“Education center in Scott-City closed” plus 3 more |
- Education center in Scott-City closed
- Higher education predicts better cardiovascular health outcomes in high-income countries
- Obama Student-Aid Rules Rile For-Profits
- Back-To-School Photo Contest Highlights Joys of Season
| Education center in Scott-City closed Posted: 07 Sep 2010 11:05 AM PDT Printer-friendly version SCOTT CITY, Kan. (AP) -- The Bryan Education Center recently closed its door, another casualty of a hurting economy. Budget constraints forced the Garden City Community College Endowment Association to re-evaluate the center, which was gifted to them in 1996. "It's bittersweet," said Melinda Harrington, GCC endowment executive director, of the decision to close the building that had become a gathering place for not only Scott County residents, but also people in surrounding rural counties who wanted college courses close to home. Last week GCCC Endowment Association sent out letters to the Scott County and city county government, as well as the school district and Scott County Foundation asking for written proposals regarding the future of the building. "Since May we have been very upfront that we are willing to gift it, but that depends on what they want to do with the building," Harrington said. Now they hope to hear from the community. "If they don't want to take it on because they think it's a liability we need to know so we can all move on," Harrington said. It was longtime Scott City businessman Arthur Bryan who donated the building to the college. Once Bryan's Hardware, then later Wall's True Value, the building was donated in memory of Bryan's wife, Myrtle, who had been a local educator most of her life. "It is our intent to find the best resolution that will continue to provide service to Scott City and Scott County, including USD 466, other interested parties and the entire community," said Harrington. Proposals will be accepted from all private and public entities and must include what the building will be used for. If the endowment ends up selling the building, the money could possibly go for scholarships to benefit Scott County students attending GCCC, Harrington said. It will be up to the board of directors to evaluate and reject any or all of the proposals, by a majority vote. Scott County Clerk Pam Faurot, said the commissioners received the letter but all county offices were currently in "very nice digs, at a very low cost." Though the building was given to GCCC, in 2000 the Scott County commissioners borrowed $225,000 to completely remodel the facility so that it could be used for out reach classes complete with a computer lab. That note was paid off, Faurot said. "It gave us a nice facility," said Faurot, who was surprised and sad when she learned the center was closing. Not only did local residents use the center, but students also came from Dighton, Leoti, and Healy. From high school students taking courses for dual credit to farmers enrolling in winter courses on commodity trading or flight lessons, the building attracted more than 10,000 people during its heyday, "It was very well used, "said Vicki Krehbiel the center's director, who was laid off when the center's door closed on July 31. "When we started I was uncertain how it was going to come across." But within the first year enrollment began increasing as they offered general education courses for those wanting an associates degree or were building credits before attending a four-year institution. It was handy for non-traditional students who worked all day and didn't have the time to drive the 30 miles south to Garden City. At its peak, along with the many part-time students, Krehbiel said the center was averaging 70 students at full time equivalency annually. However, there had been a drop in numbers in recent years. "With the decline in population and the economy the numbers went down and we couldn't get them back up," she said. The decline in numbers was attributed, in part, to the online EduKan classes that GCCC offers. Students can earn their associates degree online, never leaving home. Also contributing to the decision to close was a structural engineers report that suggests a new $100,000 roof in the buildings future. "The building is soundly operational," Harrington said. "These are just recommendations for making the building the best it can be." Outreach classes are now being offered at the Scott City High School two nights a week. While that's being done to keep down expenses, Krehbiel worries that is limiting when students can take a course and when adjunct faculty can teach. For Krehbiel, the closing of the center has left her unemployed and searching for the next stage in her life. "It's not the position nor the planning and organizing I'll miss the most," Krehbiel said. "It's unlocking the doors every morning and wondering who would be walking through that I could assist and maybe help start them on their way to success." 0 comment(s) found All comments are subject to approval before being posted. Please keep comments constructive and relevant. Opinions certainly can be expressed, but comments that are rude, abusive, slanderous, threatening, sexually oriented, contain profanity or are vulgar will not be tolerated. Comments will not be edited. Any comment that violates the above-listed rules will be deleted. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Higher education predicts better cardiovascular health outcomes in high-income countries Posted: 07 Sep 2010 02:24 PM PDT In one of the first international studies to compare the link between formal education and heart disease and stroke, the incidence of these diseases and certain risk factors decreased as educational levels increased in high-income countries, but not in low- and middle-income countries. Researchers — who reported their study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association — also found that smoking rates unexpectedly increased with greater education level among women in high-income and low-and middle-income regions. Furthermore, highly educated women in low-and-middle-income countries had a slight increase in the incidence of fatal and nonfatal heart attack and stroke. Among all other groups, heart disease declined as education increased, with highly educated men in high-income countries showing the lowest level of disease. In general, low- and middle-income countries have not achieved a significant degree of industrialization relative to their populations, and often have a medium to low standard of living. There is a strong correlation between low income and high population growth. "We can't simply take studies that are conducted in high-income countries, particularly as they relate to