key policymakers in Congress and at the White House and participation at CBCF-ALC sessions. Attendees are encouraged to attend specific workshops where voices of black LGBT leaders and activists might be especially useful or reticent.

Pam Spaulding, “blogmistress” of the Durham, N.C.-based PamsHouseBlend.com, says NBJC’s OUT on the Hill event breaks with past tradition.

“I think this shows a key difference between past summits they’ve had,” she says. “Most of the time, they are not covered well by the media. I think for them to actually have a bigger impact having this event in conjunction with the CBC event is a huge boost because it will be covered by the mainstream media.”

Spaulding, who often writes about issues faced by LGBT people of color, says it is especially important for black LGBT people to be more visible.

“There’s always this misperception driven home by white social conservative movement churches and organizations that bring in people like Bishop Harry Jackson who talk about how the LGBT movement is nothing but white, rich men,” she says. “That has to be dispelled; it is a meme repeated over and over.”

NBJC’s executive, Sharon Lettman-Hicks, is a straight ally. Spaulding says her presence at the organization and in activities such as OUT on the Hill and the CBCF-ALC push the entire LGBT movement forward.

“Her presence as an ally at the top of the organization really tilts it outward,” she says. “We need allies to get a lot of this done in CBC and other places. Her presence sends a powerful message that we haven’t seen before particularly in the black community.”

Spaulding expects NBJC leaders will be received well at the CBCF-ALC: “Despite sometimes how it plays out in the public, elected black leadership is, by and large, in support of LGBT equality.”

The memo is a slap on the wrist to the 139 New York school districts that have been collecting this kind of information, according to a report that the New York Civil Liberties Union published earlier this summer. 

According to the memo, federal law doesn't require schools to gather social security numbers for any reason, and it doesn't bar students from attending school based on immigration status.  What federal law does say is that students have to fulfill two simple requirements: Students must physically reside in the school district, and students must demonstrate intent to stay in the school district.  

In 1975, Texas tried to prohibit undocumented children from attending its public schools. A subsequent class action suit, Plyler v. Doe, led to the 1982 Supreme Court ruling that guarantees the right to a public school education for all school-age children regardless of immigration status. 

But that hasn't stopped California schools from increasing their personnel devoted to monitoring residency status.  

According to a story in the Los Angeles daily newspaper La Opinión:

The Mountain Empire School District, just east of San Diego, will also be hiring staff exclusively for this purpose. 

The practice of checking student documents to verify where they live, however, has created divisions within the state educational system. Some school districts bordering Mexico have said they will not be allocating additional resources for this type of activity.

"Our mission is to educate, not to become immigration agents," says Lillian Leopold, spokesperson for the Sweetwater Unified School District, the largest district in California, with more than 43,000 enrolled students.

While determining residency in the district can be carried out in ways that don't reveal the student's immigration status, the presence of these extra personnel and all the added scrutiny will most likely give undocumented parents pause about sending their kids back to school.

With gubernatorial candidates in 20 states talking up hard-line immigration policies that would allow law enforcement officials to demand anyone's papers for any reason, this could become a nationwide trend. One Iowa candidate has even called for Plyler vs. Doe to be overturned altogether.

But not all conservatives see it that way: Erstwhile immigration hard-liner Mike Huckabee softened on allowing undocumented kids access to higher education, and Lou Dobbs, who made immigrant-bashing so much part of his CNN program that it was eventually canceled, came out against repealing the 14th amendment—a major constitutional pillar of Plyler v. Doe.

Besides, keeping kids out of schools is hardly going to make the country a safer, more prosperous place.  

Now, with reports that undocumented laborers are a mainstay of disaster relief efforts all over the country, Americans are beginning to get a sense of the unsavory work relegated to many immigrants, and the high price immigrants pay for the simple privilege of employment.

Undocumented workers driving wages up

Going back to Mother Jones, new research examining the relationship between immigration and U.S. employment found that—contrary to conventional anti-immigrant wisdom—immigration does not negatively affect American employment. Instead, immigration drives wages up by pushing low-wage American workers into higher-paying jobs.

Here's how it works: As less-educated immigrants gravitate towards work that requires fewer English language skills (like manual labor), their less-educated American counterparts move on to higher-paying, communications-intensive work that capitalizes on their comparatively better English language skills. This naturally drives wages up, and makes for a more productive economy overall.