socioeconomic status and health outcomes, and extrapolate them to low- and middle-income countries," said Abhinav Goyal, M.D., M.H.S., lead author of the study and assistant professor of epidemiology and medicine (cardiology) at Emory Rollins School of Public Health and Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga. "We need dedicated studies in those settings." Smoking, a major contributor to heart disease and stroke, typically declines as formal education rises. But investigators found that nearly half of the highly educated women from high-income countries smoked, compared with 35 percent for those with the least amount of schooling. Likewise, low- and middle-income countries had higher smoking rates among the most educated women (21 percent versus 14 percent among the least educated). For men, smoking rates were virtually the same across educational groups in low- and middle-income countries. In affluent countries, however, the most educated men smoked less than did men with the fewest years of formal education (66 percent versus 75 percent). "We can't assume that just because certain groups are more educated than others that they're going to have healthier lifestyles," Goyal said. "Everyone needs to be educated about the risk of heart disease in particular, and counseled to adopt healthy lifestyles and to quit smoking." For the two-year study, investigators assessed 61,332 patients from 44 countries with diagnosed heart disease or stroke, or several risk factors, including smoking, high blood pressure, clogged blood vessels and obesity. Thirty-six percent of participants were female, 64 percent were male, and the average age was 69. Investigators used years of formal education and previous classifications of income by world region to divide participants by socioeconomic level. As the leading causes of death worldwide, heart disease and stroke killed an estimated 17.5 million people in 2005, according to the latest statistics from the World Health Organization. More than 80 percent of these deaths were in low- and middle-income countries, highlighting the critical need for more research in these areas. "We are facing an increase in the epidemic of cardiovascular disease in countries with developing economies," said Sidney Smith, M.D., study co-author and professor of medicine and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Science and Medicine in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. "What this paper suggests is that things may be different in these countries. If we're really going to develop strategies that are effective, we need to understand much better what those differences are." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Obama Student-Aid Rules Rile For-Profits Posted: 07 Sep 2010 07:57 AM PDT September 07, 2010, 5:07 PM EDT By John Lauerman (Updates with analyst's rating changes in 24th paragraph.) Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Matthew Kapral, a student at Education Management Corp.'s Art Institute of Pittsburgh, was walking to class in July when a school representative sat him in front of a computer and coached him on a letter opposing limits on federal student aid to for-profit colleges. "They kind of started it off with a paragraph, and I added a sentence or two myself," said Kapral, who estimated that his bachelor's degree in graphic design will cost him $84,000. For-profit colleges are enlisting students and teachers to lobby against proposed limits on student aid, and may at times be using misleading tactics, the U.S. Department of Education said. The proposed government crackdown on aid has generated about 26,000 letters to the department, the most on any topic since 1983. College representatives and lobbyists also are flocking to lawmakers' offices in the U.S. capital and their home districts. Donald Graham, chairman and chief executive officer of Washington Post Co., owner of the Kaplan education business as well as the Washington Post newspaper and other media, met Aug. 3 with Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, to discuss the proposed regulations. The newspaper ran an editorial criticizing the department's efforts to crack down on companies. "There's an immense sense of urgency and recognition by the schools that if the rules goes into effect as is, there are substantial threats to their business model," Jarrel Price, an analyst with Height Analytics LLC in Washington, said in a telephone interview. Post Shares Fall Education Management, based in Pittsburgh, rose 5 cents, or less than 1 percent, to $8.30 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Washington Post Co., based in Washington, fell $14.44, or 3.7 percent, to $374.47 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The proposed regulations, announced July 23, would make for-profit education programs qualify for government aid either by showing that a certain percentage of former students are repaying their loans or that the average former student earns enough to repay. No programs would lose eligibility before the 2012-2013 school year, and, to give colleges time to adjust, a maximum of 5 percent of programs can lose eligibility in the first year of implementation, the Education Department said in a statement. Data released by the government show that, if the rule were in place now, loan repayment rates at Education Management and Apollo Group Inc. would put their programs in danger of U.S. loan restrictions, and Washington Post programs might lose eligibility. Sales Tactics U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan received so many letters asking him not to cut off funding to for-profit college students, without mentioning the proposed rule, that the department began calling the writers to clarify their purpose, said David Bergeron, acting deputy assistant education secretary for policy, planning and innovation in the Office of Postsecondary Education. "They had been told the rule was going to take away all financial aid to students at for-profit colleges," Bergeron said in a telephone interview. "We're concerned that some people are misrepresenting the rule to generate comment." The department wouldn't say which schools' students had been called. One letter to the department, dated Aug. 10, was written by Jacqueline Bledsoe, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who is "an online PhD student at a for-profit institution while working full time," according to the letter. Keiser Role "Very few schools where I live had the program, format, schedule, and accreditation I was looking for, and I finally found a for-profit that was appropriate for me," Bledsoe wrote. She didn't disclose that she is also associate vice president of student services at Keiser