The irony, as Drum notes, is that those who complain about immigrants stealing American jobs are the same people who want immigrants to learn English and assimilate as quickly as possible. “If they did,” Drum argues, “then they'd just start competing for the higher paying jobs that natives now monopolize.”

Stiffed in New Orleans

The reality of being an undocumented worker in the U.S. is starker than most Americans realize. Not only are immigrants doing work that most would rather not, they are also often cleaning up the messes that Americans leave behind.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, undocumented laborers remain a key component of reconstruction efforts. Initially drawn to the city by the prospect of work and the Department of Homeland Security's decision to suspend employment immigration enforcement, many undocumented laborers relocated to New Orleans to assist with rebuilding. But, as Elise Foley reports at the Washington Independent, their immigration status renders them especially vulnerable to rampant wage theft, threats of deportation and workplace violence.

The situation is so dire for many workers that numerous nonprofit groups have initiated projects in the city and are calling for legislation to combat the problem. However, a key concern is that rising anti-immigrant sentiment in other parts of the U.S. could exacerbate difficulties in New Orleans. If such sentiment results in even greater labor abuses or renewed immigration enforcement, whole communities of people who have been dedicated to rebuilding the city could find themselves without livelihood, or even be displaced.

Exploited undocumented workers clean up oil spills

Given the reality that undocumented workers are charged with some of the dirtiest and most unsafe work American employers have to offer, it shouldn't be surprising that U.S. companies rely on immigrant labor to clean up their worst messes. Not only do undocumented workers have fewer employment options, their immigration status renders them far less likely to report unsafe working conditions, exposure to hazardous materials, and underpayment—making them especially attractive to employers looking to save money or hide bad behavior.

So, naturally, undocumented workers were called in to deal with the catastrophic BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (though their compliance only earned them the undue attention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and, more recently, an oil spill in Michigan.

As Todd A. Heywood at the Michigan Messenger reports, one company in particular has come under fire for hiring and then exploiting undocumented laborers. Hallmark Industrial, a Texas contractor hired to clean up the oil spill, allegedly paid its workers only $800 for up to 100 hours of work per week. Additionally, the company subjected them to unsafe and hazardous working conditions, and even failed to provide workers with on-site toilets—forcing workers to relieve themselves in the areas they were charged with cleaning.

Just 24 hours after the Michigan Messenger broke the story, Hallmark Industrial was fired from the oil spill clean up, its contract terminated by the company which hired it, Garner Environmental Services, Inc. Whether that's a victory is questionable. Following the termination of the contract, 40 undocumented workers were arrested in Texas, on a bus chartered by Hallmark—presumably just returned from Michigan. While the termination of the contract ensures that its workers won't be subjected to further workplace abuses, it also ensures that those same individuals must begin the difficult task of finding similar work elsewhere.

Unemployed in California labor camps

Clearly, despite an inexorable willingness to perform low-wage manual labor, undocumented workers are not impervious to the unemployment epidemic. In U.S. labor camps—where migrant agricultural workers can find seasonal or even long term lodging near ranches—farm work is increasingly harder to come by.

As David Bacon highlights at New America Media, both undocumented immigrants and legal “guest workers” are adversely affected by the recession. While the latter possess work visas and may therefore stay in the country legally, both groups live together in the same labor camps, where they remain, ironically, unemployed. Given the present economic climate, there isn't enough work for even the lowest-wage workers. And in spite of their legal status, even guest workers are barred from applying for unemployment benefits.

The recession has cast both undocumented and legally sanctioned agricultural workers into circumstances even more dismal than those advertised by UFW when it launched its "Take Our Jobs" campaign earlier this summer. Outlining the long hours, low pay, and back-breaking labor associated with farm work, UFW satirically invited American citizens to replace the scores of overworked and undocumented laborers that keep our agricultural industry afloat.

Though meant to be a tongue-in-cheek response to the misconception that immigrants steal American jobs, the campaign exposes a real, if unfortunate, truth about undocumented workers: Even as their presence drives Americans into higher paying jobs, Americans employers are all too happy to subject the undocumented to the worst indignities.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

The first is a Sept. 1 survey from Public Policy Polling (PPP), which asked Alaska residents a series of questions about the former governor, including whether or not they would vote for her if she ran for president in 2012. The results are a bit surprising, and seem to elucidate an increasing disillusionment with the “Mama Grizzly.”

According to PPP, 62 percent of Alaskans said they don’t want Palin in the oval office. Only 17 percent said they would favor her as a candidate if given the additional options of Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. Romney is the most popular choice in the Alaska poll, garnering 20 percent of the survey’s vote. Palin and Huckabee tied for second.

On the question of whether or not they hold a “favorable opinion” of Palin, a majority of Alaskans (51 percent) said they do. But, as PPP President Dean Debnam points out, “that is less than in other states.”

“Sarah Palin is this unique kind of character when you poll her,” Debnam told me. “Republicans give her a very high favorability rating—one of the highest out there. But when you poll and say ‘if she was running for president,’ and give [voters]…the other three top candidates, then she always polls in number three or number four.”

Palin’s sliding home-turf popularity might be baffling were it not for another piece out this week—this one from Vanity Fair—that provides excellent context for her home state’s hostility. The piece, titled “Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury,” depicts a mix of fear, awe and resentment among Wasilla residents. Some believe Palin has severe psychiatric problems; others think she’s a fraud; some even fled the state to avoid her. Most are too afraid of Palin to talk in detail with anyone from the press.

Palin, for her part, is more or less “disengaged from the community.” From the piece:

When in Wasilla, she rarely leaves the house. At her favorite coffee shop, Mocha Moose, Palin has been seen only once in the past three months. On those occasions when she goes to Church on the Rock, she usually arrives late, leaves early, and sits in the back. For runs to Target, she waits until it’s almost closing time. She has never darkened the doorway of Wasilla’s one independent bookstore, Pandemonium Booksellers, which took part in her Going Rogue book signing at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center. Sarah’s mother, Sally Heath, is a charter member of the Valley Republican Women’s Club, which sells a batch of Palin-family recipes for $5, but Palin has not been to any of their meetings since resigning as governor.

Her Wasilla social circle has narrowed practically to nothing. People who know Kristan Cole and Kris Perry, her closest local friends and advisers of longest standing, say that the relationships have deteriorated. Her former aides Meg Stapleton and Ivy Frye are said to have parted with Palin on bad terms.

The survey and the profile, taken together, point to one conclusion: As Palin’s public profile swells, the qualities upon which its legitimacy relies—piety, fiscal responsibility, family worth—become less and less believable.

In late June, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairmen on the House and Senate committees that work on education, asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review the business practices and support these schools receive from federally backed student loans and grants.

Early in August, the GAO came back with an investigative report that was an embarrassment for the for-profit college industry. It disclosed some for-profit college recruiters encourage students to falsify personal and financial information to get access to more federally backed financial aid. The investigation, conducted by GAO officials posing as prospective students, also revealed that 15 unnamed colleges misled students on likely earnings for degrees and the cost of tuition.

Meanwhile, in late July, the Department of Education released a notice of proposed rule making that could force the for-profit education industry to dramatically readjust its business practices and the educational products it offers. The rules would tie federal financial aid eligibility to a combination of the ability of a school’s former students to repay their students loans and their average student debt to income ratio.

Yet despite the slew of blemishes the industry has suffered, for-profit colleges continue to offer flexibility to non-traditional students.

The history of for-profit schools

This isn’t the first time that for-profits, more formally known as proprietary colleges, have been the focus of increased government scrutiny. For decades, they occupied a gray area in the Department of Education's regulations. These institutions do not receive appropriations funding or operations subsidies from state or federal sources like traditional not-for-profit public and private colleges. However, Title IV of the 1965 Higher Education Act allowed students at for-profit schools to receive federally backed loans and grants to pay for tuition.

In the 1980s there was a proliferation of institutions offering direct job programs with professional certifications. Stephen Burd, editor of Higher Ed Watch, New America Foundation’s education policy blog, calls these colleges “fly-by-night trade schools that were set up solely to reap profits from the federal student aid programs.” Burd says students would be saddled with debt they couldn’t pay back, and the quality of the education they received left many employers hesitant to hire them.

In 1992, Congress passed regulations to rein in unscrupulous proprietary colleges guilty of misleading students with unrealistic expectations of future income. It established loan default standards that barred students from using federal dollars to cover the cost of tuition at schools that graduated too many students who later defaulted on their loans. This policy worked for most of the 1990s. Over 1,000 schools were dropped for having 40 percent their graduates default on their loans after one year or 25 percent after three consecutive years.

Today, for-profit colleges are much better at offering their students the job-training talents they need to successfully compete in the job market. A report by the Chronicle of Higher Education in February suggests that some employers are becoming comfortable with for-profit grads entering the job market. One employer commented that a particular school specializing in radiology equipment produces workers who are “more mature and focused than those from other institutions.”