University, a for-profit college in Fort Lauderdale. Bledsoe said in an e-mail that she stood by the comment she posted "as a student." Coaching students to write letters is needed to help them protect their interests, said Harris Miller, CEO of the Washington-based Career College Association, an industry group of 1,500 education companies with 3.2 million students. The group has been reaching out throughout Congress and encouraged schools to support letter-writing campaigns, including those from students and teachers, Miller said in an interview in his Washington office. "Commenting on a Federal Register notice is not something you learn in a civics class," Miller said. "We've encouraged people in our outreach to make this as easy as possible." Post Editorial In an Aug. 22 editorial, "How to Discourage College Students," the Washington Post newspaper criticized the effort to rein in lending to for-profit college students, saying it would remove an important educational option for poor and working students. "The more options available to parents and students, the better," the Post said in the editorial. "Particularly among some Democrats, that's not always the prevailing view." Asked in an interview whether he influenced the editorial, Graham said Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor, is in charge of the opinion columns and sets policy. Congress and the administration of President Barack Obama have attacked what they call high-pressure sales tactics and low student loan repayments at for-profit colleges, which can receive as much as 90 percent of their revenue from federal financial aid programs. Government Probe A Government Accountability Office probe of 15 schools, including some owned by Education Management or Washington Post Co., found that recruiters at all 15 misled investigators posing as students as the recruiters tried to persuade people to enroll. Education Management is the second-biggest for-profit college in the U.S. by enrollment. No. 1 Apollo Group Inc. operates the University of Phoenix, which had 476,500 students as of May 31, according to a company filing. The rule proposed by the Education Department might restrict or disqualify for-profit schools' programs from participation in government-aid programs when fewer than 45 percent of their students are repaying principal on their loans. The rule is called "gainful employment," because its intent is to show whether educational programs improve students' job prospects. Index Declines An index of 12 education company stocks has fallen 29 percent since the department announced the proposed rule July 23. A Bank of America Corp. analyst, Sara Gubins, cut her rating on Education Management and ITT Educational Services Inc. to "underperform" from "neutral," and downgraded Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based Career Education Corp. to "neutral" from "buy." Company earnings will decline in 2011 and 2012 as the industry adjusts to the proposed rules and greater scrutiny, Gubins said today in a note to clients. Iowa's Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and his staff have had "numerous" meetings with education company representatives, according to e-mail statement from his office on Aug. 31. 'Problem Areas' "Our goal is to understand what's happening with the federal investment in the sector, identify problem areas and work to craft solutions that bring students and taxpayers the best educational value for the federal dollars we're investing," Harkin said in the statement. Graham said the proposed regulation would hurt all schools, both for-profit and not-for-profit, that serve low-income students. The gainful-employment rule won't serve its purpose of getting students better jobs or reducing their debt, he said. "There are a variety of changes that could be made that would have a much greater impact on reducing overall student debt, reducing the number of student defaults," Graham said in a telephone interview. Education accounted for about 58 percent of Washington Post Co.'s 2009 revenue of $4.57 billion, according to a company filing. Biggest Response Most Education Department proposals prompt about 400 to 600 comments, Bergeron said. The response to the gainful-employment rule may be the biggest to a department measure since 1983, when the Reagan Administration proposed cuts in funding for disabled children's education, Education Department officials said. The White House was flooded with about 40,000 letters opposing the measure, according to a 1997 report by the National Council on Disability, a federal agency in Washington. About six boxes of letters, along with compact discs containing thousands of comments both for and against the gainful employment rule, remain to be scanned and copied into the department's computers, according to the department. Education Management, whose biggest shareholder is Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York, hired DCI Group, a Washington- based company that advertises its ability to generate "direct contact -- phone calls, letters and e-mails -- from key community leaders." Writing Assistance All Education Management employees could expect to receive calls during business hours from DCI Group representatives to assist them in crafting letters to Secretary Duncan on the rule, Todd Nelson, CEO of Education Management, said in an e-mail on Aug. 24. The rule "could have a particularly negative effect on students who rely on federal grants and loans in the pursuit of their degrees," Nelson said in the e-mail. "Likewise, the proposed rule could have a significant impact on those who staff and support academic programs offered at proprietary institutions, including ours." Education Management's programs had about 136,000 students in October 2009. The company got about 89 percent of its net revenue from government sources in the year ended June 30, up from 82 percent a year earlier, according to a company filing. The legal limit is 90 percent. The company "believes it is important during this public comment period on the proposed Federal Gainful Employment Rule that our students, faculty and staff be provided an opportunity to voice their opinion, if they choose to do so," Jacquelyn Muller, a spokeswoman, said Sept. 1 in an e-mail. --With assistance from Greg Bensinger and Nikolaj Gammeltoft in New York. Editors: Robin D. Schatz, Jeffrey Tannenbaum To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jonathan Kaufman at jkaufman17@bloomberg.net. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Back-To-School Photo Contest Highlights Joys of Season Posted: 07 Sep 2010 11:00 AM PDT Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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