Jim Smith, spokesman for the Association of Proprietary Colleges (APC), an association of proprietary colleges based in Albany, N.Y., says, “All of our colleges partner with local businesses when designing new programs and degrees. In fact, we have many examples where employers have seen a need for employees and asked our member colleges to design programs to fill that need.”

Increasing enrollment in for-profit schools

Still, federal officials are troubled by certain trends. Enrollment data from 2008 shows 1.8 million students have attended for-profit institutions, compared to 550,000 in 1998. But, as Sen. Harkin noted, 20 percent of students still defaulted on their loans within three years of leaving a proprietary college. Meanwhile, the national average for defaulting on college loans is under 12 percent, and graduates of public four-year colleges suffer a smaller 7 percent default rate. And notably, while these schools enroll only 10 percent of the national student body, they receive a quarter of all available federal aid dollars and account for 44 percent of all federal student loan defaults. Proprietary colleges earn 87 percent of their revenue from federally backed funds.

Defenders of proprietary colleges like Career Colleges of America (CCA), which represents over 1,400 accredited, for-profit colleges and is based in Washington, argues that the high default rates are a reflection of the general demographic they enroll. In a December 2009 statement posted on the official CCA blog, the association says, “50 percent of career-college students come from the lowest economic quintile. A terrible economy makes the default rates that much worse.”

Smith of APC says the timing of regulators looking into default rates reveals misleading figures. “The federal government is focusing on a period of defaults when the entire county was experiencing the worst economy since the Great Depression," Smith says. "In regards to our students, many are single mothers, working adults, first generation college students, and from economically and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds.”

But given that 40 percent of these schools are owned by 13 publically traded companies, regulators and observers can’t help but wonder how much of their business practices are meant to game Title IV benefits. Says Burd: “In many ways now, the stakes are much higher, though—as many of the schools are owned by huge publicly traded corporations that enroll tens of thousands, and in some cases hundreds of thousands of students.”

Setting the standards

The bigger fight between proprietary colleges and supporters of tighter regulation occurred recently within the Department of Education. After the Higher Education Act reauthorization was debated in Congress in 2008, the Department of Education invited major stakeholders in higher learning to discuss a wide swath of proposals and recommendations in what is called a negotiated rule making session. Lenders, school administrators, and others with a constituency in the field were asked to agree on a set of standards for what constitutes gainful employment, the provision that allows for-profit college students to use Title IV funds to pay for their tuition.

Ben Miller, a policy analyst at Education Sector, an independent think tank that focuses on education reform issues, explains the sessions didn’t lead to a single point of formal convergence. “They did not reach an agreement, and that gave the Department a free hand to write the regulations it saw fit,” Miller says.

What the Department of Education proposed was a “very nuanced and well designed standard,” says Miller. The policy released by the department creates a new metric for helping students put their money into the trust of reliable proprietary institutions that won’t debilitate them with debt upon completing their programs. After a public comment period, the department will consider compelling objections and additions, and publish the new regulations in November. Industry leaders have several months to prepare for the changes that will go into effect next July.

For years, vocational programs have been required by the federal government to provide “gainful employment in a recognized occupation” in order to keep receiving federal student aid. But there’s never been an accepted definition of what actually constitutes gainful employment. So the Department of Education proposed a new definition of gainful employment that requires schools to demonstrate that their former graduates are repaying their student loans at or above certain thresholds, while the ratio of their annual debt payment to their income are below other benchmarks.

Schools that do well on these calculations will be unaffected; those that do poorly will lose their student aid eligibility. And those in the middle will have to warn students that their debt levels may be too high and may not be able to increase enrollment or admit new students.

The new standards will apply to all non-liberal arts programs offered by for-profit universities and non-degree training programs at public and private, not-for-profit institutions.

“This isn’t about shutting down the for-profit sector. There are plenty of things for-profits do well,” Miller says. But certain institutions offer programs that are more effective than others, and if one program cannot pass muster then it is probably an indication the school should re-orient its resources to its more successful programs.

For-profits have mixed reactions to new standards

The proposed rules are by no means draconian, and they aim to protect consumers rather than punish troubled institutions. When limited details of new proposed rules were released on July 23, shares for the 13 publically traded companies that own proprietary colleges went up, suggesting the for-profit colleges have much less to worry about than they initially thought.

Robert Silberman, chairman and chief executive officer of Strayer Education, Inc, the company that owns the for-profit institution Strayer University and has 84 brick-and-mortar campuses as well as a bevy of online programs, says in an email, “We think default rates are an appropriate measure for academic quality.” He added that his school’s default rates are lower than competing for-profit colleges.

Strayer’s chief financial officer, Mark C. Brown, explains that because Strayer’s default rates are on par with most traditional colleges, this should mean graduates are earning enough to not fall behind on their repayment obligations.. “Why would one’s default rate be low if an individual wasn’t able to achieve their earnings potential? Wouldn’t you agree the default rate is a proxy for debt-to-income? The institutions who have the lowest default rates are the ones who have the greatest ability to repay whatever debt they have when they leave an institution.” Brown says that the majority of Strayer’s students who do not graduate—and around 50 percent do not—quit within the first two quarters, minimizing the financial toll of walking away from an institution without a degree in hand.

Brown also takes exception to the government’s calculus for measuring default rates. While the current standard is measuring number of defaults, he proposes the department consider judging a school’s default rate by a dollar amount instead. “If you’re talking about how much the taxpayers are underwriting, isn’t it more relevant the dollars the taxpayers are funding, as opposed to the number of students who default?”

But an Aug. 16 Wall Street Journal article noted Strayer’s repayment rate is 25 percent school-wide, much lower than Strayer’s internal analysis of 45 percent. Yet the new regulations look to reform the for-profit industry by each program offered, so it is difficult to draw any conclusions about the school-wide effect on Strayer from the findings. Strayer says it will file a Freedom of Information Act request to resolve the discrepancy between its low default rates and the department’s findings, the Journal reports.

APC, which represents proprietary schools, more or less agrees that default rates are an appropriate metric, though it believes the rules single out for-profits unfairly. “According to [the department’s] own data, two-year for-profit institutions have a better completion rate than public colleges across [New York],” says Smith, “Even though the Department acknowledges there are problems across all sectors, these rules are only being applied to for-profit colleges.

Proprietary schools may find one comforting aspect to the new regulations: They offer a grace period of one year. Programs that are struggling to keep up with honoring the thresholds—but are not part of the worst 5 percent—can still receive federal student dollars if they advertise their low gainful employment rates.

Some observers think current government efforts are unfairly placing their attention on for-profit colleges. A statement from CCA following the release of the new proposed rules argues, “Establishing a ratio between student debt and anticipated graduate earnings, is unwise, unnecessary, unproven and is likely to harm students, employers, institutions and taxpayers.”

Conversely, many advocates argue the rules don’t go far enough [PDF].

Differences (and similarities) between for-profits and non-profits

Neal McCluskey, associate director of the libertarian Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom, says the term “for-profit” is misleading and poorly defined. “As soon as people hear ‘for-profit’, they think ‘well this must be about exploitation,’” says McCluskey. “And [that] ignores reality in order to paint for-profit schools as somehow very powerful and malevolent.”

McCluskey worries too much money is wasted on inefficient programs and that subsidizing education costs the federal government too much money. “What if they’re trying to sell a product to people who couldn’t get access because they didn’t have the skills or abilities to do well in college?”

McCluskey goes on to speculate that the pool of federal cash available actually encourages predatory marketing practices on students who may never have developed the minimum knowledge base to do well at any college, for-profit or otherwise. A 2009 GAO report noted some proprietary colleges helped students cheat on “Ability to Benefit” tests which are required of students with a high school diploma or GED in order to qualify for federal aid.

Ending proprietary schools’ access to federal money seems unrealistic, though. “This whole argument is bogus," Miller says. "Every college gets some sort of government assistance. And every college is dependent upon those dollars for its existence. To pretend that one is sort of more market-funded—it’s not true and it doesn’t reflect reality. You can’t take in 87 percent of your revenue from a government agency and say you are market-funded.”

For-profits don't compete with non-profits—yet

At any rate, it seems proprietary colleges are here to stay. A 2004 National Education Association report [PDF] argues for-profits serve as a convenient and cost-effective tool for veterans of the work force eager to update their skills. The report also mentions these institutions are highly specialized, and may not appeal to high school graduates searching for the incubatory experience traditional four-year colleges may offer. Nor do they compete with traditional colleges—yet.

“It’s not clear to me that there’s a lot of competition. At the same time for profit schools were booming, the overall enrollment in higher education has also been increasing,” Miller says.

And adds McCluskey, “I think the best thing is … these institutions have the flexibility and freedom to change and I think so long as they have that freedom, they will address the changing labor and employment needs.”

Fortunately for students, Congress and the Department of Education want schools to address debt levels as well as the skills of tomorrow. An institution like Strayer walks on a tight rope between offering a worthwhile education tailored to working adults and non-traditional students, and maintaining an ethical policy that limits the financial burden unqualified students incur.

The argument over the future of proprietary schools lies between two poles. There are those who think for-profits are purely predatory institutions that should be regulated strictly. And then there are those who think that these institutions should have unrestricted access to funds for the benefit of the thousands of non-traditional students who matriculate at them. Finding a median should be the goal—and ending the stigmatization of the industry couldn’t hurt.

Mikhail Zinshteyn is a staff writer for Campus Progress.

Laura Lofgren was recognized for her piece “Nineteen & Positive,” which appeared in the Spring 2010 edition of Fusion, an LGBT-focused magazine at Kent State University. The piece tells the story of Aaron Darr, young HIV-positive student who is pursuing his dream of being an actor while dealing with the realities of his illness.  

Katy George is honored for her piece from the Summer edition of Ethos, “El Poder del Inmigrante,” which sheds light on the current immigration debate by examining the experience of a Mexican immigrant working at a barn in the Northwest. Ethos is a multicultural publication at the University of Oregon.

Campus Progress is extremely proud of these young journalists -- and although we’re sure they won’t need it -- we wish them the best of luck with the contest! Winners will be announced on October 30 at the 89th Annual ACP/CMA National College Media Convention in Louisville, KY.

But The Blaze, Glenn Beck’s brand spankin’ new foray into digital journalism received no such fanfare. Perhaps because the site, slapped together in just two months, makes no attempt to hide its vicious agenda. Carlson followed through on some of his ombudsmanly promises, like giving Arianna Huffington a column and hiring former Guardian editor Megan Mulligan to serve as executive editor. Carlson also broke a big story about RNC spending. But Beck has sunk further into his familiar cesspool of diatribes and hatemongering. The Blaze seems to be fueled exclusively by the noxious, leftover fumes wafting off his TV and radio shows.

There are many places to start criticizing the site, so perhaps it’s best to start at the top, where readers are immediately greeted with advertisements for Goldline International, a gold company currently under investigation for misleading customers. Those that know Beck know he has a reputation for robustly exalting Goldline on the air—it is, he has gushed, a “top-notch organization,” composed of “people I trust.” But according to the Santa Monica District Attorney’s office, which is currently conducting the joint investigation with L.A. County’s District Attorney, the company has made a habit of providing false information to its patrons. Its “superior rating” from the Better Business Bureau is, as Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer reported, available to “pretty much any Joe with a credit card.”

The ads are one problem; actual content is another. Readers who visit Beck’s site yesterday could not avoid a lead story (right below those Goldline ads) concerning Rev. Al Sharpton’s supposed “involvement” in a black power rally at the Lincoln Memorial 10 years ago. According to The Blaze’s Scott Baker, video of the rally “features Sharpton’s affirmation of the New Black Panthers and [Black panther leader Malik Zulu Shabazz] declaring solidarity with Sharpton.”

This summary is, of course, misleading. Sharpton does indeed affirm the Black Panthers’ right to exist, but he does so in the middle of listing a whole slew of other black advocacy groups that he believes have the same right. Additionally, Sharpton never even comes close to validating Shabazz’s more volatile viewpoints, as Baker suggests. He simply takes the podium after Shabazz finishes speaking. The claim Baker is left with—that Sharpton’s silence somehow denotes solidarity with the militant movement—is dubious at best, and reeks of Shirley Sherrod’s fiasco.

Finally, there’s Beck’s address to readers—a jumble of excuses, polemic and hedged promises about journalistic integrity. “Of course we will make mistakes,” he writes. “Honest mistakes. And we’ll be quick with corrections. We intend to earn your trust and keep it day in and day out with hard work and a lot of transparency.” This admission, ostensibly an earnest attempt to bolster readers’ confidence, also allows for a convenient degree of ethical flexibility, the kind that Beck has honed to a dagger’s point.

Beck continues: “Flame is a powerful image. It has long stood for a burning truth. A truth that is not consumed. The Blaze will pursue truth.”

One wonders if he gets the irony.